How I Spent My Summer "Vacation"

Many apologies to anyone who has been trying to check this blog to see what I'm up to. I assure you my "radio silence" has been due to more, rather than less, activity. For two weeks in June and all of July, I was involved in Ambridge Arts Camp, a companion to Ambridge Sports Camp, run by Ambridge Youth Ignite and my friend Eric Geisbert. Each morning from 9 to noon, kids were invited to participate in a different sport each week, then from 1 to 3 in the afternoon (after most of the kids enjoyed a free lunch provided by the YMCA and hosted by Church of the Savior) we gave them a chance to explore their creativity. For the first two weeks we focused on visual arts, studying eras and artists from the past (that's a photo of me teaching the kids about Matisse), letting the kids draw, paint, sculpt, and do art with various materials and methods. The next two weeks we taught them drama, and the final two weeks, we focused on music. I was director for the visual arts and drama weeks, and Sadie Rankin directed the music weeks, during which time I worked with the kids on writing lyrics for two original songs. It was all very fun and exhausting, and we all got stretched in a number of ways! Four of us plan to offer more classes in the fall, and Eric is hoping to offer one sport not otherwise available in Ambridge, so we're looking for ways to continue this ministry and these relationships throughout the school year.

On a somewhat sadder note, we had to cancel our VBS due to lack of adult volunteers. I still plan to work on the scripts and other materials in hopes of doing it at another time, but clearly we did not have the people to make it fly this summer. Many things seem to be in transition with our children's ministries at COTS, and it falls to me to discern what direction we need to take. Your prayers are welcome in this endeavor.

Surviving the Apocalypse

Well, we did it! Three nights worth of puppet shows adapting Revelation in a single night. It was incredibly rough, we were short by about four puppeteers (requiring a lot of running around and simply holding up the puppet who was speaking, without having a chance to actually get your hand in and move the mouth; my worst moment was juggling the woman clothed in the sun, her male child, the red dragon, AND one of Michael's angels at the same time), but we made it through. Thanks to all who helped, thanks to all who prayed, and a special thanks to Pam, who managed to find and execute a number of key musical cues (what's heaven without music?)!

I'll have more to write as I reflect on this. For now, I have to try to re-organize all my puppet materials and devote those energies to the puppet class I'm teaching for the Center for Hope over the next few weeks. And puppetry may make an appearance in Arts Camp later this summer. (I don't think we will do much with it in VBS, though we'll probably bring back Paolo the Parrot in some form.)

The most discouraging part of our final program was attendance. We had been drawing fewer and fewer kids as the end of the year neared, but based on other closing programs (when we mail out invitations and encourage the kids to bring their whole family), I was anticipating we would have a fair turn-out. We had only six kids. Clearly we need to take some time off (and with some key team members away or otherwise engaged this fall, it is looking like we will have a half-year hiatus for the ministry) and re-evaluate what we are doing and who we are trying to do it for. Hopefully the neighborhood survey we will be conducting this weekend will help us start to analyze what is going on. We shall see...