Charles City’s First Baptist Church holds in-person VBS

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Coping with coronavirus restrictions has been a bit of a test, but Vacation Bible School has still been a fun and rewarding experience this week, leaders at First Baptist Church in Charles City said.

“We have a few lower numbers than we’ve had in the past, and as far as having the masks and everything it’s been a little bit of a challenge, but we’re still having fun and enjoying VBS,” said Sandy Pleggenkuhle.

Diane Souder said she thinks the First Baptist Church may be one of the few or the only church in the area to be offering an in-person summertime Bible school session.

People attending the sessions Monday through Friday this week are greeted at the entrance to the church with hand sanitizer and face masks.

“We’re taking temperatures, social distancing, everything we can,” Souder said.

Pleggenkuhle said Wednesday evening that the largest group of kids they had so far that week had been 17. They went into the week prepared to limit the number of attendees if necessary to keep a low ratio of adults to kids.

“We just kind of spread everybody out so we have no more than about five per adult,” Pleggenkuhle said.

“We use the hand sanitizer quite a bit in between the different activities that we do. If they’re outside without masks then we have to really socially distance at that point,” she said. “We’re just trying our best to do all those things.”

Pleggenkuhle said that despite the challenges it was turning out to be a good week.

“We have a craft, we have some games, Bible study, missions, and then we have our music as well,” she said. “We’re just delivering God’s word.”