For almost two decades, three local churches – Bethel Pentecostal, Grace Community Bible, and New Hope Christian Fellowship – have jointly organized the Vacation Bible School, a week-long morning program for the community’s youth.
This year, the 80 kids who participated, along with an additional 32 junior leaders and adult volunteers, met every morning for a week at New Hope Christian Fellowship Church in Shawville for a morning of Christian-focused activities centred around this year’s theme: true north.
The church was decorated like the Alaskan wilderness, with large named creatures, including a moose, a bear, and an eagle, to help teach this year’s message: learn to trust Jesus.
The location of the program rotates between the three host churches annually.
Participants come from not only the three churches, but from the greater community as well, said Joy Moquin, one of the program’s leaders.
“We want the kids to know about Jesus, and know who he is,” she said.
The week of activities wrapped up with a closing assembly Friday morning, where the youth performed a show-and-tell of all they had learned over the week, which included song and dance, a photo slide show, and the recitation of biblical verses, to a full house of family and friends who had gathered to celebrate the end of the camp.
Moquin also performed an experiment, asking the assembly to help support her with words of encouragement, as Jesus would, something she said they had learned throughout the week, before a closing prayer led by New Hope Pastor Stuart Marples, followed by a group lunch.
