“Okay, let’s see how much you remember from yesterday’s story. Potiphar’s wife told the truth. True or false?” 65 hands holding red cards went up, indicating that this statement was false. “That was easy. Here’s the next question: It would have been better for Joseph not to reject Potiphar’s wife.” Now my audience was divided—half red cards and half green. We were in the middle of our Vacation Bible School, and all they knew at this point was that Joseph had ended up in prison, so it was not obvious to them that he had made the right decision.

Our team chose the story of Joseph as the theme for this year’s VBS. The children were captivated. Every day when I would cut off the story and invite them to return the next day, the kids would shout, “No! Keep going! We want to hear the rest!” It is also a story full of great lessons about God’s faithfulness, about perseverance, about forgiveness and so much more. We had a short health program every morning, presented by our short-term missionary, Bruna, and many different activities for the various age groups after the story time. We walked through the desert in a caravan, we dressed prisoner Joseph at high speed when Pharaoh called him, we tasted different foods with Pharaoh’s butler (blindfolded, of course!) and many other fun things.

We had 65 children sign up for the program, and we had to turn away about 20 more because we didn’t have space for them. To end the week, we hosted a special program on Sabbath afternoon where the kids presented what they had learned during the week to their parents.

As always, the work was exhausting, and it took us another week to recover. But it was great fun, and we bonded with a lot of kids who are now coming to different summer vacation afternoon programs offered by Bruna.

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