Spending Our VBS Supply Budget

Oh boy, look at the colors I found to use!! Dangerous, as I love playing with color!!   For the last two weeks I have been obsessed with budget and ordering.  I met with Sharon again and went over the craft items we needed to order.  We were so happy with all that we chose for the precious kids in Cameroon only, again, to be totally confused and disappointed by the fact that the huge Oriental Trading company was out of stock on almost everything we wanted to order.  We had all this cute "BUG" stuff picked out to go with our bug theme.  Guess everyone else wanted the bug stuff too.  I even tried to get some of the items from Regular Baptist Press (even though they are more expensive)...but alas, they are also out of bug stuff and not reordering.  It's only early May, what's wrong with these companies??  Spend more hours refiguring and changing all our great plans...


I do get excited about each task getting finished...each step closer to our goal - and with 8 weeks left to departure I'm working hard.  With each thing that needs ordered, I go to Mr. Nichols cool excel spreadsheet he helped set up and play with the numbers.....Let's see take from this category, and put it in that category. Then I bug poor Ben again for some more expense numbers on his end to see how things can be shifted and juggled. I spend a lot of time adding and subtracting and figuring...I guess I'm not really good at it!! 


This week, I've figured out the ribbons we will give the kids for coming to parent's night.  I ordered two sets with no date on them so that if there is extra, Ben can use them another year.  In Honduras - we ran out of ribbons on parents night and the nationals had to go ask the church kids to give theirs up...what a disaster.  We purchased more ribbons later and mailed them...but really didn't enjoy disappointing the kids that evening at all. Trying to guess how many kids will be there is a tremendous challenge as we don't want to waste money nor do we want children disappointed if there aren't enough prizes.  I really pray over the number to order (I'm not telling.....I'll let you know how we did at end of trip).  On other trips, the kids have totally loved the ribbons and we have a fantastic turnout that evening....  so 


Check -  the ribbons!


Check - plastic name badges!!


Uncheck - wristbands - lack of communication and our VBS crew didn't order our wristbands with their order and I fret over shipping charges.  After searching on-line I find closeout deal and pray over ordering closeout cheap wristbands and leave a note saying I really need these specific colors - even though the website says you can't choose colors on the closeout deals. They have shipped - I keep praying they were nice and picked the colors we need. I did get an AWESOME price of .02 each.  I ordered a box of 500 in each of the 4 colors we need, so next mission trip will enjoy the leftovers.

Jamie Costume

Clown costumes arrive at front door.  Even though it's not my costume, I must try it on and parade around for Pastor in the adorable lime green wig and super cute costume.  Call up Jamie and torture her with the fact that I have it - she is worried.  I smile!! I ordered a child matching one for one of the Sinclair kids to wear.  I will keep these in the mission trip box for future trips.  Each trip I try to add things to our collection that then don't have to be purchased again.

Check - crafts, go home prizes, skit items

                                                                                                            


Check twisty balloons - ordered  Spent time going thru old 
mission trip notebooks to find out where to order and found the amount we used before - helpful!


Work on gift for parent's program. This is what we use to tempt the parents into coming. Ben says he has not had a parent's night before and people often think the "white man" church is odd - so I want something to really draw them in.  We will show the kids the prize and let them drag in their parents.  I spend time hunting down wordless book keychain puzzles, but can't find them anywhere.  I investigate websites that perhaps could custom make what I need to no avail.  Find sling backpacks for under $2 each and start down that road.  Deciding on what to imprint on little backpacks is torturous to me, I email Ben and call Stephanie for her opinion. I make a decision and order. I find an unused budget item to help pay for it as my VBS supply category is now empty.  I do have to wait for artwork approval a few days.  it will take the company about month to make so I'm glad I did it now.


Almost Check - parent's night program gift!


Well, the VBS budget is empty, does that mean I have to quit ordering? 

Another blessing was that Kathy Hill was willing to make these cubes for us.  She made some for AWANA T and T and a set for Cameroon and a set to keep in our mission trip box for future trip.  To play put kids on 4 color teams, toss the cubes into a circle. If your color lands up you may grab the cube and try to get the other people out by throwing it at them.  Black and white are wild.
T and T kids here love this! THANK YOU, Kathy!!

One more provision by a kind lady.  Someone in the church donated these.  We will give them out to people and ask them use them as reminders to pray for us and our trip. The colors are the colors of the flag of Cameroon. They have been embossed with "Cameroon4Christ"

One of our teen's Mom is helping completely rewrite the  Regular Baptist Press puppet show so that it is more appropriate for Cameroon.  Our theme is Bug Zone - Transformed by our big God!  Bugsy, caterpillar, will be the star of the puppet show and voiced by Caleb!
Thanks, Lori for your help with the script!