The Gift of the Holy Spirit

We jumped from Easter to Pentecost, to begin a series in Acts. Our story for Sunday the 19th:

40 days after Jesus rose from the dead, he went back to heaven. He told His disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit to come and give them power to witness for Him. Now it's been another 10 days	(all count to 40, then to 10)
It's a big Jewish holiday. Jews from many different countries have come to Jerusalem to celebrate	give flags from different countries to adults
But Jesus' disciples are afraid to join them for fear of being arrested. They are staying inside and praying, waiting for the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised.	all kids kneel to pray
Suddenly there is the sound of a big wind	turn on ceiling fan to high
and they see what looks like fire come down and settle on everyone's heads!	sprinkle orange paper shreds on all heads
But not only on their heads—it's as if they have fire in their hearts, too! Suddenly they're not afraid any more, and they want to go out and tell everyone about Jesus.	They get up, show their muscles
But all these people out there are speaking all different languages. How will they communicate? Something really wild happened—they opened their mouths to preach, and it came out in the language of whatever person they were talking to at the time!	have slips of paper with "Jesus has risen, just as He said" printed in languages of adults' flags. Match flags on paper with adults' flags to give it to them while saying "Jesus is risen"
The people listening are amazed! They start discussing this with each other—and forget to listen to the message!	the adults all huddle together
Finally, Peter gets up and gets everyone's attention	one boy as Peter stands on stool
In a loud voice, he begins to preach: "Jesus has risen from the dead" "The blood of Christ can cleanse all of our sin" "God loves you and wants to have a close relationship with you" "Trust in Jesus and receive eternal life"	Have each sentence on a banner. Have one child put up each banner on the board as Peter reads or says that sentence.
All the people around are thrilled at the message. They want to know what they need to do next. Peter says: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."	This verse also put up on board
Lots and lots of people believed that day. The disciples kept track of how many	Have one child bring clipboard around room for all to sign
When they added it all up, how many were there?	Underneath signature sheet on clipboard are sheets with numbers 500, 700, 600, 800, & 400. Have children copy these one by one on board, one child adds them up (=3000)
In one day 3000 people believed! You could say it was the birthday of the Christian church. So let's celebrate that!	sing happy birthday—have birthday cake!

Originally I hadn't written in to do the counting to 40 & 10 at the beginning of the story. But people were chatting & not paying attention, so Mr. Lei came up with the idea on the spot as an immediate attention-grabber. GREAT move! So I wrote it in as a keeper!

For a game, I had copies of the banners with the four sentences from Peter's "sermon", cut into pieces with 1-2 characters each (for 5-7 pieces per sentence). The pieces for one sentence at a time was distributed to the adults. The idea was supposed to be that one kid at a time would take the adults and arrange them to get the sentence in the right order. I think at least some of our kids could have done it by themselves, but the parents were maybe a little too quick to help. And we had more kids than sentences, and the room was crowded…we ended up giving up on the game after just two rounds. We were running behind time anyway.

By the way, a zillion thanks to my good friend Mrs. Tong who wrote out all the banners for me. It would have either taken me forever (I write Chinese like a kindergartner), or would have wasted tons of paper printer ink!

For a craft, (a zillion thanks for internet craft sites!), Bruce and I ate a lot of canned food the week before so I could freeze water in the empty cans. Sunday morning we wrapped them with paper on which "dot-to-dot"dove patterns were drawn. The kids' job was to pound nails lightly through the dots into the can. The idea being, once the ice melts you put little candles in them & you have "Holy Spirit" candle holders—fire and dove!

Bible study was from Ephesians 1:16-20, about other gifts (besides the "birthday gifts" of boldness and other tongues) the Spirit wants to give believers. I was afraid it was going to be too abstract, but it seemed to go fairly well. Two people participated who don't usually say anything, so that's exciting!

The Walk to Emmaus

We've done the resurrection story twice already, so I wanted to do something a little different this year. This story worked well—and we had exactly three kids, so just the right number of characters.

Last week was the Chinese grave-sweeping festival. Some families went on the actual holiday, but some go anywhere around the time that it's convenient. It's one reason we only had three kids! It struck me as interesting that this festival always falls right around Easter. So I say in the story that the reason the women went to the grave was to "sweep" (or "beautify") it—which would have been all they could have done if they had been met with a stone they couldn't roll away. But unlike any of our grave-sweeping friends, when these ladies got to the tomb, the occupant had come back to life!

Today is Easter Sunday. On the first Easter Sunday afternoon, two friends were walking from Jerusalem to another village.	two kids start walking together. 1. Wears jacket with rip or stain
One says to the other, this past week has been like a bad dream! The other agrees with him.
Another person, a stranger, walks up behind them and says, what are you talking about?	third person walks with them, wearing jacket with hood
They say, what do you think? We would think anyone coming from Jerusalem would know about what happened there. But the stranger says he doesn't know. So they say, it's a long story; let's sit down & we'll tell you all about it.	They pull up three stools and sit down.
1. Have you heard this name before? (he answers yes) Well, then you know how for the past three years he has been going around teaching and doing great works.	they show stranger a piece of paper with the name "Jesus;" he reads it.
2. Do you remember that time we were on the boat, and there was that huge wind & big waves? We were afraid we were going to die! But Jesus got up and told the storm to settle down—and it did!	turn on small fan for wind, scatter bits of blue for waves. Boy stands up and makes settle-down gesture, sits back down
1. And His preaching was really helpful. I had loaned this jacket to my friend, and when she gave it back to me it was dirty—see how dirty? I was so angry I didn't talk to my friend for weeks! But Jesus told us the importance of forgiving each other. So I forgave her, and you know what? I did feel a lot better after that.	takes off jacket, shows rip or stain, puts it back on
2. Yes, He was a really good man. We thought He was surely the Son of God, come to save Israel. But the leaders of Israel were so jealous of Him that they had Him killed. And not only that, but He died on a cross, which is a really horrible way to die. It was awful!!	picks up sticks from ground, forms them into a cross to show the others
1. But then—you'll never believe this—this morning, some friends were going to sweep His grave. But it was open, and empty, and they said they saw an angel who told them Jesus had come back to life! They didn't see Him, though. Now was this like something you'd dream, or what?	stands up, puts on halo, flaps arms like wings
But the stranger replies: you guys really don't know your history, do you? (Huh?)	sticks the word "history" on board
You know, many hundreds of years ago, God had already sent messengers to tell us that His Son would come to earth and suffer, and be killed, and come back to life. Remember? There was David (1000 years ago), and Isaiah (700 years ago) and Zechariah (500 years ago) for three!	Sticks up names and dates: David, Isaiah, Zechariah, 1000, 700, 500, yrs. Ago (adult B. study was from a couple of these prophecies)
1 & 2. Wow, you have really given us a lot to think about! Listen, it's getting late, let's have dinner together, okay?	they get up & walk around, set up table & sit. Servant girl brings loaf of bread, pours water
The stranger said, let's give thanks for the food. He holds his hands up to pray, and his sleeves fall back. They see scars on his wrists—just like the scars from someone being nailed to a cross!	lifts hands to pray, sleeves fall back & there are scars on his wrists
1 & 2. You—you are Jesus! You really did come back to life!
He smiles and says, that's right! Enjoy your dinner, friends! Then he disappears.	Jesus gets up, pats them on shoulders, leaves.
1 & 2. Wow, He really is alive again! We'd better hurry back to Jerusalem and tell our friends!	They get up and run back to group

The only glitch in the story came when we discovered "Jesus" had ripped off the little scar marks I'd stuck to his wrists, obviously too early. Oh well!

We emphasized (dramatic license) that they recognized him by the scars on His hands (the Chinese use the same word for arm & hand), so that it would tie in with our game. All the adult women—and we had a couple of volunteers visiting that day, to make it more fun—went into a side room and each then stuck a hand out through the slightly-open door (all at the same time). The object was to find your mother/grandmother (or wife) by recognizing her hand. Our boys don't take well to being blindfolded, but we started off with my husband & then our one neuro-typical girl & they did have to be blindfolded. Neither of them guessed correctly. Bruce guessed Grandma Si's hand as mine, and we all teased him that he has to hold my hand more often! Lei Ka Hei visually picked his mom's hand, correctly. Si Wa Hon had a special trick—can't say whether or not it was deliberate. He just yanked hard on each hand in turn, and everyone involuntarily yelped. He knew his grandmother by her voice!

For our craft, we made "Easter bonnets" from paper plates and bowls; aren't they pretty?

A relaxing Sunday

This past Sunday was a nice break for me. No preparation needed. Some volunteers came over from a church in Hong Kong, and went with me and the kids to a public park for an hour. This gave the adults time to talk without interruption. At the end of the time we came back and had a potluck.

We ended up with the same amount of volunteers (including me) as kids, which worked well. We ended up going our separate ways. I got my exercise that morning! I was with Si Wa Hon, who made a beeline for the stairs going up to the top of Macau's tallest hill, the one with the lighthouse at the top. No cable cars for a-Si! Fortunately he was willing to pause from time to time to let this huffing, puffing old lady catch up!

We hadn't expected him to show up that morning. His grandmother had said last week that the family was going up to China for Saturday's holiday (grave-sweeping festival), and that they were not going to make it back in time. But there they were. Grandma told us that she had arrived back home at 8:00 that morning, and then fried up her yummy sticky rice, and got to church on time! Wow! We were honored!!!

The adult discussion centered on the grave-sweeping festival, which traditionally includes burning incense and making other offerings to one's ancestors. How are Christians supposed to behave at these family gatherings, and how do they deal with pressure from non-Christian relatives? Excellent use of the discussion time.