LHF's "River of Life" VBS Makes a Big Splash

This summer, a Lutheran school teacher, a military supply chain manager and a 12-year-old girl and her father shared the Gospel with children in Poland using LHF’s “River of Life” VBS curriculum.

For the past 10 years, the LCMS Office of International Ministry (OIM) has coordinated short-term mission volunteers to run summertime English as a Second Language (ESL) vacation Bible school camps in Poland. This year, OIM organized 9 camps in Poland and one in the Czech Republic, each attended by 20-50 kids.

“While Americans plan and run the camp—teaching lessons, leading music and crafts—they definitely don’t do it alone,” explained Anna Gonzalez, DCE and manager of OIM’s Short-term Mission Training and Engagement. “The local pastor might be involved in opening and closings, and church volunteers serve as translators, provide the snacks and are extra hands in the craft area.”

At left, one of the churches emphasized the River that flows from Jesus death on the cross to the ba font. At right, volunteers from Community Lut Church in Escondido, Calif. teach Polish child

Parents are eager to enroll their children in the VBS camps

to improve their English conversation skills, and along the way, the children hear the Gospel time and again.

With LHF’s “River of Life” program, the students learned how God uses simple water to save His people. Through the stories of creation, Noah, Moses crossing the Red Sea, Jonah and the baptism of Jesus, the children were reminded of their own baptisms and their Heavenly Father’s love for them.

“I really liked the theme of water, and some of the

churches we were at did a lot of creative things with it,” said Alyssa Anders, an LCMS missionary who adapted “River of Life” to work in the ESL setting. “One experience that really stood out to me was that I had them all memorize a Bible verse in English, Mark 16:16, ‘Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.’

“We’d practice the verse together as a group during morning openings, and I started asking for volunteers to say the verse alone,” Alyssa recalled. “The first volunteer was a little girl, maybe seven years old, and she had no fear! She came up by herself, said the verse in English boldly, loud and clear. After that, everyone wanted to come to the front and say the verse in English.

“How much of what we taught sank in? I can’t know,” she concluded. “But I do know that all the kids can say that Bible verse from memory, and we know that God’s Word does not return void!

Everything we did planted seeds in those kids’ hearts.”

To order LHF’s “River of Life” preview kit for your congregation, go to www.LHFmissions.org/RiverOfLife or call (800)554-0723. Cost for the full program is $125.