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Over 200 children participate in the Santa Ana Temple vacation Bible school.
by Marcos Marquez, Captain –
More than 200 children¾mostly new faces from the community¾and 80 volunteers participated in the Santa Ana (Calif.) Temple Corps’ weeklong vacation Bible school (VBS).
Staff focused on Philippians 4:13 to make sure every child would remember the words, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Named “heroes” themselves, the kids studied the great heroes in the Bible including Moses, Gideon, Daniel, Paul and Jesus. Just as God used these people, the kids learned he could also use each of them to be heroes of the faith in their schools and neighborhoods.
“It touched my heart to hear the kids testify about God,” said Manuel Martinez, VBS coordinator. “God truly spoke through these children.”
For the final day of VBS, kids invited their parents to the Sunday service and an afternoon carnival. The meeting¾filled with close to 450 people¾ended with a time of prayer and blessing over the children and their families. The Santa Ana community came together for the carnival; a local restaurant donated food and another group offered free clinic appointments. The children especially enjoyed themselves on three inflatable water slides, one of which stood 70-feet tall.
Since VBS, four new families are faithfully attending weekday and weekend services at the corps.
One mother of a new family said, “After I saw how excited my daughter was about what she learned [at VBS], I told my husband that we had to go on Sunday.”
