By J.A. Dunn

MIDDLEBURG — When the Vacation Bible School material Judy Edie examined didn’t have what she wanted she and church member Tracey Jones created their own.

Edie, children’s ministry coordinator at Middleburg United Methodist Church, decided to highlight diversity for the children in the predominately Anglo congregation.

Each day from June 23-27 the children examined the people and culture of five countries. Edie and Jones selected chapters and verses from the Bible to go with each country.

The countries studied were Cuba, Angola, Eleuthera—an island in the Bahamas that has experienced several harsh hurricanes, Ukraine and the United States.

“I just wanted to show the kids all around the world that the world needs Jesus and in small ways we could help them,” Edie said. “Even at their age, we wanted to show them that’s it’s important we do things for other people, whatever that may be.”

Edie said the 46 children who attended the event were happy to go on the Biblical trek around the globe.

In addition to learning new things about new places, there were equal opportunities for the children to have fun. They made greetings cards saying “Jesus Loves You” for Cuban children, hosted guest speakers who came to share information about the countries covered during the week, participated in a contest to raise money for “Christian World Newspaper,” and toured the United Methodist Children’s Home.

All of the events were designed so the children could begin to understand there is a large world outside their church, city, state or even country, Edie said.

“We wanted to open their eyes to other types of people,” she said. “We wanted them to know God loves them all.”

Edie said sharing God’s love is something adults can tap into, as well as the children.