The Story of My Life :P

V.B.S.

V.B.S!

V.B.S!

Do we like it?

Yes! Yes! Yes!

That was a cheer I had grown up hearing every summer. It meant fun, adventure, games, music, and my mom getting a pie in the face. V.B.S--Vacation Bible School--was the part of my summer I always looked forward to as a child. Now, to me, the chant goes more like:

V.B.S!

V.B.S!

Do we like it?

Yeah, I guess. 

My dad came up with that, and I had to put it in here somehow. I adopted his sense of humor, which includes almost exclusively bad puns and over the top gestures. 

Back to the point. 

I was assigned a big position this year for V.B.S. Since I'm no longer a kid, I'm supposed to be a helper instead of a participant. My job this year was hard and important, and I questioned the sanity of the one organizing everything for putting a fifteen year old girl in charge of it. I was the head of all of the performance aspects of V.B.S. That can be broken up into three categories: Worship, skit, and Bible Story. 

In order for everything to run smoothly, I had to make sure that I had all of my actors and singers, all of the tech people, all of the tech equipment, the props, the set, the script, the music, and the PowerPoints. I was one of the two leads in the skits, and was the main worship leader, too. There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong, and most of them happened. 

Sunday, I started making the set. A space-themed backdrop was already hung, but I still had to figure out how to make a bunch of spray-painted cardboard boxes look like a spaceship and mission control. It took forever, but I got the mission control done. 

There was a mad scramble to get the script at the end of church so that the other lead--a good friend of mine named Nik--could practice with me. His character was Zoom, and mine was Twila (like twilight, but with an 'a'). There was a Commander Rex, played by another friend named Avocado (not really. We just call him that), but he changed his name to Commander Huston, thinking he was spelling Houston on his name tag. Silly Avocado.

The three of us, Nik, Avocado and I, were candidates for a pie in the face. A SLIME pie (really whipped cream and green food coloring, but the kids wouldn't care). Each of us had a bucket, and the kids would put money in them. Whichever one of us had the most money got a pie in the face. The funds went to missions around the world, to spread the Gospel! I'm all for that. 

Monday came. I got to the church early so I could build the spaceship. After almost an hour of working, I had a pile of cardboard boxes that looked like they could blast off to Mars at any given moment. 

My mother came in, and, being the Children's Pastor and one of the main authority figures at church, made changes. Er, I mean, made ME make changes. 

"I want the set on the side of the stage. It can't be in the middle! Where will they do the bible stories?" She scolded. 

There was a gap in front of the spaceship that was a big enough acting space to do just about anything, but my mother was insistent. It needed to be moved eight feet to the left. 

I sighed and disassembled the set piece by piece, moving it all to the left. Sparkling lights were part of it, and I had to find another outlet.

Finally, the set was ready. Everything was perfect. Now all I had to do was figure out what music I was going to do for worship, wait for my other actors to get there, run through the script, find another actor to play a part in the Bible Story that day, and do mic check. Cake.