All those babies!

I'm afraid I didn't do the best possible job of writing the story for last Sunday. I thought it was so simple that whoever led it would yawn all the way through it. Wrong. Jacob goes to Paddan-Aram, and sees Rachel at the well. I had "embellished" the story to point out that Abraham's servant had asked God to let whoever gave him and his camels a drink be the chosen wife for Isaac. But that Jacob didn't require such a high standard—when he saw how beautiful Rachel was, he ran and gave her and her sheep a drink! It came out all garbled, though; the reader said emphasized that Jacob hadn't stopped and prayed like Abraham's servant. Implying that if he had, he wouldn't have made such a foolish choice. Not sure I agree with that!

We did have some fun with getting Jacob married off. First there was the agreement with Laban to work seven years for Rachel. We wrote up a "contract" for Laban and Jacob to sign. Then Rachel insisted that she wanted to sign too. Sure, why not—women's lib lives! (smile) After "seven years," though, we had Laban shush everyone while he put this veil on not Rachel but Leah, and married her off to Jacob.

Finally he did get to marry Rachel as well (I meant to write in that wedding, oops—I thought it would be fun to have Jacob peek under the veil and see if it was really her). Then they started having all those babies. The reader just had to say the names, and introduce the various "surrogate mothers" as they got roped in. I had all the "babies" already prepared (paper towel rolls with faces and name labels) & handed them to the proper mothers to hang onto until the final count. So why was it so hard? I guess the reader just had a hard time keeping track of where she was with all these gobbled-gooky names (which don't sound at all like proper Chinese names). Sigh.

For game time we had the "Leah" team and the "other" team line up and, in relay fashion, run up and take one of "their" children out of the basket at the front of the room. The idea was supposed to be to see which team finished the fastest & then double-check if they had all their babies right (the teams were each given a list of names). I forgot about the little problem that if one team chose a wrong baby or two, then the faster/smarter team still couldn't "win". I suppose ideally I should have had two separate sets for them to have to sort through, but I didn't have enough extra towel rolls!!

At least the craft was popular. We made our own little "babies" out of pipe cleaners and some wooden beads that I was able to buy in Hong Kong while we were on vacation (good timing)! Though I think these could also be done nicely using colored drinking straws, cut up, instead of the hard-to-find beads.

We've lost a couple of our former attenders for various reasons, and have added another neurotypical 7-year-old whose mother wanted to come & volunteer with us. So it is getting a little harder to plan the games so that they are fair for the autistic kids yet not too blah for the "smart" kids. It would be great if we could do something special with the three neurotypical girls during the free time, but the logistics need some more prayer first. They like the free play time, of course. Plus we haven't got an excess of volunteers. Nor do I feel ready to take on preparing a parallel curriculum, however abbreviated. Like I said, needs more prayer.

Isaac’s wife & children

We were gone on vacation over Sunday the 8^th. Mrs. Chu was scheduled to lead the story, about Abraham's servant going and getting a wife for Isaac. But that morning she was unexpectedly called in to work. She gave the material to 10-year-old Wing Tung to lead. Wing Tung has led the game and craft a couple of times, and does fairly well. But, not surprisingly, leading the story was too big a job for her. She could probably tell it fine, but trying to tell it and at the same time get various kids to play their various parts, and keep track of props, etc…we heard it was rather confusing for all. Oh well, live and learn. I didn't hear how the game (blowing bubble "prayers" to the ceiling) and craft {gold bead bracelets) went.

Sunday the 15^th, then, was the story of Jacob & Esau, mainly focusing on Jacob's manipulations to get the birthright & the blessing. We disguised Jacob, one of the girls, by wrapping wooly scarves around her neck & arms. After she finished getting the blessing & sat back down, we had Esau show up and start hunting him to vent his wrath. So Jacob was supposed to flee. I looked for our Jacob to get her going, but her disguise was too good! I didn't recognize her! (I'd remembered she'd worn pink, but it was all covered up by the dark scarves. Smile.)

For a game we had ten small objects in a bag for the kids to feel for according to which photo they drew. A nice quiet game for a change, and it went well. For craft time we made microwave chili, ("that red stuff" as Esau/Edom would say) each child adding some different ingredient to the pot. When we did this three years ago, a couple of our adults wouldn't eat it because as Buddhists they eschew eating beef. So we made it with ground pork this time (turkey hamburger isn't available here). Guess what—chili tastes kind of weird made with ground pork!

Bible study was another one of those eye-openers. That's good; it means we're having genuine discussion. Still, hard to draw my application and conclusion when most people (including the believers) seemed to feel that a certain amount of bending the rules to get some extra benefits is just the way the world works. I wasn't able to convince anyone otherwise in the time we had. Will have to just pray for the Holy Spirit to use the truth in their hearts.

Abraham’s test of faith

Today was our mother church's annual outdoor service/picnic, so that's where most of our people went. I decided to stay around just in case some new folks or returnees who didn't know about the event might show. One of our regular families was actually planning to come, since the picnic lasted too long for their schedule. But I guess they decided to take the morning off as well. So there was just myself and this new "volunteer" mom with her neurotypical daughter.

We did the program anyway. Usually we set three kids as the minimum. But since I had decided to do this story with flannelgraph, we didn't need a lot of bodies. And since I had gone to all the trouble to prepare it, I figured we might as well do it!

It worked out rather well chronologically that this story happened on the low-attendance day (God keeps doing things like this!), since it is one that is kind of hard to teach to unbelievers. Although, thinking the Ng family was going to be there, I had done a lot of extra studying as to how to help mom digest it, and learned a few helpful things myself!

Like, because of what Abraham went through, none of us has to go through the same thing. Because now we KNOW God wouldn't really require us to sacrifice our children to Him. It's sort of "too late" for Him to test anyone else on that score. I'm glad of that!