‘Things would burst to life around him!’
Written by Jamie Fox
The focus of Pembina Valley Interpretive Centre’s most recent Creation Kids Day Camp was on understanding God’s love of all creation. We did this by imagining what it would be like for God to go on a walk through a forest, drawing on the idea that God would go for walks in the Garden of Eden.
The group imagined that God would notice the community of plants and animals in the forest and know the names and characteristics of each organism. They imagined creation would be in better shape after God walked by. They imagined that creation would respond in thankfulness and praise and we talked about how the sounds of nature – birdsongs, rustling leaves, babbling water, chipmunks’ chatter – can be thought of as an invitation to join in on creation’s worship of God.
To imitate the way we thought God would experience a forest walk, we did some activities to help us look closely at nature. We compared our wingspans to the wingspans of the most common birds-of-prey that travel through the valley, used paint samples to look for unexpected colours, renamed animals, made sound maps, collected different types of leaves, and played nature bingo.
In the afternoon our Summer Staff, Sam Goertzen, led the group through an imaginative survival activity where we were a group of picnic goers who got swept up by a tornado and dropped in an unfamiliar land. We then had to survive and thrive by depending on the gifts of creation in the forest, prairie, and pond. We built shelter, gathered food, made rope out of cattails, and started a fire. This activity also helped us to look more closely at the nature around us and recognize that we depend on creation for many of our needs.
The kids finished the day having thoroughly explored and enjoyed the Pembina Valley. They came out of it with a new perspective on nature and a renewed desire to notice and understand more about creation.
The next Creation Kids Day Camp at PVIC will be coming up on August 15th and the activities for this session will focus on finding and understanding insects. Please contact Jamie Fox to register by phone at 204.479.8217 or by email.
