Ravenclaws at work on their hats. One side of the cone has a strip of Velcro so it can be sized for various head sizes and form the cone.

For our final project for Monday, “students” decorated their very own wizard’s hat! Saint Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 tells us to wear the hope of our salvation as a helmet. Our hats remind us that God loves us and calls us to share God’s love in the world.

When the clergy are ordained into a specific role of ministry as a priest or deacon, they are given a stole to wear as a sign of this specialized form of ministry. A priest will wear a stole around her/his neck. This represents the crossed plank of the cross that Jesus carried up the hill of Golgotha. A deacon, on the other hand, will wear a stole across his /her chest diagonally from the left shoulder. This represents the helping ministry as modeled by Simon who dragged the cross beam up the hill for Jesus after he fell the third time.

This stole or scarf is a reminder of the ministry we are called to share with a broken world. Harry and his classmates all wear a scarf at Hogwarts made in the color of their schoolhouse. Today our first project was to decorate our VBS stoles. 3 Although our campers are not being ordained into a specialized order of ministry like a deacon or a priest, God has called each of us to serve, and we invite the kids to wear their VBS stole when they want to remind themselves to share God’s love in the world.

Here are some of our preschool group trying out their new cloaks.

Like the scarves, the Hogwarts cloak is another important item of clothing for the Hogwarts students. They are a reminder of how a Priest might wear a Chasuble, which means, “Little House.” When a chasuble is worn by a presiding priest at the Eucharist (service of Holy Communion) it defines her/his role in the worship service—a mark of leadership. For our second craft project, our VBS ‘students’ decorated their very own VBS cloak, which includes their house patch. They also decorated a Chasuble for Holy Cross that will be blessed this Sunday and be used by the priests of Holy Cross for generations to come.

It was seeing aspects of the divine in our daily lives that occupied the time of our campers for day two of VBS. Before any Hogwarts student may walk through the front doors of Hogwarts, one must ‘believe’ in order to get through the barrier at platform 9¾. It is faith in the Magic in our lives that enables a student to enter the barrier and board the train.

As a reminder that our trust in God will take us places, so the Kingdon of God may be at hand, we decorated 4-tone train whistles today. When we blow our whistles, it is a reminder that we are called to serve. Called to share God’s love and seek justice and peace in all things. When we do, we get a glimpse of the ‘magic’ of the kingdom of God at hand!

Our second project for today was a kaleidoscope. 1 VBS ‘students’ are able to open the end of their scope, place various small objects into it, give a turn and discover how the ordinary and mundane can be found to have truly wonderful and ‘magical’ properties when seen through the perspective of our imagination.

For our final project today, we made time turners. These small objects turned back time in book three so Harry and Hermione could rescue Sirius Black and Buckbeak the Hippogryph. Of course, in reality we can never turn back time, it is one of the absolutes of creation is time is always marching forward. Although we are aware of the past, the future has yet to be written. Therefore, time should be used wisely, as once a moment in time has passed, it is gone, for good or ill. To this end, we made time turners; not to turn back time, but so we might be reminded to spend a couple minutes each day talking to God—what Christians call prayer.

Our VBS time turners are a reminder to us to use our time wisely and to remember to say our prayers.

To remind ourselves that we have a very important ministry of welcome and hospitality, our first craft project today was to create a Hand of Unity to decorate our home or bedroom. When we welcome our sisters and brothers into our sacred space, our bedroom, we have taken a first and very important step in welcoming the world to the love of God in Jesus. At the same time, we acknowledge that many times it is much easier to “welcome a stranger” than it is to welcome our little brother or sister! Our Hand of Unity can be a helpful reminder of this most important ministry.

Our second craft for Wednesday was Hagrid’s gift of a pouch that Harry hung around his neck in the last book where he kept his most treasured possessions. The ever-faithful Hagrid has been a friend ever since Harry’s introduction to the world of wizardry. While Hagrid’s gift hung around his neck, Harry was able to keep a few things close to his heart; and I thought that was a wonderful image about how we can carry each other in prayer and community. Maybe we can place a token or a picture of someone in our pouch that we want to hold in our hearts and prayers for a time. Or we can share our pouch with others so they can hold us in their heart and prayers.

Our final project for Wednesday was the most prized wizard tool next to a wand—the broom! We decorated our brooms to remind us that God will take us to places we can’t even imagine. Brooms remind us that with the Holy Spirit, God can take us on adventures of sharing God’s love in our school or our neighborhoods. Brooms are a reminder that the Holy Spirit can make us fly with possibilities!

Imagine creating 3200 chess wooden pieces. (see below) Each camper received a full set of chess pieces to decorate and play wizard chess! Chess reminds us sometimes our journey with God provides us the opportunity to sacrifice.

Ron tells Harry and Hermione in book one that in chess games sacrifices sometimes have to be made. The message of Jesus is: all are saved because God loves God’s creation so much; Jesus was born to make the ultimate sacrifice for us—to take away the sin of the world. In response to this great gift, we are now called to be a new creation reflecting that love to the entire world!

Chess is a wonderful game. It is a game of sacrificial moves, all leading to the completion of the game. Chess is very much like our Christian journey, but God has already made the greatest sacrifice for us and as a result, we have won the game in Jesus!

Wizard’s Chess is one of the main sources for entertainment at Hogwarts since there is no electricity for iPods, Xbox, Playstation, Wii, or TVs! Chess teaches us this great lesson: in order to win the game, we do not have to win every move. Like most games, winning means staying with the game until its conclusion—just like life.

Our second project today was S.P.E.W. (The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare) banks. Clearly, elves are not in need of help in the Muggle world, but certainly there are causes that merit our support. These banks remind us that sacrificing a few pennies at the store for candy, and then sending that money to help someone else in need, can be a greater gift than those given by the wealthiest among us. (CF MK 12.42) Our “mite” boxes can do great things to change the world with the loving sacrifices from our children.

16 oz. plastic cups with TP roll spacers strung together made up our dragons to go to great lengths to care of others.

Our final project today was to create a Dragon. Hagrid always wanted a Dragon, a creature of immense magical property. Our VBS Dragon is a reminder to remember the faithful care Hagrid showed for his dragon and all magical creatures, and that we are called to emulate that care in the Muggle world. God working through us is one way to bring the ‘magic’ of God’s love to a hurting world. That is a great 4 th day message for our VBS.

One of our crafts today was creating magical creatures to remind us that although we all do not look alike, God calls us to love everyone, even those we do not understand.

Our second craft was decorating a Crystal Ball and stand. The light reflected in our Crystal balls is a reflection of the light that burns brightly in our campers who do their work of sharing God’s love. God calls us to be the light of the world and even though like Harry and Ron we can not “see” anything in our crystal balls in terms of predicting the future or past events, we can see light reflected in it, reminding us to share the light of Christ in the world.

All of our campers decorated a School Trunk to take home all their VBS crafts on Friday