Vacation Bible Brought Me Back

I have been absent from my blog for a number of years because adjusting to retirement has been a long process but not difficult.  Not ever having done it before I explored every facet that arose and they are still coming.  My personal perspective has shifted, but am not sure how much has changed but refined and lots of the anger is gone.  In fact most of it.  I still have some and I am more in control of it that it is of me now.  A big shift. My work was not so demanding, but I overworked myself as I can now see.

To start back with my blog, I will share some reflections on a recent Vacation Bible School that Saint John's Episcopal Church, Bisbee, Az. participated in via a grant from the Episcopal Community Services.  The program was done in cooperation with an independent evangelical congregation in Naco, Sonora, Mexico.  There were about 150 children involved ages from about 2 years to 16.  They all came dressed as if going to special event and the program didn't start until 4 pm because the parents had to work.

There was staff from the church in Naco and St. John's and other American congregations when other staff members brought them along.  I presented a bible story one time and then observed from location and also from a distance listening to other staff talk about it.  It was a whopping success from fun to learning to relationships.  There was no whining, no crying nor glum faces.  A lot of gratitude expressed through the eyes, and mouths and behavior of participants and staff.  It was a model of community at its best.  Hard work and the staff was energetic and then tired at the end of the day.  

It was a success but we will not know the results because life lived like that impacts each individual in specific and subtle ways.  They may know what they are now, later or much later.  What I got from the experience is that this was faith at work.  I trusted what we were doing was going to have a graceful impact on all who took part.  I am so glad that a formal evaluation was not taken because it would not tell us anything worth.  How do you evaluate faith or works of faith.  I don't know.