Ever since our church remodeled its children’s department into Bibleopolis a few years ago, we haven’t had the appropriate space to host our traditional Vacation Bible School activities (where thousands of children and adults participated each year). Instead, we now offer a family VBS. The goal is to get families to participate and learn together.

We think Avery is old enough to enjoy it this year. So we’re going to VBS together this week!

This year’s theme is Hometown Nazareth. We’ll travel through Jesus’ hometown and learn about the city where Jesus lived as a child.

Each night starts with Bible Time Live. This includes worship, games and dramas. After BTL, we’ll travel through Nazareth by visiting shops in the Marketplace. We received 10 shekels to “spend” throughout the week. (It costs one shekel for our family to visit each shop.)

Our first visit tonight was to The Farmers’ Field. Here we learned about the types of crops grown in Nazareth and tried a few foods made with those crops.

Avery very willingly ate a Fig Newton and even was brave enough to try a date, which she may have thought was an enormous raisin.

Then she and Daddy planted some grass seeds in a cup…
…and watered them.

Up next was The Woodworker Shop. Some citizens of Nazareth explained how they build furniture, toys and more with wood and stone. Then Avery made her own sheep pull toy and enjoyed her first attempt with paint.

Daddy had a good time with his girl!

And here are a few videos of Avery making her toy masterpiece:

I guess she’s only seen us use cotton balls on our faces!

Avery had a blast! She was “so excited” about “Bible school” all day. And as we were driving home tonight, she asked to “go back to Bible school.” We told her that she had to wait until tomorrow night!

Family VBS 2011: Night One