Just Jump

We have just finished up a week of Kids’ Adventure Camp, aka vacation Bible school at our church. I taught the craft classes. And I am exhausted. So much energy emitted into the world by nearly 30 children. Energy I no longer have.

I never attended a VBS or Bible camp so I never learned the songs that were taught in the 1950s and 1960s, although I remember “Kumbaya” was a big one. I do remember the songs I learned in kindergarten and the early grades some 65+ years ago. But even then, I scorned the idea of participating in the motions that were a part of the song. Not these kids.

If the campers themselves were energetic, so were the teen-aged worship leaders, group leaders and even the VBS coordinator. Meanwhile, I and my aching knees sat and watched the pandemonium. And pandemonium it was. This grouchy old (and I mean in my 70s) church lady could not see the point. the lyrics were, on the whole, seemingly unrelated to Christian doctrine, and with the children leaping and twirling as they sang along seemed oblivious to the deeper meaning of the words. What biblical truths could this possibly be teaching them, I wondered. Stirring up water, jumping in the river, etc. all on seemingly endless repetition for an entire week.

Then I woke up this morning with the lyrics of a kindergarten song stuck in my brain. You have to be really old to know this one because in these days it is way, way, way politically incorrect. But then those lyrics were superseded by the bridge of one of the songs: “I need a Master, I need a Savior, I need God.”

Those children, many not from our church, and some from no church at all, will grow up. Will they remain faithful to those promises to follow Jesus that they made at the age of five, nine, twelve? Some will. Some won’t. I know at seventeen, I walked away from the promises I made to God when I was ten. (That’s another story) But God drew me back.

So, perhaps somewhere down along life’s long road one of these little ones will be all grown up and in a difficult situation far from God. Will then, in the middle of the night those words imprinted upon their young memories, “I need a Savior. I need God.” come back to them? I do hope so.