Last Tuesday, the evening after my uncle passed away, my Aunt Jean came to me asking me to write some words of thanks to my aunt on behalf of the brothers and sisters. After spending the week listening to their stories, these are the words I wrote and then spoke at the funeral yesterday. Some have asked for them and this seemed the easiest way for everyone to have access to them. If you aren’t part of the Roberson clan, I hope that you will be encouraged to think about your family in a new way and to speak love and thanks to them while you have the opportunity.

“Aunt Jean came to me on Tuesday evening, asking would I write a special message to Aunt Faye from Virgil’s brothers and sisters. I’ve spent the week hearing their stories of years gone by and especially of these past few months. So, Aunt Faye, this is my spin on the words and stories I’ve heard but this is their heartfelt reflections and message to you.

We have stories through the years. We shared the childhood memories, the Christmas mornings, the eight children around a table fighting each other for food, fishing and swimming in any small piece of water big enough to hold us. So many memories, lost memories that have come flashing back as we have watched Virgil slip away from us here.

We shared those young, formative years, those early memories, the parents and even the DNA, but you shared a young love with him that grew to a beautiful, adult love and commitment as you created a home and a life together.

In the last ten years since you’ve moved back to Plymouth, we’ve been able to see your life together up close, and it’s been a joy. We watched as Virgil graciously cared for you during your during times of health but watched as you stepped up to the needs as the roles reversed.

And you created a home together here. A wonderful, colorful, rich and warm home that you have willingly housed so many Roberson get togethers in. You’ve let this unique, big and often loud bunch of Robersons take over your home. We know we can be a little difficult at times, but you’ve made us feel like we’ve had a home in your home, been part of your family. We lost Granny’s house as our gathering spot, but you’ve allowed us to stay connected with one another. You have planned and created activities for the grand and great grandchildren and given us a place where we continue to share life, laughter, a little sarcasm and snark but also a lot of love. In more ways than one, you and Virgil have been a bridge and a connecting point for our family. That is no small gift you have given to all of us. Thank you.

These last few months we have seen you love and care for our brother. You have stood by him, helped him navigate doctor visits and hospital stays. You have loved him and cared for him in a tender, genuine, self-sacrificing way. You have put him first and we have watched you put everything aside to take care of our special brother that only we thought we could love that much. You faithfully gave him all of yourself right up until the very end. Even though we are certain there have been times where your own health issues may have caused you pain, you never breathed a word of it. You continued to travel to appointment after appointment, hospital to hospital, putting your own potential pain and exhaustion behind Virgil’s needs.

You even found a way to be by his side, the love of your life, and still generously share him with us, in his last moments. You shared precious, final moments with Virgil. You let us have final moments alone with him, and we know deep down you would have liked to have them all for yourself to save and store up, getting every last drop, but you gave them to us. Those final moments are precious pieces of Virgil we will carry with us forever. Thank you for letting us be there with you, with him. Not only were you constantly concerned with allowing us into this process, you were a pillar of strength when we fell apart. We hoped to be a comfort to you but instead, you were a comfort to us. A place of safety where we could fall apart. That also is a great gift. It is a precious gift and we are so grateful to you for sharing those final moments.

Most importantly, we want you to know that you are a part of our family…for better or worse. We thank you for all of the precious gifts you’ve given us and we love you.”

My uncle, William Virgil Roberson, passed away on Tuesday morning at the age of 64. He had cancer so it was not a complete surprise but since his diagnosis in the first months of this year, it has been a spiraling roller coaster. Literally one week after being told by the doctor that they just needed to remove him from some pain medicine and he would turn around, start eating more and could begin chemotherapy treatment again so he could fully recover, they were sending him home to say there was nothing they could do. It was less than two weeks later that just days after we were told he probably had about a month that they said he was in his final moments.

I do not get to see them often enough. But I’m always more grounded in who I am, where I come from and who I really belong to when I am with them. We even found a picture of a very distant relative, enjoying what appears to be whiskey, that looks freakishly like me. No one knows who she is but it is clear we are related.

We lost my grandmother three years ago this fall and I wrote a blog post after that experience, a little tribute to my crazy family. I wanted to include it again here in honor of my uncle. One of my last memories of Uncle Virgil happened just a few months after I moved to Richmond. I was anonymous and knew no one and was feeling really lost, honestly. His son, my cousin, lives in Richmond as well and invited me over to his little girl’s birthday party. It felt so safe to be with Uncle Virgil and Aunt Faye, so safe to be with family. They treated me like I belonged to them. When I went to leave, they walked me out and one of my last memories of my uncle is him helping me back out of the crazy driveway. He was helping me back up, making sure I didn’t run into anything. It was a small act, but it is usually the small acts with family that make us feel safe, loved and taken care of. I needed to feel loved, safe and taken care of in that moment. That little moment meant more than I ever said to Uncle Virgil but it is how I will always remember him. “I’m watching for you, don’t worry.  You aren’t going to hit anything. You’re good.”

“I Love These People

Here are some more thoughts from my visits…..

* Check-In & Check-Out. As I mentioned in my last blog post, organization is incredibly important. Most of our VBS planning is in the hope of getting visitors to our churches. It is critical to think about what a parent and kid see when they first come to your church and what they experience as they leave. The check in process seems somewhat standard. The check out process varied and I saw some great ideas.
– A number of churches had a closing celebration that allowed parents to pick up multiple children in one location. Each kid was with their group and the parents had to check out with their leaders.
– A couple of churches actually give the parents a small card with the kids name on it when they drop the kid off at the check in table. The kids are then escorted by runners to their group inside the worship space. When the parents come back (or whoever is coming to pick up the child), they give someone at the same table their card again and the runner goes into the sanctuary to pick up the kid and bring them to the parents.
– Another church had all of the groups go to one large room. For this process they had to order paper bracelets that have printed numbers on them. These are the kind that you peel apart and they stick on your wrist. When kids are dropped off in the morning the parents receive one of those paper bracelets that has a printed number that coordinates with a paper bracelet put on the child. Before a child can leave, the parent has to produce their bracelet, the teacher sees that they match the numbers of the kids wrist and cuts the kids bracelet off. There are other adults waiting at the doors that check each child as they leave to make sure they do not have a bracelet on, showing they are with the correct adults.

* Using Youth as Volunteer Leaders. I’ll hit this topic from another angle in a following blog post that will ask some questions about how we use youth as leaders but here I want to focus on the positive. Many churches have a great experience using youth in worship or to host a group because it allows the youth to test their wings of leadership. Youth can also help to fill the holes where adult leaders are lacking. Be specific with what is expected of these youth leaders. Many of them have never interacted with children and so they do not know how to help behavioral problems or know what it looks like to stay engaged with them. Since in many churches they are hosting the groups, helping move them from station to station, they are the primary face of the church and the hands of feet of God to those children. Help them catch that vision. The churches where the youth were the most invested, engaged and helpful were churches where youth helped with the planning of VBS content and were required to attend training along with the other adults.

* Utilize volunteer leaders outside your church. This may not be a fit for your church but a few churches I’ve visited allow for non-church members volunteers from the community to help. I talked with one mother of three who were members of a small church in a nearby small town. They loved their little church but she appreciated being able to volunteer in leadership and have her kids participate in a VBS to get a “big church” experience like she had as a kid. She said they while would they didn’t want to leave their small church, she sometimes she just really missed these kind of things from a big church.

* The Queen of VBS. I commented on this in a picture I posted on our children’s ministry facebook page but at one church I visited, I was introduced to the Queen of VBS. She’s been teaching forever and the kids are always excited when it is time to come to her class. The youth that got assigned to help her was ecstatic. The youth apparently fight to get to work with her. Her decorations were very simple but she has created a variety of games/centers that she adapts each year to theme. The students work through the stations and activities throughout the week. Each kid is given a game board and these activities move them along the game board. At the end of the week, the kids get to pick a prize based on how far they’ve made it along the board. Since it is a third through fifth grade class, the third graders don’t finish everything during the week and so don’t get the bigger prize…a beanie baby or webkins type toy. Her daughter that volunteers with her said it is hard not to help the “little ones” but that her mother is adamant they earn their rewards. She says that it keeps the kids wanting to come back because they have something to earn, something to look forward to. It shows them how they have grown and she has years of exciting kids and youth that prove she is doing something right. What I appreciated the most was that she had simple decorations and activities that allowed for small modifications each year to fit the theme but that allowed for her to really focus on the content she was teaching. I also appreciated that she came into VBS looking at the longer view of discipleship. She builds her program on a longer relationship with the kids and with the content.

I hope these have been helpful. Again, I’d love to hear from you. What great ideas have you tried?

Next week, I’ll be writing a post talking about the other side of VBS. Including some good questions I heard while visiting. VBS is not working for everyone and I want to encourage some dialogue in our churches about the purpose and intent of VBS.  “Tune in” again here for the start of that conversation.