Our second Vacation Bible School program, "The Island of God" was held in October 2011 during the fall school vacation.  Our Bible theme was "Jesus is the Way, the truth and the life" which we shared with the children of the neighborhood amidst warm island decor including palm tress, sea and beach scenes, lush leaves, umbrellas, and colorful flowers.  Forty-seven children between the ages of three and thirteen  attended.  Team members came from three different churches in Marseille, Chicago, London, and Paris.

Most of the neighborhood children do not attend school so they were thrilled to come and spend the afternoon learning, playing, and getting to make something take home.  Some of the children recalled the first VBS and were anxious for this year's program.  Every day crowds of excited children were lined up outside the main door a couple of hours before the VBS program was scheduled to begin.

Each day of VBS started with a time of singing and worship. One of the volunteers wrote a song with the words from John 14:6 for us to sing. It was easy for the kids to learn that "Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life" while singing this peppy chorus with various animated hand motions.  Even the youngest children were able to sing along.

Bible lessons were a big hit. At the Bible learning station children were invited to act out the story with the team leaders. Everyone wanted to be a participate. It was fun to see that the children eager to act out the Bible lesson repeatedly. During the lesson of Jesus calming the storm (from Luke 8) the children took turns pretending to be either a disciple in the boat with Jesus or as part of the stormy wind and waves.  During the lesson on the big catch of fish (from Luke 5), the children were tugging enthusiastically on the loaded nets.


Children made items to take home at one of the two daily craft stations.  Children made beach visors, flower-leis necklaces, beaded-boat necklaces, photo frames and they colored postcards. Children were encouraged to copy the Bible verse onto their postcards as well as sign their name if they were able or to trace the letters in their name.  One young boy was overjoyed to be able to copy the letters of his name for the first time all by himself.


The team members shared various skits that demonstrated God's love for us and that only the blood of Jesus can remove our sins. The final day there was a very intense drama with a roman soldier and Jesus. Eighteen children came forward and asked God to forgive them and to give them clean hearts, and they told Jesus that they wanted Him to be their King. There were some doubts as to whether the youngest children (who speak little or no French) truly understood what was happening.  One of our teenagers talked with these littlest children.  She assured us that they really did understand. She said they had told her, "I don't want a dirty heart anymore. I want the clean heart from Jesus."

We ended our VBS program with a carnival of games for the kids to play. Games included: kick bowling, fish squirting targets, tossing whale food, shooting at fish bubbles, undersea bean bag toss, aquarium mini-golf, monkey banana game, lily pad coin toss, palm tree target throw, catapult target,  air snake toss, jungle bottle tumble, seagull wing ring toss.  It was easy to know when a child had  succeeded in a game as shouts and squeals of delight echoed from all directions.  Each child was given a small prize bag of candy and small toys.  It was obvious that the prize bag paled in value to the fun memories of wonderful afternoons spent at VBS.  Several children asked the following week if we could do it all again.


Three alumni club teenagers were part of the 2011 VBS team.  They have been helping with the weekly clubs throughout the year and during VBS they were valuable members of our team. Their help with 
enrolling the children was wonderful.  Since they already knew the names of all the children in the neigborhood they were able to very quickly make sure that every child got their designated name tag.  They also helped with  language translation, the 
smooth transition when groups rotated stations, as well as giving encouragement and and assistance to the youngest children with their crafts.