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Chicago UBF
July 16, 2014

Chicago CBF held their annual Vacation Bible School June 16-20 at the Chicago Center. This year's theme was "A Giving Life". It was the prayer of Chicago CBF that children may learn the discipline of giving generously, not only of their money but also of their time, talents, and worship. A lot of the traditions of giving, such as 'first-fruits offering', 'thanksgiving offering' (especially birthday, straight-A's, good test scores, answered prayers, etc), 'freewill offering', or 'relief offering' had become unfamiliar over time and needed some refreshing.
A giving life has always been one of the core values of our ministry but it doesn't come naturally; it needs to be taught. So it was our prayer not that they would give more money but rather think about how they could be more generous in all parts of their life, forming good habits. But more than that we prayed they may learn why we give so sacrificially to God and learn to do the same. They studied Cain and Abel's offering, Abraham gives a tenth to Melchizedek, The Widow's Mites, Zacchaeus' thanksgiving, and Jesus anointed by a sinful woman.
The Vacation Bible School has a two-fold purpose: helping children to intensely learn one theme of the Bible and secondly to train leaders. For the past two years we trained 8th graders to deliver each of the daily messages and found it was very successful firstly for helping them learn to struggle with the Bible and also because children really can relate to people their age and it was a breath of fresh air for them. 8th graders, John Wang, Joshua Lee and Patrick Timlin, studied the passage, prepared message, were trained in delivery and shared beautifully.
Teachers were chosen from among CBF alumni in HBF: Jonathan Cho, John Lee, Miriam Pierce, Moses Lee, and Ine Suh. As Khadijah Zakaeifar was visiting from IUIUP with the key verse to feed Jesus' lambs, she was happily recruited to feed CBF lambs as well.
Teachers studied the passage the day before, prepared their testimonies and then met at 9am to share and eat breakfast. In this way they were well prepared spiritually to lead. At 10am VBS began with Bible study for one hour, then message, followed by lunch and then games. After lunch, teachers met together again for Bible study to prepare for the next day. Through this, we prayed to also find who really has desire and spiritual maturity to be a Bible teacher for CBF. Additionally, we could discover why and what is necessary to teach young people the Bible.
Teacher's Bible study and lunch was prepared by M. Birgit Pierce. Lunch was prepared by volunteer parents each day feeding about 70 people each weekday. Games were led by Moses Lee and Angelo Mendoza at the park, playing various sports and one day of indoor games on account of the rain.
Thank God that as the fruit of the Vacation Bible School, kids made decisions to offer their talents to God in special music, choir, orchestra and praise team. Others made decisions to offer a percentage of their birthday money and give generously in thanks. Others decided they should learn to give out of their own money rather than getting offering money from their parents each week. All around, it helped them to examine their hearts and ask how they were practically worshiping God with what they have. We thank God for the young messengers and the many servants both young and old who gave a lot of time and resources to make this Vacation Bible School possible.
Anyone interested can find the materials from this Bible school--and all past VBS's--at chicagoubf.org/cbf