Being a Christian is definitely not boring...guest post by Laura O'Reilly

Being a Christian is definitely not boring...and Christ the King’s K4J Circus of Stars VBS certainly did prove that! With clown wigs and goofy glasses in place the 64 K4J kids and 19 youth leaders spent the week learning about the love of God the Father for each one of them and that they too can be His stars. With five wonderful saints as their role models the K4J kids learnt about the importance of balancing their day with work, play, rest and pray and found many ways to live it out through the daily themed skits, games, crafts, snacks and teaching time.

They watched saint skits performed by the captain youth leaders, had a tour of the confessionals and sacristy, made confessional light cookies to eat, balanced candy peanuts on their noses, and visited Jesus in the tabernacle.

Each day the kids worked hard to remember the saint of the day and little facts about them (what circus acts St. John Bosco performed while telling people about Jesus, how many hours St. Jean Vianney spent in the confessional each day..etc). As the K4J kids arrived each morning they would nervously line up to answer their two questions regarding the saint from the previous day. We were amazed at how many of them, even the 31/2 year olds, could recite the saint’s name and even something about them! Once they answered the questions they were able to enter into the draw of the day for the big balloon hat. This was such a great success that even the parents and grandparents would make a point of coming into the hall each day so that they could see the new balloon hat creation!!

During the VBS camp the K4J kids put their faith into action through their “Thank You Father Mission”. They were each given a “helping hand glove” (latex kitchen gloves) to fill with money to help take care of the retired priests in our diocese who live at Martha house. The kids came up with many creative ways to fill their gloves with money. Some did chores they don’t normally do, like folding laundry, there were many lemonade and cookie stands and one girl even made cookies and sold them to her dad! Three young brothers played their violins at the Farmers Market and raised $44 for our mission. In total the kids raised $795.00 for Martha house!

We also had the great privilege of having Fr. Antonny come hang out with us during the week. He was busy high fiving the kids, learning their names, showing them the sacristy and meeting the parents. Fr. Antonny was also more than willing to try on a few clown wigs and learn some magic tricks!

Our prayers for this VBS camp was that it would be so much more than just a fun week for the kids, our prayers were that it would impact the faith of the families as well. One mom sent this note:

“Thank you so much for all the work you and your “staff” did to prepare for this week. Watching the kids during the show today was so rewarding. I can’t tell you how much my son enjoyed this week. In fact it’s been really great for our family too. We’ve read the saints cards together and talked more about our faith this week than we ever had. Both of my children loved the K4J music CD and many times this week my son would turn it on and just start dancing and singing. This week has been such a blessing for our family. Thank you.”

We think this makes it all worth it!

********************************************************************

A special thank-you to Laura O'Reilly who, along with a great team of helpers and angels, organized and ran this wonderful event for our parish!

Peace and God Bless