Structuring for Harmony—Acts 6

We had a rather wild and crazy Sunday. It started out well—more people came on time than usual, for on thing. We've been joking about changing our name from 慈愛家庭聚會(Chi Ngoi Ga Tihng Jeuih Wuih) to 遲到家庭聚會(Chi Dou Ga Ting Jeuih Wuih: that is, from Merciful Love Family Fellowship to Latecomers' Family Fellowship. (Love those Chinese puns)

I thought Mrs. Chan had said they couldn't come this week, but they did. Poor Suk Wah was not having a good day. First she decided she needed to take her underpants off (she is around 13 and starting to develop); but then she put her pants back on, so, okay. But then shortly afterward she erupted at her mom again; took two other women to hold her back from hitting at mom, and one of them got her hair pulled, none too gently, in the process. Then she curled up in a corner and cried for quite a while. She finally calmed down toward the end of the morning.

Not a happy thing, and yet it just affirmed for me: this is why we have MLFF. Where else could mom go to hear about Jesus, if she needs to bring her daughter with her?

Everyone else was pretty good. A-Si did rip the wireless doorbell off the wall as they were leaving, It took us a while to find the battery, but we did, and it still works fine, so no harm done!

Our story was from Acts 6:

Today we will keep learning about the experiences of the early church. As you know, all the original disciples who had followed Jesus were Jewish—like these two church leaders.	Two boys as "church leaders" with Israeli flag stickers and cross pendants
Now there are several thousand believers, and while they are all still Jewish, some have returned from other countries and speak Greek instead of Hebrew.	Greek flag stickers on at least two women/girls and 1-2 men/boys, the rest Israeli.
There were quite a few widows in the church, who received regular gifts of food because of their financial need.	Two different kids give food items to two women with Israeli flags
But sometimes, there were problems with this. Sometimes. Because the people sharing their food didn't know how to speak Greek, they didn't want to bring it to the Greek-speaking widows.	Give food to one boy but have him wait and "refuse" to bring it to a Greek-flag woman.
So sometimes those widows got completely neglected, so they didn't have enough to eat. That wasn't fair, was it?	Ask each child if it's fair for one person to have enough food and another not
They got sort of upset about this!	Encourage "widows" to argue
Finally, one of them went to the leaders to complain	comes & complains to the leaders
The leaders said, we are very sorry; this is a terrible problem. First: are you hungry? Do you know anyone else who is in need of food?	Leader gives food to girl & has her take some back to the other Greek widow
The leaders need to figure out how to solve this problem. They say, we need to appoint some people to be in charge of making sure everyone gets what they need. But we're the only ones who can teach the people all that we heard from Jesus, so we shouldn't do it ourselves.	Leaders huddle
They decide to choose several people who had lots of love for the people as well as wisdom from the Holy Spirit.	Choose 2-3 to represent the 7
The leaders say to them, from now on we need you to be responsible for making sure everyone gets their needs met. It's a very important job. Not only will everyone get fed, but it will help maintain unity and harmony among the believers, which is very important to God.	Ask each "volunteer" if he is willing to accept this responsibility.
Okay, let's ask God to bless your ministry	Volunteers kneel, leaders lay hands on their heads one by one and repeat: "God bless your work"

Game time: just as these chosen servants needed to get the food to the people efficiently, in some restaurants waiters hurry to get food to the people by wearing roller skates! Each child in turn took a "tray" and rolled down the long living room on a "skateboard" (more like a little dolly I'd brought from work—I had a skateboard too, but it was too wobbly; I was afraid somebody would fall & get hurt). The child then got a treat to put on the tray and bring back to the start.

Craft time: we made the "serving trays" out of large oval, thick paper plates—traced the proper shape for the bottom onto craft foam, cut it out & glued it on, then stuck craft foam stickers of various shapes around the edges.

Bible study was from Ephesians 4:30-5:2, on how important it is to God that we be kind to one another like He is toward us.