Jena Kolles started going to Vacation Bible School at St. Paul in Ham Lake before the current church was built in the early 1980s. The 44-year-old mother of four now co-leads the program, which took place Aug. 7-11 and annually serves more than 400 kids.
When asked what she remembers most about attending as a child, she provided a quick and enthusiastic response.
“I remember being a 5-year-old in Vacation Bible School, sitting there listening to the music,” Kolles said. “And, they were singing, ‘Oh, how he loves you and me.’”
This song about God’s love was made personal to the kids by the woman leading the music. As she sang the words, she looked at individual children in the crowd and inserted their names. At one point, she looked at Kolles and sang, “Oh, how he loves Jena.”
“I’ll never forget sitting there going, ‘She saw me, and I’m loved,’” Kolles recalled. “That … has always remained fresh as one of my favorite VBS memories.”
It also fueled her involvement in a program that is a cornerstone of ministry in the parish. After going every year as a child, she volunteered as a teenager and then kept helping as an adult. For the last 15 years, she and her husband, Shawn, have been co-directors. All four of their children have attended, and her two oldest, Jacinta and Amara, have served as volunteers.
This kind of family legacy is exactly what parish leaders, including the pastor, Father Jim Livingston, want to see. It started for Jena, the oldest of four, when her parents, Gary and Sandy Perkerwicz, volunteered during the early years. Both still help today.
“My mom and dad were really instrumental in Vacation Bible School,” Jena said. “They did a piece called Catholic Academy, which is just dear to my heart. It was: How do you make the faith come alive in a fun, visual, memorable way? And so, our living room was filled with props and balloons and all kinds of fun silliness for a week.”
The program is offered for children ages 4 through the start of seventh grade (child care is offered for infants and toddlers). Many of those children turn around and become volunteers. Some remain permanent fixtures of VBS. One of the two original co-directors, Mary Jo Weinreis, 74, is still going. She and Trudy Swanson started the program in 1983, which launched at a nearby church in Blaine, Faithful Shepherd, before St. Paul had its own church. They approached Father Tim Nolan, the founding pastor of St. Paul, and he gave them the green light.
The two co-led the program for eight years before handing it off to others. Weinreis took the next year off to give the new leaders a chance to establish themselves, then came back to help out. She hasn’t missed a year since. All three of her children and all eight of her grandchildren have gone to VBS at St. Paul.
“I love it,” she said. “I just love the people here. I love youth; I love the vitality that they have. I love watching them when they get those ‘Aha moments’ when things click. There’s just nothing (more) that can be said about the energy that’s here. It keeps you young, keeps you going. And, I love kids. I worked in elementary school for 33 years, so I just love kids. I just think that they are our future and someone’s got to be there to help lead them.”
One thing that distinguishes VBS at St. Paul is the emphasis on young volunteers and placing them in meaningful roles. This year, there were 250 volunteers overall serving about 450 kids. Many of the volunteers are teens, some just one year removed from being participants. This is how the parish works against the modern cultural trend of young people leaving the Church in their teens and 20s.
“They say that people make a decision to leave the Church when they’re 13 years old, on the average,” Father Livingston said. “That’s when they start checking out mentally, if not physically if they’re able. On the other hand, we have 13-year-olds here who are investing in the faith. They are investing in community. They’re creating memories and positive friendships.”
This experience creates what he calls the “antidote” to what’s happening in the secular culture all across the country. He knows how fruitful the VBS experience is when he talks to people years later.
“I interview couples for marriage (preparation),” said Father Livingston, who has been the pastor at St. Paul for the last seven years. “And, whenever there is a young woman or a young man who has been part of this parish (during childhood), I ask them all the time: Tell me about your spiritual life. Tell me about your faith life. What was it like for you as a kid? What’s it like for you now? What’s made the difference? … The ones who are from here, they’ll always say, ‘I went to VBS.’”
At least one religious vocation has come from the program. Paulette Kostick, 58, has sent all eight of her children to VBS. Her third is now a member of Pro Ecclesia Sancta, a religious community founded in Peru with men and women serving in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. That child, Sister Teresa Kostick, who’s in her second year in the Pro Ecclesia Sancta community, still remembers and praises VBS at St. Paul and hopes to incorporate some of that in other parishes.
Paulette remembers a recent conversation she had with Sister Teresa about VBS after both had seen a Facebook video post on the parish website. It stirred some nostalgia and reflections about what the program meant in her formation and path to a religious vocation.
“She (Sister Teresa) said, ‘I just praised God for my upbringing, to have this as the environment that I was raised in, so I can proclaim the good news of the Lord,’” said Paulette, who noted that Sister Teresa is now helping with VBS at a parish where she serves in the archdiocese. “And, that’s where she saw her vocation. It was through Father Tim, but she said she just realized God allowed her to be part of this parish and to participate in Vacation Bible School… so she could go out and reach out to these kids.”
Getting kids into VBS can, in turn, bring their parents in, which has ended up being an effective evangelization tool, leaders said. Kostick noted that one of her daughters is a nanny and brought children she was caring for to VBS, along with other children in the neighborhood. That, in turn, leads to the children “coming home and bringing the faith to the home,” she said.
“VBS is so accessible, it’s such a great on-ramp” into a faith experience, said Jena Kolles, who works at the parish as director of family catechesis. It facilitates “learning about God in a very fun, easy, beautiful way.”
Another notable part of the program, which volunteers spend months preparing, is that everything is home-grown — material for the classes, skits written and produced by volunteers as young as incoming seventh graders, and a learning center complete with craft and education stations that look like theater sets. There’s even what is casually referred to as a “trombone trio” of Father Livingston, Shawn Kolles, who has a background in music and coaxed the pastor into picking up this horn again, and Brian Cox, youth ministry program coordinator. They play a couple numbers every morning, with kids singing and even marching to the music. The routine features a grand entrance and exit by Father Livingston, who comes in from the back and gives low-fives to children on his way up and down the pews, taking his time and beaming all the way.
“It just makes my heart sing,” he said of VBS, which takes place from 9 to 11:45 a.m. Monday through Friday, with a special Thursday evening program that is open to parents of participants. “Parish life is liturgy on Sunday, yes, but it’s community as well, and a community that is bonded by experiences of faith. These teenagers (who volunteer) don’t want to leave at the end of the morning. They’re just hanging around. They just want to be here. So, it truly makes my heart sing to be with them, to be part of this experience. … As a pastor, it feels like this is just a happy place to be.”
Marissa Furness, 39, has six children and all were present at VBS this year, two as volunteers and the rest as participants. She was there all week, too, as a teacher for kindergarten-aged children.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful week,” she said. “Best week of the year. It’s so much work and so much volunteer time, but it is worth every second of work to put this on. … It’s just a beautiful, beautiful time to grow closer to Jesus.”
