1/6/08 | widow of Nain | sit-ups | maze & word-find | Luke 7: 11-17 |
1/13/08 | woman with issue of blood | picking pockets | photo frames | Mark 5: 25-35 |
1/20/08 | woman caught in adultery | throwing words | writing in soil (clay) | John 8: 2-11 |
1/27/08 | anointing Jesus | pouring into jars | painting glass jars | Mark 14:1-9 |
2/3/08 | Mary Magdalene & risen Christ | recognizing "master" | craft-stick butterflies | John 20 (various) |
2/10/08 | Chinese New Year free talk & play | -- | -- | -- |
2/17/08 | woman at the well | drinking living water | cross bookmarks | Heb. 4: 15-16 |
2/24/08 | Syrophoenician woman | grabbing at crumbs | t.p. roll dogs | I Pet. 5: 6-7 |
3/2/08 | Mary & Martha | table setting race | napkin folding | Luke 10:38-42 |
3/9/08 | mother of sons of Zebedee | servants at R. & L. hands | latex glove balloon faces | Matt. 20: 24-28 |
3/16/08 | widow's mite | throwing gifts into treasury | treasure banks | God's grading system |
3/23/08 | Pilate's wife | matching "dream" pictures | ribbon & clothespin crosses | Phil. 2: 6-11 |
3/30/08 | Damons' farewell | -- | -- | -- |
The Bible studies for the first five weeks of this unit were lifted pretty much straight from the IVP Bible study "Jesus Cares for Women," which is the best evangelistic study book I've EVER seen. Actually that was what inspired this whole unit 4A-B!
I knew our non-thrower-non-kneeler was going to have trouble doing the "find your way to Jesus" maze for the first week. He has a lot of perceptual issues. So what I did with his maze was to build up all the areas around the one correct path, with about ¼ inch of extra paper. So all he had to do was to get his pencil at the start and keep going in whatever direction he didn't bump into a wall. Eventually he did get there, but it was still hard for him! All the other kids did well. The word-find, which I found on the internet, I threw in just to see how the kids would do with them, since most of them have learned the English alphabet at school. It was too hard for some of them, though—but the parents, who had never seen such a puzzle before, were quite fascinated and more than happy to complete the puzzles for them!
For the resurrection game, we held up a large sheet and each child was supposed to find his own mother/caregiver by feeling all the adults through the sheet. But one tall boy kept cheating and pulling the sheet down to look. I guess we needed taller people to hold the sheet up!
The table setting race was a really great game. The kids would take one piece of paper at a time with the name of a place-setting on it (plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife, napkin & bud vase) & then go put it on their assigned placemat. Fun and educational at the same time!
Well…the last Sunday of March was our farewell party, and so two days later we took off for our home assignment. A young man from the mother church, Kevin Hui, who had been interning with us for the past year, has been in charge while we were gone. He has been doing a great job. Attendance is stable and even up! And he has helped our Christian parents to get more involved in leading the activities. That is truly exciting; I hope I don't cause things to go backwards after our return.
Recently Kevin sent us a list of the parables of Jesus they have been learning over these three months. As soon as I find out what the game or craft was for each session (we agreed that they could choose just one to have each week rather than both, since creating those are the most time-consuming), I will post that chart.