Against All Odds: Lifeway VBS During A Crisis in India

Susan Narjala

Pulling off VBS for 700 children is a daunting challenge for most churches. Pulling off VBS for 700 children in the midst of community upheaval is not just challenging, it is practically impossible.

But Anima Panmei and her team from Tamenglong Bible Church in Manipur, a state in northeast India, managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible in June 2023.

This was Anima’s first year as Children’s Ministry Director at the church. She expected obstacles of course, but perhaps not trials of this intensity.

Just one month prior to the VBS, community conflicts had begun to erupt between two ethnic groups in the state of Manipur. While the situation was fairly contained in early June, when the VBS was held, people in the area were on edge. The government suspended the internet in the entire state leaving everyone in a communications dark hole. Colleges and schools in the state capital were shut. In some regions, neighbors began turning against each other.

In the town of Tamenglong the situation remained relatively peaceful, but not having access to the internet was a huge obstacle to the team organizing the VBS.

“We had requested Lifeway India for the soft copies of the Destination Dig VBS material. But because of the internet ban in the state, it was very difficult to get access to it,” recalls Anima.

This was the church’s fourth year running the Lifeway VBS program. They didn’t want this year to pass by without the children learning solid Biblical truths through VBS.

With the help of contacts at government offices—where internet connections were still functional—the organizing team was able to download the syllabus and teaching material just in time.

But the challenges didn’t end there.

With 200 volunteers and 50 teachers across three campuses of the church, communicating without access to the internet proved an uphill task. But the organizers went old school and began making phone calls so the entire team could be on the same page.

Next came the printing of VBS-themed t-shirts. Again, they encountered roadblocks—quite literally. Stores had pulled down their shutters for fear of impending violence. Volunteers needed to travel to the neighboring state of Nagaland to print t-shirts when normally they would have had to travel a mile or two for the same task.

The only aspect of the VBS that seemed to go according to schedule was the music. “We were able to download the music from the Destination Dig VBS pretty early, before the internet ban,” says Anima, adding that the team of 40 musicians, singers, and choreographers spent a month preparing before the start of VBS.

Despite the detours, Anima believes that God used the Lifeway curriculum, the stories, the music, and the games to bless not only the 700 children, but the 200 volunteers as well.

As it happened, many of the volunteers were college students who were home for the summer. But because of the political crisis, these students couldn’t return to their college campuses in the state capital. “Many college-going students helped us in the music team, with games, getting things which were needed, and making refreshments. Volunteering at VBS definitely helped get them out of the cycle of depression that they found themselves in,” says Anima.

The efforts of the team paid off. For one week, from 9 am to 3 pm, 700 children across three campuses of the church braved the monsoons to unearth the truth about Jesus at Destination Dig.

In the months that followed the VBS at Tamenglong Bible Church, the tensions in Manipur escalated. By mid-August 2023, an estimated 160 people had reportedly been killed, mostly from the primarily Christian Kuki ethnic community. Thousands had been displaced. More than 200 churches had been burned down.

Yet, in the midst of this chaos, there was hope in knowing that 700 little hearts had already been grounded in truth thanks to what they learned at Lifeway’s Destination Dig VBS.

Lifeway continues to serve churches worldwide through VBS. This year, a collaborative team from the Global Innovation Office, Lifeway India, and the Lifeway Kids team is working together to release a Global VBS along with VBS in the US.

Ashish Thomas, Director of the Global Innovation Office, expressed his enthusiasm about the upcoming project, saying, “We are so excited that the Breaker Rock Beach VBS will be released this year. This is not just a pared-down VBS; it is a VBS contextualized for global markets. We are thrilled to see VBS reach even more people across various nations.”

The VBS at Tamenglong points out that we can never grasp the impact Lifeway’s VBS curriculum has on a community. In their rocky situation, these students, teachers, and volunteers, could stand firm on the solid truths that they uncovered during “Destination Dig.” The Lifeway team can’t wait to see how Breaker Rock  Beach VBS will impact children across the world in the years ahead.