First Presbyterian Church

What a week at VBS!

Posted on 06. Jul, 2009 by pking in News

Deal or No Deal?  It was a resounding DEAL!!!! Thanks to all who made VBS a great week.  With 154 kids (the most in memorable history) it was a tight squeeze but the staff made it all work. 49 Staff members (about 20 of that youth!) used their gifts and talents to spread the Gospel to our church kids and many, many kids from our community.  Our mission organization for the week was UrbanPromise, a ministry to the kids of Camden, NJ.  In 2004 and 2005 Camden had the distinction of being the “Most Dangerous City in the US” based on crime statistics.

UrbanPromise Mission: To equip Camden’s children and young adults with the skills necessary for academic achievement, life management, spiritual growth and Christian leadership.

We learned a lot about how UrbanPromise loves the kids of Camden.  It was great to have a team of adults and kids from Camden join us on Monday to tell us more about them as they learned about our church family. The week’s offering will go to help buy art supplies for the schools and programs run by the ministry.  To find out more about UrbanPromise visit www.urbanpromiseusa.org.

We had an amazing service component to the program and the kids did all sorts of  service projects: bookmarks for the church library, craft kits for Geisinger’s pediatric ward, fun bags for Kairos house in Guatemala,silverware prep and placemats for Dinner by the River,parade fans for Elmcroft, sanctuary cleanup, notes to missionaries , plants to shut ins, manse porch scrub, unloading food delivery for Dinner by the River, trash pick up, treat trail mix for firefighters and police, chocolate dipped pretzels for Riverwoods, cemetary clean up,food bank stocking, and picnic set up.  Thanks to all the kids for their cooperation and we hope they learned an important lesson about service.