First Presbyterian Church – Butte, Montana comes to campus to provide VBS Day Camp

This week, Intermountain hosted a dozen volunteers from First Presbyterian Church in Butte, Montana and ministry interns from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. Missy Henry, although “great with child,” did a great job organizing the volunteers and setting up the week to be successful.

The group came and shared a modified version of the VBS curriculum by Group called “Cave Quest,” complete with games, music, special art projects and engaging Bible lessons. An action grant from Thrivent Financial enabled Chaplain Chris to purchase t-shirts for the kids that carried a major theme for the week: “Plug into God!”

The t-shirts for VBS Day Camp 2017: “Plug into God!”

In addition to the VBS Day Camp, other helpers made themselves useful around campus. Under the leadership and direction of Toni Robison, another group of amazing volunteers did a remarkable job sorting donations in Intermountain’s “Treasure Chest.” Shelves were organized and piles of donated clothing was sorted through and put on hangers to be displayed for the children that come to the Treasure Chest to “shop” for clothing and shoes as needed.

Volunteer Maddy Hash said the best part of volunteering was “Being able to spend time with the kids and teach them about God… I wish it had been a whole week, not just 3 days!”

Sheryl Mayo, who led the “Imagination Station” part of the activity rotation, shared that while it was hard “having an understanding of the difficulties faced by the children,” she was encouraged by “their faith and understanding.”

There were plenty of opportunities to learn about how to do ministry with a group of children who have significant trauma-related issues. For instance, Whitworth student Luke Ekstrom reflected that it was hard to discern on day one what games would be appropriate to play and that by day three he had a much better sense of what may or may not be appropriate. Luke stated, “I feel like this VBS was successful over all and I loved being a part of it!”

Butte First Presbyterian pastor Lanny Rounds kept his comments at the end of the week brief and to the point, asking: “Can we come back?”

Every year around the second week of August, we invite a guest group from one of our many ministry partners to come to campus and host our VBS Day Camp program. Perhaps your church or youth group would like to consider bringing the program in 2018? If so, it’s never too early to let Chaplain Chris know!

Here are a few pictures from the week:

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