Dear Mom

It's Vacation Bible School week here in my world. I never quite realized before what a trigger that simple, summer activity is for me......

Dear Mom,

I can just see you, back in the day, urging daddy to go with you to invite children to Bible School. You loved Bible School. You loved picking up the children and making connections with their parents. Longer ago, when you were young and in your prime, you enjoyed getting creative with making song posters and teaching class. Your famous "Noah Noah" and "Jonah" song sheets live on through second and third generation students!

Bible School in your day was no small deal. Sometimes you hosted out of state teachers, taught a class, picked up students and took them home, helped with snack and maybe even led the singing all while juggling laundry, canning green beans and hosting teachers for a lunch or two. This went on for two weeks straight.

I know you got stressed and worn out and things didn't always go perfectly but you wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Bible School in the hills of Arkansas was something my pioneer parents and their cohorts took seriously. Because our community was spread out so widely, we hosted a morning Bible School at our church and an evening Bible School at a local church at the other end of our community. Teachers would come in from out of state to help and many of them would teach at both places i.e. third grade lesson to one group of students in the morning, the same lesson to a different group in the evening.

The schedule sounds crazy to anyone who was never a part of it. Bible School morning and evening for two weeks?? How?

Some of my best memories are my youth years when I would teach morning and evening and join the whole gang of teachers for lunch at someone's house every day. We went shopping together, went on picnics, played games, prayed and fasted on Wednesdays, helped each other prepare our lessons... Some of the friendships made with youth who came to help us teach are still alive today.

I know time has a way of changing things and often our own era seems to have the best memories. Oh the stories I could tell of hot, cramped little classrooms at the old, Wolf Bayou church where the old, folding seats creaked and the curtains strung up everywhere still didn't provide enough "rooms" for all the classes. The noise and temperature levels in that old building were high but the singing rang and the silence was breathless when the storyteller got up to tell us the next installment of his story.

Yes, memories are golden. It's no wonder the very mention of Summer Bible School brings waves of nostalgia and memories galore. In the middle of all those memories, somehow you seem to be at the center, Mom. When I pull out your old flannelgraph and tell the old, old story to an eager group of 20 some 9-11 year olds, there's an inevitable ache in my throat and tears in my eyes.

Times have changed in Arkansas. There are nicer accommodations now, more people to reach around, busier schedules and less need of doing nothing but Bible School morning and evening for two weeks straight. But the children are still coming and the legacy is still going on. On the last day, when the parents and grandparents show up for the program, they can join in singing "Noah Noah" just as lustily as their children and grandchildren!

Sometimes I wish I could roll back the years and relive those memories of bygone days. I wish I could be your little girl again, Mom, helping to fill the big, metal igloo with water for drinks and riding along to take the rowdy bunch of children home. I'd join the out of state teacher's children in "the little chicken house" to hold up imaginary song sheets and play our own rousing version of Bible School. Sadly, I can't do that.

So, I'll wipe the tears, swallow the lump in the throat and live the now. Hopefully someday my children's memories will be warm and nostalgic too. But I promise, Mom, they won't be half as grand as mine.