VBS: Voluntold

This week is VBS at our church. I think we might be having ours a little later than every one else does, because I just read Jon Acuff's hilarious blog post about saying goodbye to VBS. Of the ten things that ALWAYS happen at VBS, no matter where you are in the world, one of them kinda smacked me around.

5. Grumpy volunteer.
I don’t know how you get tricked into volunteering this year, probably got voluntold if I had to guess, but fight the good fight next year, friend. If you hate kids, crafts and sweet baby Jesus, sprain your ankle next year to get out of volunteering.

I must admit, this is me this year. I got voluntold to VBS this year. But it wasn't by my mother or other ministry leader. I was knowingly voluntold that I would be helping this year by a good friend of mine. What with the not having a job, I've been living a pretty lame life the last few weeks. Like drinking coffee until lunch time, looking for jobs, not getting out of my house kinda of lame. And it's been getting to me. I would make a few off-hand comments to friends about how crazy I was feeling and somehow that made me feel better, like letting some steam off. One day my friend sat me down and said, "Next week you are helping with VBS. You are going to apply for three jobs a day, and you are going to get involved in ministry at church. Any questions?"
A plan? Did you just give me a plan??
Oh yes you did.
Gr.
So I hauled my voluntold butt to VBS last night. It was not the best thing ever. I WAS the grumpy volunteer with a foam Lady Liberty hat ( Big Apple Adventure!), my Lady Liberty rose-tinted glasses (who knew such a thing even existed? And yes, that will probably be a blog post at the end of the week...) AND (horrors of horrors) a name tag. Yuck.
But you know? It wasn't the worst thing I could have done with my evening. I did think about hiding out in the coat closet to read my book. Or taking a few recreation volunteers (like they do anything anyway...!) with me to grab a slushy. I didn't do either of those things. And I had an okay time. But what I realized most from Jon's blog is this: I don't WANT to be the grumpy volunteer. Just like you can tell which kids were forced to be at VBS, the kids can tell who was voluntold.
Might as well make the best of it, right?
(I mean, as long as it doesn't include learning the VBS songs...right? Because if I does, I'm changing "Bi-Bi-Bi Bi-Bi-Bi Big Apple Adventures!" to something like "Ca-Ca-Ca Carryin' the Banner!" from Newsies. )