EVERETT — In an upstairs classroom on Thursday morning, boys and girls crowded around a 10-foot table where Dr. Patricia Rees, a surgeon, was dissecting a foot-long baby shark.
It was a day of science at Bethany Christian Assembly in Everett, where the children at vacation Bible school learned about God by cutting out a shark’s eye.
Two large screens displayed Rees’ work in giant detail. All eyes were focused on the dark brown flesh splayed out on the table.
“Can we cut him open a little more?” one boy asked.
With her scalpel, Rees cut slowly into the skin around the shark’s eye.
“Here’s his eyeball. See,” she said, tapping with the knife. “Let’s cut into the eyeball and I’ll show you the lens.”
Then she pulled out a small brown, gooey eyeball.
The six boys and three girls who had been leaning in closest, chins and elbows on the table, stepped back.
“Oooh,” they said.
During four mornings, roughly 300 children, of preschool through fifth grade ages, took part in daily science experiments, crafts, games, a video presentation and a Bible lesson — all to learn about how a belief in Jesus Christ could help them learn to be thankful, brave and to help others.
The science experiments were led by volunteers from the community who also attend Bethany.
Dr. Michael Chun, a neurologist, brought human organs — a heart, a lung, a liver and a brain — for his talk about how people are “wonderfully made by God.”
Fenton Rees, an electrical engineer, demonstrated the physics of lightning. The experiment involved electricity and a loud bang.
Each day, the children started out in the chapel, where they sang and rocked to songs about Jesus, and came forward to drop coins in the offering buckets. Then, they broke up into small groups and headed off to one of five activity stations set up around the church.
It was a high-energy week that wrapped up Thursday night with kids bringing friends and family along to play in one of three bounce houses and to eat popcorn, cotton candy, hot dogs and hamburgers.
During the closing program, the kids learned they had raised $794.58 for the BGMC mission, a program for children in the Assemblies of God churches that provides resources to help teach kids about missions, said Bethany’s senior pastor Rob Carlson.
As summer moves into high gear, scenes such as the one at Bethany are being repeated at churches from Lynnwood to Sultan. With themes such as Friendship Trek, God’s Big Back Yard and The Son Harvest County Fair, the programs are an annual highlight for many churches.
They might not include sharks’ eyeballs, but the Bible programs are a gargantuan endeavor. Churches usually purchase a curriculum such as the Power Lab program used by Bethany. They create their own activities, props and other materials. They also must recruit and train volunteers.
At Bethany, a team of about 220 volunteers started work in January to get ready for the four-day program, said Lisa Carlson, Bethany’s children’s ministries team leader.
Bethany’s volunteers created the full-color stage props, science experiments and skits and blew up hundreds of balloons. They also taught classes, cooked food, set up chairs and tables and took them all down at the end. Carlson ordered the shark for Thursday’s science experiment off the Internet from a home-school science company.
“All the kids have heard a clear message of the gospel,” Carlson said. That included roughly 90 children who had never attended Bethany.
“We put a lot into making the program meaningful. It’s a very fun and intense four days,” said Susan Edgerton, a Bethany member for the past nine years who helped with the preschool group.
Games, crafts and the shark’s eyeballs got the children in the door. It’s the Biblical message Edgerton hopes the kids will remember.
Reporter Leita Hermanson Crossfield, 425-339-3449 or lcrossfield@heraldnet.com.
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