‘Built for a Purpose’ in Monterey

VBS program brings new families to corps.
By Kayla Covert, Lt. –

The Monterey (California) Peninsula Corps Youth Center recently held a vacation Bible school (VBS)—themed “Built for a Purpose”— for the children of the community, who were out of school for spring break. The corps set a goal for the program: to see at least 75 children come through its doors during the week, with the dream of 100 children overall in attendance.
“By the end of the week, we saw 118 different children and 30 different volunteers learn about what it meant to be created by God and built for a purpose,” Corps Officer Captain Jennifer Swain said. “Each day saw a different facet of what it meant to be built for a purpose by God and was followed by a day full of biblical teaching, games, crafts and fellowship to help drive that concept home even more.”
Thanks to Corps Youth Worker Sarah Covert and Corps Helper Isacc Flores, the children had fun while learning about their special place in God’s kingdom.
At Thursday’s Bible Discovery class, children had the opportunity to make a commitment to the Lord.
“Overall, we saw about 65 percent of our attendees make some kind of prayerful commitment that day,” Swain said.
Now that VBS is over, the corps’ next step is to reach out to the families whose kids came to VBS, bringing them into regular corps activities and worship. Each family went home with a flyer (in both English and Spanish) inviting them to both Sunday services and to SAY Tuesday events (youth night programming).
“Our hope is that by the end of the school year, we will have had at least three new families make some sort of connection with our ministry outlets as a result of our vacation Bible school,” Swain said.