Corin Watt greeted guests as they arrived for the recent Vacation Bible School at Christ’s Church at Lowhill.

As the theme for VBS was ROAR, the church was filled with animals both upstairs and downstairs.

The wooden animals were made by Watt’s brother-in-law, Roy Pickering, of New York.

Stuffed animals were brought to the church by the children, pictures were cut out from a large sheet of paper, and trees were purchased from Oriental Trading.

Giraffes and rhinos, camels and elephants, and the master of them all, the lion, decorated the church and were part of the program.

Watt said 18 kids were attending this year’s VBS.

There were games, a story time, music and crafts. Each night, a full meal was served, not only for the children but for parents, too.

On Friday night, there was a family meal with extended family members invited to attend.

The youngsters sang in the sanctuary then returned to fellowship hall to have ice cream with their families.

Dave Hedglin, sitting in the audience, said to everyone as they came in, “Welcome to the jungle.”

A character named, Irwin, then entered the sanctuary with his walking stick.

“I miss Gregory,” Irwin said. “He is the best thing in the whole world.”

He had known Gregory as a baby that had been brought to a refuge with a hurt foot.

Pastor Chris Cocca said even when people are sad, just as Irwin was, God is still good.

“Jesus died for us and for three days his friends were sad, but then he came back to life. God is good,” Cocca said.

Irwin then said he thought he heard Gregory and maybe he has some ants for him, as ants are Gregory’s favorite food.

The children sang “I’m trusting you and where you take me I’ll follow,” with Amy Cocca leading the singing.

Pastor Cocca then led a game of “Simon Says,” giving instructions such as: “Be an elephant with a waving trunk; be a unicorn with a fist-made horn; make yourself big like an African buffalo and make a big circle with your arms and be the sunshine rising over the African savanna, but the most excitement came when they were monkeys.

When Simon did not tell them what to do, they did not perform the command.

A video about Lions was shown. The children learned he is king of the jungle but Jesus is stronger.

There were other animal stories on the video for other nights of the ROAR VBS.