God is Omnipresent

After three rather dismal Sundays attendance-wise, things were cooking again today with seven families attending. Mrs. Chu led the Bible story for the first time and did a good job. It's HARD for me to keep my fingers out of the pie, though. I want to "help" by having the props ready, and then if the story-teller doesn't remember them right away I jump in and "interfere." This "training leaders" stuff isn't as easy as it sounds! I hope I can learn to keep my hands off & just encourage.

Once again, I did need to write the story in Chinese, as below. From I Kings 20, it tells about how King Ben-Hadad thought that they had failed in the siege of Samaria because "their God is a god of the hills, and if we fight them on the plain, then we will win." Wrong, Ben-Hadad!

以色列歷史上一個國王叫亞哈。他不是很好的王﹐但神往往祝福他。	戴冠冕
他住在以色列首都撒馬利亞﹔首都有城牆	兩張臺﹔亞哈和幾個以色列人後面
亞哈的時代﹐亞蘭的國王叫便哈達。他很惡﹐也很驕傲。	戴冠冕
便哈達的軍隊已經有段時間圍攻撒馬利亞。有一天﹐他差使者到城裏﹐對亞哈說﹕明天便哈達會差幾位臣僕來搜查你的家﹔他們喜歡甚麼﹐你要讓他們取甚麼。	戴白色旗到城﹐開書卷來讀。 說完就走。
亞哈覺得無奈。但有一個先對他說﹐不要懼怕。神應承你﹐他會把便哈達的軍隊交給你手。但不要等到明天﹔要現在出去。	穿紅色外衣
那時候﹐便哈達的自信心大到他在自己棚裏休息﹐飲酒。	用酒瓶扮飲酒
亞哈的軍隊出來的時﹐一位使者給便哈達知﹐但便哈達不了解﹐說﹕不方便見他們﹐不如問他們是甚麼事。	使者去見便哈達﹔便哈達趕他走
原來他們出來打破亞蘭軍隊﹗他們打死很多人﹐但便哈達騎馬逃走。	2-3個軍人用檢打人﹔便哈達騎馬逃走
那位先知再次見亞哈﹐說﹕因為便哈達還未死﹐你要準備﹐出年春天必要再打仗。	先知再來見亞哈
便哈達和他的謀士在蘭現在計劃怎樣打破以色列。便哈達說﹕我知道我們為甚麼失敗。即是因為我們在撒馬利亞打仗。以色列的神在那裏幫助他們﹔他管理山區。我們的神乃是管理沙漠和平地。所以﹐我們只需要在平地打仗﹐就必得勝﹗哈﹗哈﹗	便哈達和2-3個人一齊坐 他說完計劃﹐個個一齊歡呼
現在就是春天。	帶花入來
便哈達和他的新軍隊開始在近亞蘭的以色列鄉村打仗﹐以色列軍隊要出來。	一齊用檢打不近亞哈的人。他們哎救命。以色列軍隊也帶檢出來
便哈達很開心﹐以為現在必得勝。但﹐有沒有﹖	問大家
沒有。以色列打破亞蘭軍隊﹐用鐵鏈綁著便哈達帶他回撒馬利亞。	所有亞蘭人坐低。以色列軍人綁便哈達﹐帶他去撒馬利亞。
便哈達不得勝﹐因為耶和華是神﹐不但在以色列國﹐乃是 {無所不在} 的神	指示{無所不在}﹔大家一齊讀。

The moral of the story was "No matter where you go, God is there." So for our game, we had a magnetic fishpond game, with the parallel statement, "No matter which fish you catch, you still get a prize." I took pictures of all the plastic fish & put them on a poster with the names of different fruits next to each one. So as each child caught a fish, he/she then had to compare it with the poster & determine what snack they got—from one of six different jars of cut-up fruit. We played several rounds & I think some of the kids would have been happy to play all morning. But we had to move on to craft time, sorry! Here I cheated big time. I really didn't want to get into how Ahab had blown it by letting Ben-Hadad go, after all this. So while I didn't re-write history to the point of having Ben-Hadad killed, I had him brought to Samaria in chains. I crocheted a "chain" out of gray yarn for the prop, and so craft time involved teaching the kids to crochet a simple chain. I was surprised and pleased by how one of our more belligerent boys really concentrated on this—apparently he's been taught it before at his sheltered workshop but still needs some help, so he was going to see if he could master it this time. He did pretty well. A fun twist on the craft time was having one mom and one grandma demonstrate two different ways of "chaining" using only their fingers; no hooks! And their chains looked more like chains than mine did! Wish I'd known before preparing for the story, ha!

Bible study was on Psalm 139:7-12. Mr. Lei led & I was out with the kids so didn't hear how it went, but he was pleased with the discussion. Including two exciting "testimonies" from one mother who has not yet declared herself a believer. In fact, last time we specifically talked to her about it, she said it was all just interesting stories to her. But lately she has been bringing her elderly mother back and forth to a hospital in Hong Kong for cancer treatments. She shared about her mother being in a room with a mentally handicapped person whose Christian family was visiting constantly and showing a lot of love and care for her. "Only Christians have that much love for their handicapped family members," she said. (This in spite of her own rather good example of care for her son…!) She also reported that she had asked her mother if worshipping her idols all these years had done her any good now that she's sick. Mr. Lei didn't report the grandmother's answer, but that Mrs. Liu would dare to challenge her mother on this point is amazing enough! She is obviously really thinking about where the truth lies.

Bruce and I leave for vacation tomorrow, and we are looking forward to the break. Not from the kids—I was just thinking this morning, I've heard of some schoolteachers who don't want to teach children's Sunday School after teaching all week. And I can understand that, and yet, my thoughts this morning while walking to church were, "I am so lucky! I not only get to work with these kids all week, I get to work with them on Sunday too!" But I won't miss the pressure of preparing the lessons for a couple of weeks. Kevin Hui is now a student at Macau Bible Institute, and is assigned to visit various churches this quarter, but was able to arrange to be at Merciful Love next Sunday so he will be preparing & leading "God is Omnipotent" all on his own. We will be back in time for the following Sunday, but for that day we will just have an all-church picnic in a local park. We'll sing our most familiar songs and play some favorite games from the past two years at Merciful Love. We will be able to bring in the gospel by reminding everyone what Bible story/spiritual truth each game relates to. Hopefully the relaxed atmosphere & environment where the kids can run around freely, will give us a better chance for individual conversations with some of the adults. Mrs. Liu especially. Please, Lord, let the weather cooperate!