VACATION CHURCH SCHOOL Puppet Skits 1
DAY 1 Hey, everyone! Welcome to Vacation Church School. I am so glad to see all of you here today. Our friends Cooper and Sparx are also here! Can you help me in welcoming them? Say Hello to our favorite, funniest, smartest fox friend Sparx! (Sparx jumps up and says Hello to everyone) Say Hello to our favorite, funniest, smartest dog friend Cooper! (Cooper does not jump up, but he groans loud enough for everyone to hear) (Leaning over theater to talk to Cooper) Cooper, are you alright? You don t sound so good. (Cooper groans loudly again) Cooper; (Talking to Sparx) Sparx, do you know what is wrong with Cooper? I don t know. When I saw him he was holding his belly and groaning about a light or something. (Calling for Cooper again) Cooper, do you feel like coming out to say hello to everyone? This is the first night of Vacation Church School and we would be sad if you couldn t join the fun with us. (Groaning and moaning) I think that I can make it... Wow, howdy everyone. Look at all the kids that are here... Oooh, my tummy. You look pretty green around the gills, Cooper. What have you been up to? Boy, Cooper, maybe you had better go lie down or something. I don t want you to throw up all over the place. I can t go lie down. I m waiting for the light. Do you see any light coming out of my mouth? What light exactly are you talking about? (Cooper opens his mouth wide for Sparx to look inside) I don t see any light coming out of your mouth. Hey, you two, what is going on? What light are two talking about? And why would it come out of Cooper s mouth? 2
Remember the verse in Matthew 5:16 that says, Let your light shine before all? Yeah... so? We learned in Sunday school that in order to shine for Jesus like the verse says, that the light had to come from the inside of us. Well, Sparx and I were trying to figure out how I could get the light inside of me... Oh no, Cooper! You didn t swallow a flashlight, did you? No way. I wouldn t do that. I am not that dumb! Thank goodness! So what did happen, Cooper? Sparx and I were at the grocery store. Sparx needed to get some mouthwash because...well you know why...and I went to the condiment aisle because I really love Hot Sauce but I couldn t find my favorite brand at first and so I looked and looked and I was really worried that they didn t have it and I LOOOOOOVVVE Hot sauce because it goes great on everything and then I finally found a bottle behind the Tabasco sauce and... Come on, Cooper - they don t need every little detail about our trip to the store. Get to the point! O.K., O.K. Like I said I was in the condiment aisle and I came around the corner when I saw a gigantic display of Twinkie Lite snack cakes! Let me guess. A big light bulb went off in your head. (HA HA) Yeah! It did! I figured that if I ate enough Twinkie Lites, then the light would be inside of me and I would be able to shine for Jesus. Cooper, I can t believe you did that! I can. (sounding disappointed) I ate the WHOLE box and still no light is coming out of my mouth. (moaning again) Now I don t feel very well. You ate the whole box? Yeah. 3
Letting your light shine for Jesus has nothing to do with Twinkie Lites. It has to do with living your life the way Jesus wants you to. Jesus wants us to shine by living our lives in ways that show others the love of Jesus. The light the scripture is talking about comes from our hearts and minds it comes from our souls. Oh, so that is what it means to shine from the inside! That s right. We need to show the love of Jesus everyday to everyone around us. I bet you two can think of some ways you could do that. Well, I could share my favorite hot sauce with my friends. I could donate food to the local food pantry. I could rake leaves for an older person. I could put money in the offering plate at church. Those are all great ideas guys! There are a lot of ways to show Jesus love to others. It could be as simple as smiling at someone we meet on the sidewalk all the way to helping people faraway in other countries like India, Nicaragua or Africa. You mean I could help someone all the way in Africa? You sure can. What about me? Can I help too? We all can. But I am just one little dog. How can I make a difference to someone so far away? When we all work together we can make a difference even if we are just one little dog... or fox... or a boy or girl. We can share the love of Jesus even to those in Africa or South America or even Asia! This week we are going to be learning about an organization called Outreach International that can take our contributions and use them to help people in other countries make good changes in their lives and communities. What can we offer Outreach International that they can use to help people? 4
We can offer support by praying, by learning about poverty, by volunteering and by giving our money. Well, I have fifty cents I can offer! Cooper, you can t do anything with fifty cents. You can t even get a bottle of your favorite hot sauce for fifty cents! But if everyone gave fifty cents it would add up quickly. With $75 we could buy a goat for a family to have milk in India, or buy a share of a well for a community to have clean water to drink in Nicaragua, or we could feed an orphan for almost two months in Africa. We could feed an orphan for almost two months? By supporting Outreach International, we can! Let me tell you about Judith. Who is Judith? Judith is a widow with two children in Africa. She is also raising six orphans from her village and taking care of her younger sister who suffered from a stroke. She is taking care of nine people all by herself? That s right. It is very difficult for her. Miriam is very poor and she and her family struggle each day to have enough to eat. Sometimes all they have are kernels of corn to eat. The six orphans that Miriam adopted are lucky though. Many children that have been orphaned and die from starvation. I want to help the orphans. We can by supporting Outreach International. Outreach International has helped the village that Judith lives in to organize on behalf of the orphans. Now all of the orphans in their village have homes. In addition, the community now has a poultry project, children s health-monitoring clinic and a village preschool! Isn t that exciting? It sure is. On top of taking care of her large family, Judith volunteers her time as a teacher for the preschool. She said, I just decided to help the children. I don t have much, but I want to share the little that I have. I think Judith is really amazing! She really is living the way Jesus wants us to live too! 5
She really treats children like they are very important! Those are very good observations. Jesus treated children like they were very important in the scriptures too. Remember in Mark 10: 14 and 16 how Jesus had the little children come to him and he blessed them? He was showing us an example of how valuable children are to God. I want to help to orphans in Africa! I am going to bring my money in everyday of Vacation Bible School. I want to help people in other countries make good changes for their lives and communities! Me too! Me too! I am so excited. I am going to see if I can earn some money doing chores to give to Outreach International. I want everyone to have enough to eat! I think that you are both an inspiration to everyone here tonight. I am very proud of you. (to audience) Raise your hand if you would like to join Cooper and Sparx in raising money for Outreach International! Now I am really excited too! By the way, Cooper, does your tummy feel any better now? Yes, I am feeling better. But I am never going to eat that many Twinkie Lites with Hot sauce again. You mean you even put Hot Sauce on your Twinkie Lites? Well, yeah. Shining the light of Jesus love to others will be much, much easier on your tummy! Come on Cooper. We ve got to start gathering up our money to bring back tomorrow. Boys and Girls, remember to bring yours too! Sparx & Bye everybody! 6
DAY 2 $ - RGS, $ $ 7
Outreach International helps families build better homes by helping them buy better building supplies and helping them learn better ways to build strong buildings that last. I bet they feel a lot safer when they have strong houses to live in. It sure feels good to have a strong roof over my head when it rains really hard. I am glad I have my dog house to keep me safe and dry. Remember Luke 6:48? Everyone who follows Jesus is like a person building a house. He digs deep and lays his foundation on rock. When the floods come, the house is strong enough to stay standing because it is well built. Building a strong house is kind of like building a strong faith. That s right. A strongly built house will be more likely to withstand heavy storms, just like a strongly built faith will be more likely to withstand the problems of life. I know that we go to Sunday School and church and study the scriptures to help us build strong faith. But how do we help people build strong homes? Outreach International can use our money to help others have strong homes. Do they go to other countries and build houses for the people? Not exactly. Outreach International provides them with better skills and supplies and teaches them better ways to build so they can construct better homes for themselves. It is kind of like helping people so that they can keep helping themselves for a long time. You are right, Cooper. Let me tell you about Hugo. Hugo was someone that used to be soaking wet from rain while he was inside of his home! Couldn t Hugo fix his house so that it didn t leak? No, because his family and everyone else in the village were really poor. Hugo s dad only earned $2 a day. No one had the money to buy good building materials. That is not very much money. Where does Hugo live? 8
Hugo lives in Nicaragua, which is in Central America. Outreach International came to his village to help the people decide what they needed most. The villagers decided they needed better homes. With donations to buy good materials from Outreach International the villagers were able to build their own homes. Now I bet Hugo is really happy that he can stay warm and dry in his house. Especially in the rainy season! I brought more of my money tonight so I can give to Outreach International. That s great! Through Outreach International our donations can help people build strong homes in Nicaragua! Well, I guess we don t need these waiter outfits to serve others. Not really. I guess we don t really need these either. (they pull out tennis rackets) Tennis rackets? What are they for? Well, we figured maybe if we didn t turn out to be good servers as waiters, we could take tennis lessons. I am almost afraid to ask why, but I ll ask anyway. Why were you going to take tennis lessons? You know, to become good tennis servers. You two really come up with some good ones, but we are running out of time. Everyone wants to get to their activities so let s say good-bye for now. Cooper, Sparx, & Bye everybody! See you tomorrow! Remember to keep bringing your Outreach International money! 9
DAY 3 P 10
And my place is full too. We need the barn to hold all of our extra stuff. Do you two ever think that maybe, just maybe, you might not need that much stuff? And that maybe, just maybe, you could actually live without some of it? Cooper & (look at each other with surprise) No... Maybe you could give some of your things away. Oh, I can t live without my HDTV! And I can t live without my PS III game system! I didn t say that you had to give everything away, but you really could live without those things if you had to. There are people in many parts of the world who do not have all of the things that you have. There are people that live without toilets, electricity or clean water. No electricity? No clean water? That s right. And you know what? God wants us to help people that live in poor communities because God wants them to have a good life too. That reminds me of I John 3:17 where it says that God s love is inside anyone that has the world s goods and shares them with others in need. That is right, Sparx. We can show that God s love is inside us when we share with those who have little or nothing. If we share the things that make our lives good with others, then we can all have good lives. That is absolutely right, Cooper. You two really are catching on to what we have been talking about this week at VCS. Well, you know foxes are known to be very clever creatures if I don t say so myself. (mumbling) But they must not be known for being humble if I DO say so myself. Come on you two. 11
OK. Alright... We have been talking about Outreach International everyday at Vacation Church School and some of the ways they help people in poor communities. How does Outreach International know what a community needs help with? That s a good question, Sparx. The staff of Outreach International first gathers people together to have what they call a community meeting. At these meetings the people talk about what they need the most. Sometimes it is help with taking care of orphans like the ones in Africa, or building better houses like Hugo s village in Nicaragua. Other villages are in need of safe water for drinking, or education, or medical care. I am getting the idea that HDTV and PS III s are not on the list of being the most needed items. I think you are right, Sparx. Tonight I am going to tell you about a woman named Miriam. She lives with her six children and two elderly parents in Nicaragua. Her village was once known as the Forgotten Village because it was so difficult to reach since the roads were in such bad shape. Her family has a large hole in the ground where a pipe brings water. But there is only enough water to turn the pipe on once every eight days. They only had water every eight days? People need water more often than every eight days! That s right. On the other days, Miriam s older children pulled a cart to another village to buy water and bring it back to their home. People can live without TV and video game systems, but they can t live without water. Outreach International went to Nicaragua to help Miriam and her village to secure safe water and have organized a group to improve the road to their village. Miriam has also been trained to manage the new community health clinic. She says, It gives me so much pleasure just to be able to help in this simple way. We have already seen an improvement with the health of our children. Isn t that story awesome? 12
That is another great story about how we can help others by donating to Outreach International and asking our families to donate as well. I ve brought more money tonight to give to Outreach International. Me too! And maybe we can have a garage sale to sell some of the stuff we really can live without and donate that money to Outreach International too. That s a great idea, Coop... But wait a minute...we don t have a garage... Yeah, but we are building a barn! We can have a barn sale! Coop, I would have to say that you are as clever as a fox too. You two are awesome! I do have one question though. Do I see blue paint on your paws? Yeah, you sure do. Why do you have blue paint on your paws? We read that building a barn is easier if you have blue prints. So, we painted our paws blue so that our prints would be blue. Well, my two very clever and very cute friends - we need to let our friends get to their other activities tonight. And you boys and I need to talk some more about what blueprints really are! 13
DAY 4 (Cooper and Sparx appear with a seed catalog and gardening supplies wearing flowerpots on their heads) Hi, guys! What s up with this? You mean this gardening stuff? Yeah. Are getting ready to plant a garden? We sure are. Are you going to plant some vegetables? Nope. How about flowers? Not that either. Come on guys. What are you going to plant? Fruit. We want to be like Johnny Appleseed and travel around the country planting apple trees and other fruit trees. Well, I really love apples and fruit, but what made you want to go around acting like Johnny Appleseed? We read John 15:16 in Sunday school class. It says, I choose you to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last. Yeah, and that scripture really got us to thinking about how Johnny Appleseed went around planting trees that grew lots and lots of apples year after year. We want to plant fruit trees like God wants us to. Plus the best part of planting apple trees is getting to eat the apples someday too! Yum Yum! Cooper. Sparx. You guys are amazing and planting fruit trees is certainly a good thing to do. But Jesus isn t talking about that kind of fruit. Jesus is talking about spiritual fruit. Spiritual fruit? What s that? 14
Spiritual fruit is acting and living the way God wants us to. Every time we are kind, loving and patient with others we are bearing the fruit that Jesus is talking about. So you mean, when Sparx hits his thumb with a hammer I should be extra nice to him? Well, yes. That would be an example of how God wants us to treat each other. Jesus wants us to remember his teachings in everything we say and do.... Like being kind to each other?... And sharing with each other? That s right. You ve both got the right idea about how to treat each other, but we need to also remember about caring for the rest of God s creation. You mean like taking care of all the animals in the world? Yes. And the earth? That s right. Psalm 104 is a poem of thanksgiving to God about how great his creation is. It says something like Lord, you water the mountains so that the earth will grow. Grass grows for cattle, and plants grow for people to use. You cause food to grow so that we may have bread to eat. It really is awesome when you stop to think about it. God sure made a wonderful world. That scripture reminds us that a healthy earth supports all living things. God created the earth to sustain all life. I guess it is really important to help the earth stay healthy. That s right. A healthy earth makes it possible to have healthy plants and food growth and that helps people too. Growing vegetables keeps a family and the environment healthy. But the sad truth is in poor countries, it is not an easy thing to do. Why is it so hard for people in poor countries to grow their food? 15
Farmers in poor countries don t have resources to repair their land if it has been destroyed by flooding and drought. When farmers don t have good soil to plant in they can t grow vegetables. And many of them don t even own land. If they can t grow food, their families can go hungry or starve. Boy, I wish I could do something about that. Well, actually there is. We can help the environment by supporting Outreach International. We have been talking all week about how Outreach International strives to help Children, Families, Communities and the Environment. Yeah, we ve been giving our money to Outreach International. There sure are a lot of ways that Outreach International helps people around the world. That s right. Outreach International went high up in the Andes Mountains in Bolivia to help the village there. In the past, droughts had caused their crops to die from having no water. Other times heavy rains had caused their crops to flood. Both weather extremes had caused the village farmers land to be infertile. What does infertile mean? I know. It means that crops would not grow in the land. That s right. And tonight I want to tell you about a man named Esteban who lives in that very remote village in Bolivia. Esteban means Stephen in our language! He was a poor farmer with failing crops and a hungry family. Esteban came to Outreach International staff and said to them, I just want to be a proud farmer, and a good father to provide for my family. Outreach International helped Esteban and his village come together to find a solution to help revitalize their soil. With support from Outreach International, the community was able to find a clean water source up higher in the mountains, build a new irrigation system and learn new agricultural methods. Soon, the damaged soil was a lush garden of tomatoes, onions, cabbage and potatoes. The families and animals soon had enough to eat. So can we send them some apple trees to plant? Not actually, but we can donate money to Outreach International. They can use our money to fund more projects in other places that need help in taking care of their part of the earth. 16
Outreach International is cool. I am going to keep giving to Outreach International even after this week is over by donating some of my allowance. Me too! I guess we don t need these pots on our heads anymore. Probably not. You know, it isn t really true that Johnny Appleseed wore a pot on his head. It is true, though, that he would give his shoes away to someone who needed them and go barefoot all summer long. Sparx & (throwing their shoes up in the air) Whoo Hoo! I love that idea. Barefoot all summer! Have fun with your classes tonight! And don t forget about giving your money to Outreach International! 17
OUTREACH INTERNATIONAL PO Box 210 Independence, MO 64051 888.833.1235 Toll-Free USA 816.833.0103 Fax outreach-international.org outreachshop.org info@outreachmail.org