I wasn't sure how it would go leaving them in a new place for 4 hours a day all week, but they both did amazing. The theme, as you can see above, was about standing strong. Vaughn came home on the first day with an understanding of what that meant. They were both excited each day coming home, singing songs and talking about what they learned and I loved that someone else was teaching my kids about God.
While we were away for the weekend, Eloise did cry about something (sorry for lying in a previous post) and grandma was talking to her about how she hated to see her cry and she just wanted what was best for her. Eloise thought about that for a while and finally said, "Grandma, you just need to stand strong!".
On Thursday, I had my mom pick up the kids from VBS and Vaughn was telling her on the way home about how there was a competition between the boys and the girls to raise money for collecting malaria nets. Vaughn told her that he wanted to give some of his own money to this cause. Earlier in the week we had talked about the significance of this fundraiser since malaria is a huge problem in Africa. We talked about how people can get sick and some of them die, but they don't have to because you can prevent and treat malaria. We talked about poverty and how when you have more than enough you can share and help others who don't have. It was really a great lesson for Vaughn that I knew he grasped, so when he came home asking to give his own money, I wasn't super surprised. Anyway, I told him that whatever he gave, I would double. Grandma told him that whatever we both gave, she would double that! We briefly worked out for him what that would look like, but not being a math genius (and maybe having only an 8th grade intelligence on the subject) I figured we would figure it out when we counted the money.
Vaughn whipped out his little money pouch, we counted his money and he decided that he would give $5 (which is all he had aside from a gift card) to the cause. I got out my money and easily gave $10 to double his $5. Now it's time for grandma to give her money and here comes the sticker shock because she's now giving $30 to the cause for malaria nets turning Vaughn's $5 into $45. When she originally agreed to doubling the funds, I think she thought Vaughn would give a buck or two. And instead, she's not eating all weekend because the generous boy gave his all. This was the perfect chance to remind Vaughn about the 5 loaves and the 2 fishes (there is a miracle in the bible about Jesus feeding 5000 people with one boy's offering of 5 loaves and 2 fishes) . He loved being compared with that story and it was so great to show him that his offering ended up taking care of more people than he could have even imagined when he gave his $5. One time Vaughn was talking about dogs or something and holding out my two hands and putting people in one and dogs in the other, I asked him what was more important, people (in one hand) or dogs (in the other). Sometime after giving his money, he used his two hands and said, "what's more important, people or toys?" (which is what he planned to buy with his money). This boy is a world changer and I love, love, love the privilege of sowing into his life!
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