Vacation Bible School and the Washing of Feet

John 13:5

"After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him."

For the past five years, I have taught preschool crafts during VBS at my church. I absolutely love it! I get to meet all of the preschoolers and get to know them just a little bit during the week. And I get to be messy with them!! When I say messy, I mean messy! We paint, and we glue. As you can imagine, it is a bit of a challenge to come up with crafts that are age-appropriate and that connect with the Biblical theme of the week. We end up making lots of crafts involving hand prints and foot prints.

The thing that I find so precious about footprints and hand prints is that they are as unique as people. And though they grow and change, they are still unique to their owner. This past week, I had the opportunity to see the body of Christ, or at least part of it, at work. We had between 60 and 65 preschoolers come through our craft room each day, and let me tell you, it took every adult involved to teach these children, though there were only four ladies with the title. Others were called helpers, and did they ever!! One of my children was in the preschool group, and I was amazed each day as he recounted the life of Peter. I mean he really learned! It wasn't just crowd control this week, but crowd control was so very important for the children to be able to learn all that they did.

A few "helpers" stand out in my mind. One lady had the sole responsibility of caring for a special needs child who had a tendency to escape. How often do parents of special needs children drop out of church because there are not any opportunities for their child? Without this lady, the teacher would have had to shift her focus to that child or worse, that child might not have been safe. Another lady (many of you know as Hadassah) took on the responsibilities of taking these children to the restroom, picking them up to wash hands, and even replacing shoes and socks when the children completed making their footprints. I don't even want to think about the chaos we might have had if she hadn't assumed that role!

Finally, we had a lady, who willingly and cheerfully washed every hand and every foot that we painted during the week. I did some math and that is roughly 124 feet and 248 hands. What is so precious to me, is that while it would seem that these children were herded in in huge numbers, each child had an individual encounter, each day, with this sweet woman. She loves Jesus and she loves His children, and while she washed their hands and feet, that love was so very obvious. One more thing that makes this so precious to me, is that this same sweet lady suffered from a childhood illness that kept her from learning to read or write. No doubt that there have been days in her life when she wondered about her purpose. I can not think of many things sweeter that watching her wash the feet and hands of Jesus' little children. What a special purpose she served this past week!

All of us were called to live as Christ, no matter who we are. We are uniquely special in our gifts and abilities and God wishes to use those gifts to further His kingdom. I am touched in the deepest place of my heart that He would use someone like me. And, I am humbled that my part was only a small one, in the big scheme of things. The body of Christ was truly at work. May I learn from Jesus' example and from the ones I saw this past week in Vacation Bible School!