My next adventure - VBS

I had a feeling it was coming.... I got recruited to help chair the VBS team this year :). When we started hearing announcements at church about VBS, I had a feeling I might wind up working it this year. I didn't jump right up and volunteer; I have to admit, I had reservations about getting involved. Not that I don't love what they do - my oldest, David, had a wonderful time last year. But I'll be honest, I had fun dropping him off and picking him up and not needing to do anything in between. Well, anything other than the usual taking care of the other kidlets, of course. I saw how hard everyone was working and I was definitely grateful, and kind of grateful I wasn't one of them.

A week or so ago I started thinking maybe I'd volunteer to help out. You know, be there to help pass out snacks or something easy like that. Nothing that might require too many meetings or coordination. Just show up and lend a hand. Right...

I'm co-chairing the whole thing.

See, they had me at "we need someone who isn't afraid to get up in front of people and talk." The woman I'll be working with is great - she's very organized, already has a lot done and is very enthusiastic. But she can't do everything on her own, and she's terrified of being in front of people - even a bunch of kids (or maybe especially a bunch of kids?). I have no such fears. Public speaking is actually something I'm not only pretty good at, but I genuinely like doing it. I'm weird like that.

So when our Pastoral Associate, who is also a friend, grabbed me last night when my husband and I were at church teaching a Baptism prep class (which we were recruited to do about a year and a half ago), I only hesitated for a second before agreeing. She told me the original VBS chair had to step down because of complications with her pregnancy (her seventh, no less, and her husband is currently deployed), and that the remaining chair was happy to keep going but did not want to do any of the "up in front of people" stuff - and something inside me said, "Ok!"

Last night I had bit of post-agreement remorse. Why did I agree to this? It's going to be so much work! I already have a lot going on! What am I doing?!

But then I started thinking about how I've been wanting to get more involved in our parish again and how I need something to keep me engaged. Heck, I blogged about it not long ago. This wasn't what I was envisioning, but the more I think about it, the more excited I get. I'm as excited to get to know more people in our parish as I am to put together the program for the kids. The other chair and I were having fun playing, "Do you know who I am," as we chatted on the phone this afternoon and realized we sat right across the aisle from each other at Mass on Sunday. Already I feel like I'm making a new friend.

So here I go! I have no experience with VBS whatsoever, but I have a lot of enthusiasm so I hope that will be enough.