God is Holy

This is another one of those times when the story was a little bit of a stretch. Achan's story is meant to bring out the point that God's holiness means we can't be casual in our obedience to Him. (Anybody have a better story idea?)

I'm slow with posting because it is actually more work for me to post in English than in Chinese! If it's in Chinese characters, it's because I wrote it that way in the first place, for one of the Chinese to lead it, so it's all ready to post. But if I lead the story myself, like I did this past Sunday, then it's written in phonetic Chinese spelling, which nobody but missionaries and language teachers can read. So I have to rewrite it in order to post. Okay, done that. Here it is:

We remember that it was Moses who brought Israel out of Egypt, but he died before they got into the promised land. The job of bringing Israel in fell on Joshua's shoulders.	Introduce Joshua
First they had to cross the Jordan river. Once they were in the land, they encountered the city of Jericho, which had a high and thick wall.	all cross blue line held 6" high. Pull out sofa to center of room, label it Jericho, have several adults sitting on it & "goodie bag" in one corner.
But Joshua was not afraid. God had already promised him that if the army marched around the city every day for seven days, & seven times the last day, then when he blew the trumpet, the wall would fall down. Then they could go in and destroy it. But God commanded them saying, be sure you destroy everything in it. Don't let anyone get greedy and keep any of it. Okay, now it is the 7th day…	give horn to Joshua, swords to soldiers. March seven times around sofa. J. blows horn, soldiers "kill" adults on sofa. Throw orange & yellow paper shreds over to "burn" city.
Success! But there was this guy Achan. While he was in the city, he saw some precious things that he just couldn't destroy: a beautiful cloth, 20 silver coins, and a gold bar.	introduce Achan. He takes mantle, silver coins, and gold bar out of goodie bag.
He took these things and hid them under the floor of his tent.	opens storeroom, uses large spatula to "dig up" floor, places goodies inside.
Before long, Israel needed to go up against another city, called Ai.	push sofa back against wall, change name to Ai
Joshau figured this city was going to be a lot easier to take than Ai. But when the army went up against it, they were routed! And many of their soldiers were killed!	Joshua & soldiers attack "Ai"; adults suddenly have swords and start chasing them
Joshau didn't know what to do. He knelt before the Lord and wept, asking the Lord to explain what was wrong, why He hadn't given them victory.	Joshua kneels, cries.
God said to him, why blame me? It's Israel that has done the wrong! Someone in the camp has stolen things I commanded to be destroyed. Don't you know I am a holy God? You can't serve me just any old way you feel like!	angel flies in, naauhs Joshua, drags him up & pushes him away.
Joshua calls all Israel together to see who has sinned against God and their fellow Israelites. He writes all their names down, and asks God to show him which name is that guilty party's.	Joshua asks each child his/her name. Acts out writing each name & dropping paper into bag. Finally takes out one paper & says: "A-Gon"!
Joshua tells Acan to be honest. He admits that he took the things, and that they are under the floor of his tent. Joshua sends some people to look—and there they are.	Achan steps forward, pulls ears. J. sends 1-2 boys to "dig" in floor of storeroom; they come back with goodies.
Joshua praises Achan for admitting his sin, but says that in order to restore Israel's relationship with God, they had to punish him. So they stoned him.	Everyone throws paper wads at Achan.
This time when Israil attacked Ai, they won.	kids take swords, go back to sofa & fight unresisting adults.

Game: finding buried treasure. For each child (they were supposed to wait in line and take turns), we buried a piece of cloth, a silver coin, and a piece of gold-wrapped chocolate in a basin full of shredded newspaper. One example of each of these was posted on a card to tell the kids what they had to find. When they found all three things, they could eat the chocolate. I thought this was going to be too easy, but it was HARD. Especially finding the cloth, which didn't sink to the bottom and, blended in too well with the printed paper. If we play this game again, we should use maybe a plain, bright-red cloth for it to stand out better.

Craft: we made our own beautiful cloths by sewing some pretty ribbon along one edge of a washcloth, so it looked like a fancy guest towel.

Bible study was on Ezekiel 36:18-36. It was tough and too deep, I'm afraid, but I just couldn't find a better passage. Most of what I found in my search for a study passage on God's holiness emphasized not offending His holiness by worshipping idols. The idol worshippers in our midst, however, do not yet know the true God like Israel was supposed to. I felt they needed to understand God's holiness more than they needed to be told not to offend it. I liked the Ezekiel passage because it looked at God's holiness from a couple of different angles. First, it mentions the Israelites offending His holiness by their sin. Then, it talks about how the nations got a wrong impression of God when they saw the punishment, offending His holiness by their assumption that Israel was in exile because their God wasn't great enough to protect them. So God vindicated His holiness by restoring the people to their land after their punishment was complete. I closed by a reference (I John 2:1-2) to the way God vindicates His holiness by punishing our sin in Christ so He is free to forgive us. It went over the parents' heads, I'm afraid.

Part of the problem was that Bruce was gone that morning, preaching and leading communion at the mother church. Somehow, things go better when he is there, even when he isn't directly leading anything. Both the kids and the adults show him more respect, I think totally unconsciously. I'm too "fun." Sigh.