Day #5 -- Growth and Taking it Home

Day five was nice because it was the teams’ free day, to see Philly as they pleased until they had to report back for dinner prior to VBS.

The free morning and afternoon was nice for me because it gave me time to rest, but also to reflect about the week. I’d like to share some stories of growth I saw over my week with these teams in Philly, and personally for me.  

Learning the Texan version of "Cotton-eyed Joe" on the free day

I’ll be honest; it can be a concern for the leaders in urban BUMP churches to know that an incoming team that has never done VBS’s before, or who have never been to a big city before. It can be a concern for parents and youth leaders, (especially of middle-school kids) because mission trips can be scary. Sleeping on an air mattress in a new place for a week can be hard.  But if you come, willing to serve, then God protects and He uses. God takes us out of our comfort zone. He raises us above physical issues of tiredness or sickness (and we had a few of those this week, but God is good!) to use us. He can inspire us in the midst of stressful situations, and fill us with the grace and love he expects us to show to those we serve as we strive to reflect God. And when we’re out of our comfort zone, we have no other option but to rely more and more on him to bring us through. I definitely saw God move this week, and he certainly surprised me in many ways.

While I saw growth from each and every BUMPer in the respect of growing in leadership and letting God take them out of their comfort zones, but I would especially like to tell Shannon’s story.

Shannon is one of our BUMPers. She is from Africa, originally, and only very recently came to America. Shannon was not the most comfortable with English, and consequently she was relatively quiet. Shannon was a crew leader, and she had some trouble communicating and interacting with her kids on the first day of VBS. However, where Shannon wasn’t as comfortable speaking, she had no trouble doing the dance moves at the opening and closing of the night with energy and skill. She was asked, on the second day of VBS, if she would consider being on the stage with the other dance leaders and helping to lead the music time.

She decided to do it, and on the second day’s VBS the kids in her crew thought she was the coolest ever, being in front, and it encouraged them to do the motions as well. For the rest of the week, it was clear that her kids were drawn to her and Shannon opened up, despite her having a hard time with English. She was able to show love in an incredible way, and her showing sent a message that was received by the kids in her crew loud and clear. At the end of the week, she was playing with them  smiling, and showing the kids the love of God in an incredibly effective, genuine way.

At the end of the day on Friday during our final debrief, she shared with the group (with Peter Ndaita translating) how much she had learned and how close she had grown with the members of the teams. It was a great moment and I wish I could better articulate how meaningful it was for Shannon and how touching her story was for all of us. It was especially was great for me to see, and know that beyond the stress of trying to keep everything running smoothly to take a step back and see how God had used this BUMP trip to move in a life, and see how He’d moved in the lives of the kids we ministered to at VBS and members of the teams.

Shannon and some of her crew-members

The final day of VBS was bittersweet, as they tend to be. It seems so simple to say, but it went well. It’s deceptive to think that just because something went well, without anything excessively good or bad happening, that we did well. And while I don’t want to diminish the good work of the teams and Becky and Debby, I know that things went well because God was with us. We served 91 kids and their families over the course of the week, including about 20 teens and 10 preschoolers. Some VBS’s end with extravagant tales of winning kids for Christ, or with parents asking to know more, but I got the sense that our victories of the week were much more successful, if not more subtle, by allowing Grace Church to shine with the light of Christ in Feltonville.    

It was a gentle ending to the week. There were lots of hugs and watching the VBS kids leave with their parents, with that odd feeling of not knowing if you’ll see them again, and wondering what they’ll do when they go home, or what this small blip of VBS in their summer and in their lives will have meant anything. But God was with us and he showed himself to these kids through the teams and the love of Grace Church, and I can only pray that the kids remember that love, and see that church people aren’t scary, and that there is a welcoming place in the community with open arms, ready to receive them with the love of Jesus. God’s will was done, and that is enough.

BUMP Philly 2014