FX-Family Experience

For the last two nights we have attended FX-Family Experience at our church. Can I just say our church, Carmel Baptist, went ABOVE AND BEYOND!!!! I have never seen a family vacation Bible school like it before! FX actually was for 4 days, but the first 2 nights were for the older kids and Thursday and Friday nights were for the younger kiddies. I can't say what all took place on the first couple of days (because we weren't there), but if it was anything like what we experienced, it was awesome.

On Thursday, we started off having a time of worship with fun songs, dancers, and a band. Then we were divided into three groups-probably 100-120 people in each group (kids, parents, and siblings). We went to three different stations. The first place we went to was Family Bible Charades. They had it set up like a tv game show, with cues for the audience to applaude and everything. There was a host of the show and 9 families from our group volunteered to play. It was fun to watch little kids and their parents act out Bible stories without saying anything.

We then went to Bible Scavenger Hunt. We had a list of things we had to find in the Bible and a list of things to find in the local newspaper. We then had to look up a bunch of verses that all had "food" words in the verse. Those were our ingredients for our snack that we had to go make. It was apples, honey, cream, and nuts. Boy, was it tasty!!!

Our last station was Jewish School. We sat on mats and we learned about the word "Shalom"-it means "peace", what school would have been like for Jesus, and about the Hebrew alphabet. We wrote on scrolls and practiced writing from the right to left (how Hebrew is written).

Tonight was the Bible Time Marketplace. The church gym was set up like an actual marketplace you might have seen in Bible times. There were 25 booths and an activity to do at each. You could make clay pots, make a broom, make jewelry, eat fruits, veggies, and bread, get a tunic and make your own sandals, play instruments, paint wood fish, weave placemats, make money pouches, etc. It was unbelievable all the fun stuff you could do. THEN, you could go outside where there were more booths set up. You could knead bread dough, make butter, make grape juice, eat fish sticks, carry buckets of water on your head, make crafts, and there was a petting zoo!!! They had a real camel, donkey and goats!!!! It was so cool!!! They also had a story time at "the mountain". They told the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and passed out goldfish and bread.

It was so much fun to learn about Jesus and Bible times with Halle. Thankfully, we could enjoy it without worrying about Parker-they had childcare!!! We hopefully will take some things we learned and apply them at home. It was a great reminder that I have to get on top of things when it comes to having family Bible study times at home. Although Halle learns lots of great stuff at church, it is my responsibility as a parent to really teach her the Bible and what the Lord expects of her.