Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if as a child you had been taught the truths you learned through The Ultimate Journey?

Last fall a group of moms who had gone through The Ultimate Journey decided they wanted these same principles to take hold in their kids’ lives. They contacted Kathie Hobson to bounce the idea off her, and together they had a brainstorming session to identify what principles they thought would be most important to teach children, and how they could do that.

The result was Kingdom Kids Camp, a week-long Vacation Bible School (VBS) which focused on learning about The Gardener (God).  To help learn the nature and care of The Gardener, the kids at Harvest Vineyard Church in Ames, Iowa, became “detectives for truth” who were investigating The Gardener to learn why His seeds grew so well compared to other seeds that weren’t under His care.

“The kids took part in the investigation to find out more about The Gardener. In the process, they learned more about seeds and what they need,” Kathie says. As they learned about The Gardener, the kids also learned that they are special and, like seeds, that they are full of potential with everything in them that is needed to succeed and bear good fruit in their lives.  They learned that they can garden themselves by siding with The Gardner and telling themselves the truth, and that they don’t have to agree with the negative things other people say about them.  “It was also about not comparing yourself to others or having your worth and value determined by your gifts and talents, but rather just in who you are,” Kathie says.  “Good enough is not something you need to become.  It is a state of being.” (Click here to watch a two minute video from the Kingdom Kids Camp VBS.)

Jess Owens, one of the mom’s helping with this project said, “Our desire in creating this curriculum was for our children to hear these truths and begin to believe what God says about them before the enemy can tell them differently. We want our kids to know that God made them to be exactly who they are and that they already have everything they need in order to be the person God created them to be.”

The program had a positive impact on parents as well as children. One of the moms helping out at Kids’ Camp commented, “I’m going to sign up for Phase 1  because if this is what my kids are getting, I want this too.”

Kathie is excited about the opportunity to do “preventive” care with children.  “Our inability to deal with our emotions is a lot of why we have issues when we’re older, so we’re teaching these skills to kids when they’re young.”

As a next step, the women who helped create Kingdom Kids Camp will be helping to put the curriculum into a user-friendly format that other churches can use for their own VBS.  This exciting new curriculum should be available through Christ-Life Ministries for use next summer.  This material could also be adapted to use as a five-week series for children’s church.

If you’re interested in using the curriculum next summer for your Vacation Bible School, contact Kathie Hobson at kathie@theultimatejourney.org.

In our next newsletter, Kathie will share about a new upcoming workshop she has been developing for parents called “Gardening Your Children: Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids.”