St James' to Abode

St James' has a long history of work with our local homeless shelter, Abode Services, and currently has teams working on the dinner program and assisting with the rehoming of families through the home-warming program. It was great to have the opportunity this month to find a new way to support the work at Sunrise Village.
Our VBS team and 6 members of St J Youth took some of our VBS craft activities and the story of The Rainbow Fish to share with the kids as part of the Wed/Thurs night kids program. We acted out the story on the first night and let the kids have a go for themselves on the second night. We made beads, CD fish and colored in and had fun with the kids.

We hope to continue this extension of both our own work with children & families and of our communities' commitment to Abode Services.

Thank you!

Our week of fun ended today with a final morning of music, crafts and games. We included the long awaited 'water games' when both leaders and kids got a little damp and had a great time. On a serious note we talked about how important clean water was and how many children do not have clean water available in their homes.
Thank you to everyone who allowed us to care for their children this week - we have loved having them. And thank you to all those who helped make this week run smoothly, both those you saw, and those you didn't!
On Sunday morning we will celebrate our week during our 10.30am Service, we will sing some VBS songs and show a slide show (with a longer version to be seen after the service) There will also be a chance for everyone to try a few of our favorite craft activities.

Please keep following our blog for news about all our kids activities.

5 loaves of ........

It was great to see everyone return for another day of Go Fish today. We talked about the miracles of Jesus, particularly the story of the feeding of the five thousand.
We spent some time perfecting our signing and singing ready to share it with the congregation on Sunday morning.Some of us are getting very confident and hopefully when Bev (our teacher) checks our signing tomorrow we will be getting it right!

Bruce has joined us as photographer this week and on Sunday morning at the 10.30am service we will be showing the VBS slide show. We will also share one of our craft activities, making beads, with the congregation during coffee time.

Follow Me!
Today we heard the story of Jesus calling the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James & John to follow him and become fishers of people.
A hunt around campus challenged the teams to sing, learn some sign language, fish and undertake other challenges to get words to make the special sentence. Their poster became their ticket to snack time - water melon fish and coral!
This week we have been joined by 34 kids who have been supported by a total of 25 adults including our St James Rector,Lori Walton and 4 members of our Sunday School team. I am one of the St J Youth leaders and 3 of our youth group are part of the VBS leadership team. After VBS today the leaders enjoyed lunch together and many of them had a go at one of the activities the children have enjoyed this week - making clay beads. This activity will also be available on Sunday morning for those coming to church to try out.
Remember our Sunday 10.30am service will celebrate VBS. We'll have a slide show, the children will sing and sign for us and we celebrate all things Go Fish! Wear your t-shirt!
See you tomorrow!

Jan.x