calhoun country: Overwhelmed at the Ranch

This was hands down the easiest VBS theme to plan for and decorate!

I mean, country western ranch?

All we had to do was give an all call for our faithful church members to donate random saddles, lassos, cowboy hats, boots, etc... And before you knew it...TADA! We soon had a Cowby Church ready for all our little 'cowpokes' at Saddle Ridge Ranch.

The Lord is just amazingly good to us! Would you believe that we had a total enrollment of 299!?! I felt like putting a status update on facebook that read 'Lord, I'm Overwhelmed'!

But I was afraid all my sweet friends would misinterpret my comment and show up on our doorstep with casseroles in tote. You see, it's not the stressed-out kind of overwhelmed that I am talking about. It is the 'I can't believe what the Lord is doing!' kind of overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed by His love,

Overwhelmed by His grace,

Overwhelmed by His mercy and provisions,

Overwhelmed that He would trust us with all those sweet, precious lives!

Do you remember in the movie Facing the Giants where the coach sees the hand of God moving in his life in such a real and precious way, that he is brught to tears and cries out

"Lord, I'm Overwhelmed!'

That is exactly what I am trying to explain.

I felt like each child that walked through the church doors might as well have been stamped on the forehead with a sign from God reading

"I trust you with this child."

I remember when I was about 10 years old, my mom's best friend had a baby.

Up until this point in my life, I had never really held a baby. My mom was a big stickler about how you are to only touch a baby's feet ~ not their hands, and certainly not their heads! And goodness knows, you never ASK to hold a baby! If a mother wants you to hold her baby, SHE will ask YOU ~ not the other way around.

But I remember Lynn coming home from the hospital and graciously giving me her brand new baby to hold. As much as I LOVED holding that precious baby, I was much more excited and OVERWHELMED by the fact that she entrusted me with her child!

That was the same feeling that resurfaced on a much greater scale during the week of VBS.

I LOVED having all those sweet children in our care and on our roll books, but more than that, MUCH more than that was the amazment that the Lord entrusted us with these children!

We had lots of funny laughs during the week. Lots of silly songs, awesome crafts, cool competitions, great games, delicious snacks, and wonderful Bible stories knit into the hearts of these children.

But better than ANYTHING else was the fact that 20 children accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior for the very first time! Two others rededicated their life to the Lord and three others decided to follow through with believer's baptism.

God is amazing good to us to let us be a part of his wonderful work!

I can honestly say, even though Bible School ended nearly 2 weeks ago,

I still stand absolutely OVERWHELMED!

I have about a million little stories about VBS that I would love to share with you, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will just let these sweet images do all the talking for me.