The Journey 220
Wednesday, August 8
Read: Mark 6:31-44
The summer time in this country is the time when the parishes and church’s plan lot of programmes and activities for their members. Some of the activities that most of the Marthoma parishes in the North American diocese focuses are three major programmes. They are 1. Parish family retreat, 2. Parish Picnic and 3. Vacation Bible School [ VBS]. I believe  all these three activities are done very earnestly and people wait eagerly to participate in these activities. VBS is one of the activity that both parents, youths and children look forward to. A time of learning, a time of fun and also some time for doing crafts and other stuff. But a church in Indiana made their summer time and their VBS entirely different, adding lot of meaning and work that goes along with the Christian nurturing.  This unique VBS was planned by the Henryville Methodist Church in Indiana. The theme for their VBS was “ Construction Junction”. A VBS that focused on reconstructing the life of Jesus Christ through the VBS and also reconstructing  hundreds of home in Indiana. About six lives were lost and almost 200 homes were destroyed in the tornado the struck Indiana in March. What the children from the Methodist church is doing through VBS is reaching out to the community. Their daily activities in the VBS was something of this sort.  The children from the church and from the community would wear a yellow construction hat and tinkered with the tools of construction as they learned about Christ.  Then they would go to respective tents where the teachers were dressed as story tellers and tell the biblical narratives. The children also later would go down to the basement to  do some construction work  and later interact with the local community children to listen to their story of suffering and pain. Thus Methodist church through their VBS, helped the community in Indiana not only to reconstruct their home but also in the reconstruction of their life. Thus the Methodist church in Indiana created a new milestone in the way camps, retreats and VBS were being conducted.  In such a context it is important for us also to think as to what are the objectives of the retreats, picnics and VBS that we all plan for summer?
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living”. The portion that we shall use for our meditation is from Mark 6: 30-44. This is the portion in Mark that depicts the feeding of the five thousand. But preceding the feeding of the five thousand we find something very unique that Jesus does. In v:31, Jesus tells his disciples to “ come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest”. I feel this was the secret that Jesus taught his disciples on how to recharge their life and make their ministry more blessing to the people. Here Jesus is asking his disciples to do there things; 1. To be with Jesus, 2. To be with Jesus in a quiet place and 3. To be with Jesus in a quiet place and find rest. I think this is what every Christian should be doing and this should be what the focus of our retreats and our camps and conferences should be. People often come to attend the retreats more out of the recreation that is offered by the retreat centers like the pool, hiking and other attractions, forgetting that we need to spend time with the Lord and find peace, rest and energy to do His will and work once we leave the retreat centre. In the portion that we read we find that as soon as Jesus retreats to the quiet place that is where he encounters the hungry people which moves Jesus to compassion and thus the miracle of feeding the five thousand. Rest that recharged Jesus to action. Let us also consciously retreat during retreats and camps with Jesus Christ so that we come back recharged to work for the Lord and for the upliftment of the community. Did you recharge this summer through retreats?