The nurse had leprosy. The once tall, athletic teenager scooted around on the floor begging for handouts. The artist accustomed to computer, a wide selection of pens and papers sat on a low stool using feathers as pens on rough brown paper.
The children wore old sheets tied in place with braided bits of rags. They were all part of this year’s daily vacation Bible School: Market Place 29 A.D.
VBS this year was different. For the first time in 26 years, my husband laid down his tools, stored the lawnmower in the garage and not only prepared a craft, but spent every evening in Market Place 29 A.D. making sandals.
He didn’t plan on helping with Vacation Bible School. He was swept up in the whirlwind of activities when we read the list of materials needed this year. It included carpet scraps. I had a garage floor covered with scrap carpet leftover from when we pulled it up to remodel the living room last winter. I had begged connived and plotted to get the stuff out of our garage. VBS provided the perfect opportunity to do just that legitimately.
Since real leather is rather expensive, the plan was to use carpet scraps to make sandals at the sandal maker’s shop. The night my husband went across the street to donate the carpet, he was hooked and slowly reeled in to donate his time to VBS. He came home with the task of cutting out the sandals, determined to finish the project and hand them over to the sandal shop manager so he could get back to his real work. That was his plan.
On the opening night of VBS, he slashed a hole in a piece of material I had purchased at a garage sale, wrapped a rag around his head, tied on a pair of his homemade carpet sandals and spent his evening in the sandal maker’s shop.
The market place theme lent children a feel for life in ancient Israel, sort of – if you don’t count the electrical saw used to cut carpet into sandals or the electrical drill punching holes for lacing. I guess they also didn’t have perfectly formed fruit thanks to pesticides or bread bakes in electrical oven 29 A.D. The brickmakers did take off their sandals and knead straw into mud to dry in wooden brick molds. But I’m pretty sure, though, tat mud wasn’t kept in blue plastic wading pools.
However, with dramas every night a visit to the story teller’s tent, classes in Jewish dances and songs and snacks bought from the baker and fruit stand, it was totally an interactive experience for the children.
Our pastor, in priestly robes at the front of the chapel which was transformed into a synagogue with curtains, pillars and sample carpet pieces, reverently removed the scroll from its gold painted box. He showed the awed children the reality of the week’s verse, Deut. 6:4-5 “The Lord our God is one. Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.” For a few minutes there, I think they actually did.