The Three Wise Men

I didn't get any pictures this time. I was telling the story & was just too wired from the busy weekend. Oh well, we had a good time anyway. We introduced our three wisemen ("wisepersons"), all wearing neckties to illustrate their status. They were looking at the stars stuck to the ceiling fan through a telescope (two telescoping paper towel rolls). Then suddenly this very large star appeared, held up on a stick by one of the girls. Interesting, most stars travelled in some kind of orbital pattern (ceiling fan turned on slow speed), but this new one was going in a straight line. They decide to follow it, so each takes a tote bag containing a towel and a wrapped gift, and set off following the star.

Eventually it leads them to King Herod's palace. They figure this must be because the star signifies a newborn king, so they get in to see Herod and ask, where's the new baby king? We've been following the star that told us he had been born. Oh-oh, Herod doesn't like this news. He has no new baby son, but he remembers some prophecy from somewhere about a star arising from Jacob that will rule. (we had someone read parts of Numbers 24:17-19 from a prepared scroll) But HE wants to keep ruling! So he goes and finds some Bible experts and asks them where this ruler is supposed to be born. They look up and read Micah 5:2—answer: Bethlehem.

So Herod goes back and says, okay, no new baby here, but you can expect to find him in Bethlehem. When you do, come back and tell me where exactly, so I can go pay my respects too. They agree & leave, after which Herod gloats, ha, I can kill this baby and then I can be the only king again!

The star now leads them to one of the side rooms. They knock and out comes one of the girls holding a baby doll. They ask when it was born & she answers, "December 25^th," so they know it must be the right baby. They give mother & baby the gifts from their bags, and they all get a chance to cuddle the baby a little. Then they leave. They know they're supposed to go back to Herod's palace, but they're too tired from all their traveling & it's late, so they pull the towels from their bags and go to sleep on the floor. But during the night an angel appears and tells them not to go back to the palace. So when they get up they go into the other bedroom and re-enter the living room through the back balcony.

Our game was another relay race, based on the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Various small wooden blocks had been labeled with one of these gift names, & each team had enough so that each kid could find & bring a set of three to "Mary & baby" sitting at the front of the room. Somehow, it should have been more fun than it was. I think it would have been better if there had been more blocks to have to paw through, with some having totally irrelevant labels. I was too cheap, I guess. I was able to find a box of 32 small blocks (actually Chinese Chess pieces) for a very cheap price and said, good, I don't have to spend a lot. I could have bought two boxes and it still would have been cheap.

The wisemen brought their gifts in "treasure boxes" but we usually receive our Christmas gifts in stockings, so we made stockings for our craft. The patterns were cut out of plastic report covers which were handily red in back & clear in front. They added a white top made from a folded card with cotton balls stuck to it, punched holes around the edges, then sewed the whole thing together with green yarn, leaving enough for a hanger at the top. The hole punches were not quite heavy-duty enough (even though I'd bought bigger ones—in fact, the small ones that had been a disaster with the crossing-of-the-red-sea craft (May 28) did a better job than the big clunkers—sigh), so there was some frustration. But all was forgiven when I got them all filled with candy during the free time!

We had a potluck scheduled, with food to be delivered at 12:00. They had trouble finding the place and didn't arrive until 12:45. Mrs. Ng had brought some scrumptious homemade dumplings so we polished those off while we waited. Finally the food came—and along with it, a boy & his mom who have been frequently late in the past, but NEVER this late. I mean, if the food had come on time, we would have been mostly done eating it by the time they showed up! How did they KNOW??

Christmas Eve

For the 4^th year in a row, we joined several other churches to take part in a "Christmas concert" at a local tourist attraction. This year, three things were different.

1. We only sang once instead of twice, so it didn't get to be such a terribly long and late night.

2. We added a new feature, a recorder duet by myself and one of our neurotypical girls who's been learning recorder at school.

3. We had these nifty new t-shirts, paid for by a Christmas gift from the family of one of our sometime-volunteers.

Oh, and 4., we invited a friend, George Dunlop, to take pictures for us, and he did a great job!

Elizabeth and Mary

One of my favorite stories in the curriculum. First we see Zacharias the priest going into the holy of holies. It's very dark in there (I imagine anyway. It certainly was in the tabernacle!), so we turned off the lights. Suddenly an angel appears! Zacharias is afraid, but the angel says, don't be afraid, your prayers have been answered. Zacharias scratches his head and wonders to himself, which prayer? I pray a lot of prayers! The angel says, your wife is going to have a son. You've got to be kidding, says Zacharias! Is this for real?

The angel is a bit annoyed (I'm definitely taking some license here) and says, I'm God's messenger, I'm standing in the holy of holies, and you accuse me of lying? You want to know if this is for real, then I'll give you a sign: you won't be able to speak your doubts—or anything else!—until your son is born, and you name him John.

Zacharias comes out and people ask him why he's been in there so long. He flaps his arms—there was a bird in there? No, no—he traces a circle on his head—oh, an angel! What did he say? He pantomimes holding a baby. The angel was holding a baby? No, no—he goes and finds his wife, the oldest woman present (60-something, perfect!) and pats her stomach. Oh, she's going to have a baby! Wonderful!

Cut to Mary sitting by herself. The angel appears again, and says, Don't be afraid, you are greatly blessed by God and will have a son. Mary says (again, taking some license), I can't figure out how this could be since I'm not married yet, but if you say so, it must be true! The angel says, you haven't asked for a sign, but I will give you one. Your relative Elizabeth is also going to have a son in her old age. She is already six months pregnant.

The angel leaves and Mary decides to go visit Elizabeth. She knocks on a door and out comes the pregnant Elizabeth!

Her pillow is showing, but everyone got the point and loved it!

When she hears Mary's voice, the baby jumps in her womb. Soon Elizabeth's time comes to disappear into the bedroom & come back out minus pillow but holding a baby. Everyone congratulates her & someone asks, are you going to call him Zacharias junior? Zacharias gets up, gestures No, no, and gets pen & paper, and writes "His name is John." As soon as he finished writing, he could speak again, and praises God.

For our game, we imitated the unborn John the Baptist and "jumped for joy" over a length of string held at higher and higher levels.

Craft time, also a favorite, was folding paper angel bodies, but then attaching prepared photos of each person's head, and pasting on a halo. Since no one takes their crafts home anyway, we then stuck all the angels on a Christmas tree on the wall.

One of our girls put her head on a bit too low, making her angel a bit hunchbacked looking. Later on she asked if she could take her angel off the tree. Why? Because her neck was starting to get sore! She was really worried that she had caused this by placing her angel head wrong! But I said I could fix her neck and "kissed it better." She seemed okay after that!

Esther part 2

Even with holding the beauty contest last week, this turned out to be a long story. But great drama! We started with the brief scene of Mordecai sitting outside the palace gate and overhearing the plot to assassinate the king. He writes a (seriously condensed) message: (Beware!) to Esther who passes it to the king. The plot is foiled, and the message gets pasted in the king's scrapbook.

Next we see the proud Haman being annoyed by the fact that Mordecai won't bow to him. So he suggests to the king that all the Jews be killed & the king says, sure go ahead. Moredecai sends Esther another very brief message (SOS), but this time she doesn't pass it on to the king. She writes back (Can't!) and he responds (Must!). The narrative, of course, spells out more detail, but no way could we have the kids write complete messages. So anyway, then everyone kneels down to "pray and fast" for the count of three (days). Esther goes to see the king and he welcomes her. She invites him and Haman to a feast for the following night. (We cut this down to just one feast. Saved time & didn't change the basic plot.)

Haman is really puffed up now; he's the only commoner invited to the royal feast. (I am SO PROUD of our Haman. He used to be one of our biggest behavior problems but lately he has been doing so well. He actually got into hamming it up, this time! I love it!) Only one thing mars his self-congratulations: that Mordecai still refuses to bow to him. Hmm…why wait until the day for all the Jews to be killed? Since he's in such obvious favor with the king, why not ask tomorrow morning that Mordecai be put to death right away?

That night the king can't sleep so he's browsing through his scrapbook. He comes across the note written by Mordecai that saved his life, and realizes he has never done anything to reward him, for shame!

So the next morning Haman shows up, and before he can get a word out, the king asks him, what should be done for someone I want to honor? Haman is sure he's the one the king means, so he thinks of something he'd really like: wearing the king's robe & crown, riding the king's horse, and having someone lead him around the city telling everyone how much the king honors him. The king says: Fantastic idea! Go get Mordecai and do that for him right now! Haman has no choice but to comply:

Whew, that was awful. Good thing he hadn't put forth his request!! Oh well, he still has this wonderful banquet to look forward to, right? And wonderful it was!

Afterward the king is so happy he says to Esther, absolutely anything you want, what can I do for you? She says, "Just save my life from the wicked enemy who wants to kill me and my people." The king says, who would dare do such a thing? Esther points dramatically to Haman. The king calls for his soldiers, who pull a pillowcase over his head and lead him off. (Haman really did do a great job, but he couldn't take the pillowcase; that was a bit too much.) The king does away with the order for the extermination of the Jews, & he & Esther live happily ever after. (Yes, I know, the laws of the Medes and the Persians could not be revoked, but it was simpler this way and again, didn't really change the basic plot.)

Our game was to determine whether the king would allow you in to see him, since in our story that was an iffy thing. We had the "king" (one of our fathers) sit on his throne, with an armed soldier guarding the invisible door about six feet in front of him (to prevent the kids from crushing too close and spoiling the idea that not just anyone can approach the king). Then we had each child draw a "Do" card provided from "The Appreciation Game." If they were able to do what it said, they could get in to see the king, who gave them a treat. Everyone passed.

The king wore a crown, Esther wore a crown, even Mordecai wore a crown for a little while, so our craft was making crowns.

Since I wasn't sure I had enough of the gold paper to make a model, I didn't discover ahead of time that the pieces didn't stay stuck to the headband very well. It was getting sort of frustrating until someone had the idea to grab a stapler. Next time, double-sided tape on the headband would be the way to go.

Esther, part 1

We decided to split the story of Esther into two parts so we could include more details—and, of course, have more fun!

First off we had to place the Jews in Persia, so we had everyone stand, & explained how because Israel had sinned, God had brought enemies against them. Many died (sat down) and the rest were carted off to exile in different countries (walked once around the room). We introduced two who ended up in Persia: Mordecai and his young cousin Esther.

Next we introduced King Ahasuerus, who liked to party and show off his wealth. At one particular party, he wanted to show off his wife as well. So he sent a servant to tell her to put on her crown and come let everyone see her beauty. But the queen took the crown from the servant, put it on her head, and said, "I'm the queen! If I don't want to go, I don't have to go!" The king discusses this horrible loss of face with his advisors. They all agree that Vashti could not be queen anymore or wives everywhere would get the idea that it was okay to disobey their husbands.

So then the king needs a new queen, and they hold a beauty contest to determine who it will be. All the beautiful young girls in the city are gathered to the palace. We were short three of our usual "young girls" so we recruited three moms to fill the ranks of contestants. First, they spent a whole year in cosmetic treatment—we had them all spray themselves lightly with perfume, put on some hand lotion, and then pat their faces with the puff from a (powderless) compact (actually a small folding mirror). Finally the great day came when all the candidates were to present themselves to the king. They were all taken by a servant into one of the side bedrooms where I had readied an array of dresses, which each girl put on over their clothes. Then they sashayed out one at a time—we had some hams among both mothers and daughters; great fun!!

The Bible says they were allowed to "bring anything they wanted" with them from the harem. I'm not sure exactly what they might want to bring so I had it be gifts (of little snacks) for the king—who thoroughly enjoyed playing his role of watching all these silly girls parading through in their oversized dresses while munching his goodies!

As we know, in the end, Esther was the winner. She is crowned and we all sing the wedding march while she & the king walk down the room together.

We combined game & craft into one activity this time, as it was kind of both in one anyway. We had the kids divide into two teams, with the two sitting down facing each other. We had an odd number of kids though, so called for a volunteer and got Mr. Lei. Then, we explained, we were going to do some "cosmetic treatment" like the candidates in the story's beauty contest. First, the kids in team one painted the faces of their opposite number, then team two returned the favor. Some kids barely put enough paint on to be visible, others were quite enthusiastically artistic! (Mr. Lei's partner was one, as was the girl partnering Wing Yan...)

I was most thrilled, though, with the pair-up of Ka Hei and Ying Wai. It was so neat to see both of them paint creatively and tolerate being painted in return—both did better than we expected.

The big disappointment was that Sally was absent; she loves craft time but has trouble making eye contact. I wanted to see how she would do with having to look at someone's face to do the craft! I wonder if we could arrange a special session with her some time..?

Adult Bible study centered on whether wives were supposed to always obey their husbands—some good discussion, if not as completely open in the sharing time as we might have liked.

A Special Sunday

We had heard about a sister church in Hong Kong that had a Sunday school program for special-needs kids and their parents, and this Sunday was finally the one where we were all able to get together. We had nearly fifty, so were very thankful to be able to borrow the Centro O Amanhecer daycare center for the occasion.

We took a break from our unit on Old Testament women in favor of a story that would have a more direct application to both groups: the importance of thankfulness. Conveniently, this was just three days after the American holiday of Thanksgiving!

The story of Jesus healing the ten lepers is not terribly long, but it took plenty enough time to get all our lepers kitted out in bandages and face masks.

Lai Wun ended up looking more like a surgeon than a leper, but she was cute anyway!

One thing we could all be thankful for was that, whatever our problems, none of us are afflicted with leprosy! In Bible times it was a particularly frightening disease, entailing as it did exile from the community. We had folks throwing stones (paper wads) at them. A few of the kinder ones threw food (small packets of crackers) for the lepers to share. All in all a miserable existence. So when they saw Jesus at a distance, having heard that He was a healer, they all cried out for mercy. Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priest. They scratched their heads at that. How come? Did Jesus want the priests to confirm their leprosy so He would know what He was up against, or what? Whatever—they started walking, when suddenly, one of the boys (who had been complaining that he wanted to take his bandage off anyway) said, "Hey, guys, I have feeling in my leg all of a sudden!" He got to take off his bandage and say, look, it's healed! That was the signal for everyone to take off their bandages, give high fives all around, and head off for the unseen priest (a volunteer just escorted them out the door of the main room temporarily. All but one, who stopped and said, I better go back and thank Jesus while I still know where He is. (Actually, our Jesus had disappeared; tired of his inactive role. So his brother became the stand-in.) So the one came back and knelt at His feet saying, praise God, praise God! Jesus lifted her up and praised her for having a thankful heart which is even more special to God than strict obedience.

For our game, we divided into two teams. Instead of running to Jesus and falling to their knees, the race involved running to Jesus on their knees. He would then lift them up and they could run back to their team. The extra twist in this was that each "runner" had to wear knee protectors (those lepers need to protect their skin, you know!), so as each child got back to their team they had to take them off for the next child to put on. This was not exactly done "decently and in order," and you couldn't prove which team had actually won, but it was fun anyway!

The craft was fairly simple; making "tambourines" to sing praises with. Each child got a foil pie plate, and eight small jingle bells to attach along the rim with florist wire. Everyone seemed to prefer wearing them as hats rather than using them as musical instruments, though!

We didn't have a regular Bible study during the last period; while the kids had some free play time, the adults heard a testimony of thankfulness for God's grace from a Hong Kong father with two autistic sons. Afterward we all enjoyed a catered "potluck" meal together, while families from the two churches got to know one another better in individual conversations. A group this large every week would be truly exhausting (I trust if we get this large we will have more volunteers available!), but once in a while is great!

Elisha and the Shunammite woman

We were really short on boys this week! So the Shunammite woman's husband was the only genuine male in our story.

We introduced Elisha & his servant and had them walk around the room a couple of times, stopping twice at the invitation of our heroine to sit down at the table with bowls & chopsticks and "eat a meal" with her & her husband. After they left the second time, the woman suggests preparing a room for them, and they do that together: they unfolded a cot in a corner of the room and added a table, chair and candlestick.

The next time Elisha came around they were invited to relax in the room. Our Elisha was NOT going to lie down on the bed; at least she was eventually willing to sit on the edge of it, while Gehazi sat on the stool. They conferred about what to do to thank the woman & eventually tell her she's going to have a son. (Actually we had to just say, they told her. Elisha was instructed to tell our 11-year-old Shunammite woman she was going to have a son. She stared at her for a few beats and whispered, "she's so young!") Anyway, she is told the prophecy and says, don't trick me, please.

Sure enough, she has a son. I forgot to bring the baby doll from home; so I grabbed an old craft off a shelf; one of these dolls we'd made out of water bottles and Styrofoam balls. Mom was trying to cuddle her baby when its head fell off—oops! (Must be why the child ended up with the murderous headache in the next scene, right?)

We chose one of our not-usually-overly cooperative girls to be the child and she did well, though she wanted mom to stick with her. Worked well; we had mom be one of the other reapers when the child complained of the headache—the one who brought the child home. Decided on the spot to skip the interlude with the child sitting on mom's lap until he dies & put him/her straight to bed. Fortunately she was willing to lie down, and even to be covered with a sheet when she "died."

Mom then gets on her donkey and trots off to find Elisha and says, didn't I tell you not to trick me?! Gehazi gets back to the house first, feels the child and says, yup, he's dead. Then Elisha comes and no way are we going to try to get him/her to lie prone on top of the child! But she knelt willingly by the side of the bed with both hands on the child. Then the child was supposed to sneeze seven times. She tried really hard but couldn't figure out how to imitate a sneeze. So we got seven little coughs, after which she got up and Elisha took her to the mother, with the conclusion: God doesn't trick people.

For game time, we attached a little "room" (tissue box) to a corner of a table and said how if Elisha wanted to rest, he just needed to get to that little room, so we would try to get to that little room too—with one of those little cars that you pull back a few inches and they go forward. Not always in a straight line, of course. A little bit too easy to be a really good game, but our kids are so uncritical, they like just about anything!

For our craft we made candlesticks like the one they put in Elisha's room.

The candles were white TP rolls—candles are supposed to be wax, of course, so we made them wax by coloring them with wax crayons. Most of the kids had a little trouble waiting long enough for the glue to dry on the handles, but they kept trying. I was proud of them all!

Elisha and the widow’s oil

This was a relatively short story. Only seven verses in the Bible! Of course I always throw in some extra-Biblical imaginings to add to the drama. We started with introducing the husband and wife first. We happened to choose the same fellow who had "died" in the previous week's story about Abigail & Nabal. He looked a little cheated when this time he died right after he got introduced! But we were short on boys anyway, so he got "resurrected" as Elisha & got to wear the "prophet's mantle." But before we met him, we had the "evil creditor" taunt the widow and shake a stack of bills marked "overdue" in her face. So the widow goes to Elisha & he instructs her how to use the bottle of oil which is all she has left in the house. Before the story had started, we had distributed a couple of cups or bowls to each adult, as well as a few "silver coins." So now the widow sent her two boys to go collect all the cups and bowls, which she proceeded to pretend to fill with oil. Then, also on the prophet's instructions, the boys were supposed to go sell the oil back to the neighbors. The adults didn't quite get it, and instead of exchanging the vessels for money, they put their coins in the vessels as if they were begging bowls! Oops! (It's not only our kids who don't always pay close attention…) After we got this straightened out, "mom" went to the creditor and paid him (her) a few coins. The creditor got to stamp all the bills "paid."

Our game involved pouring "oil" (water) into jars. We set two small bottles in the bathtub and put two stools next to the tub. The kids divided into teams & had a relay. Each child had to climb onto one of the stools and pour water from there until "their" jar was full. Volunteers stood by to refill the water bottles they were pouring from (bigger than the ones in the tub!) and also to empty the tub bottles between kids. It went well—messy-type games usually do! :-)

Craft time was a lot simpler to prepare for than it had been for Abigail. Bruce and I just had to drink a lot of fruit juice during the week so we would have enough little glass bottles for the kids to paint with glue and coat with tissue squares for fancy oil jars.

Abigail

Kevin Hui led this story the first time around, so this week I got to do more "creative writing" instead of just translating/updating. Enjoyed that! We started out by introducing King David, crown and all, but then explaining that he wasn't actually king yet, Saul was. Crown to Saul. And Saul was jealous of David so was trying to kill him (Saul chases David with sword). So now David and some of his friends were on the run, which meant they didn't always have enough to eat. Today they were passing a sheep farm, and it happened to be shearing time. So we put sheep headbands on a couple of the girls & had them get down on all fours while a servant "sheared" them with a buzzing electric razor (safety cap on!).

David sent a couple of his friends to ask Nabal, the farmer, for some food, but he refused. So David and his friends decide to kill the farmer and his whole family (so who's the big fool here, Nabal or David?). Fortunately, one of the guys was smart enough to look for Nabal's wife Abigail and let her know what was going on. She put some donkey ears on another volunteer, then packed a basket with some meat, bread, fruit and wine, and led the donkey to meet David (oops, should have gotten a picture of this too.) David is grateful not only for the food, but for how her intervention had prevented him from rash action that would not have been pleasing to God. He kisses her hand & leads the donkey away.

The next day, she tells Nabal what happened, and he's so upset he has a stroke (which for some reason struck everyone as very funny). Then we all counted to ten (days), after which Nabal dies and is carried away to be buried. Our Nabal is an older boy who is not always overly cooperative, but he really liked being carried away by two men. We don't always get to see him smile so nicely!

So, after David hears that Nabal is dead, he starts thinking about how beautiful and wise Abigail was, and now she's all alone…hm…so this time, instead of receiving a gift from Abigail, he sends a servant with a gift for her! The servant also relays David's proposal. She accepts, and we end with the wedding march.

Now, when Abigail put fruit and other foodstuffs in the donkey's basket, she undoubtedly packed it neatly and carefully. For our game, however, while we had a donkey drawn on the blackboard, with a basket attached, we put the (fake) fruit in it by throwing it from a few feet away. Not quite so efficient, but more fun!

For our craft, I had to start preparing way ahead of time. Each sheep for our sheep-shearing craft took me over an hour to make, and I needed to prepare for ten kids. (Then of course we only had six…) Here is the "before and after" photo:

Hannah

No pictures again this week, which is really too bad as we had at least one great Kodak moment. We had introduced Elkanah and his wife Hannah, whom he loved very much. Elkanah was instructed to demonstrate this by kissing Hannah, which he did using the "MLFF kiss"—kissing two fingers and then pressing them into the cheek of the kissee. In spite of his love for Hannah (I hypothesized), he took a second wife so he could still have children. I hadn't written into the story that Elkanah loved her, but the narrator told him to kiss her anyway. This time, he bent over (our tallest boy & shortest girl) and kissed her on the cheek! It was very sweet, but alas no photo!

The whole family (including Peninah's three children) walked to Jerusalem, where Elkanah presented his sheep to the priest. I had deliberately chosen an adult to be the priest so that I could instruct him on how to be very careful when offering the sheep…He first tore off one part of the paper sheep & laid it on the altar (a stool) and burned it (sprinkled orange tissue scraps on it)—no problem. Then he was supposed to tear off another part and keep it for himself by stuffing it in his pocket. This is where he was supposed to be careful not to tear into the stapled-off section that had little chocolate beans in it, but his tear went astray and a bunch of the chocolate beans scattered on the floor. <Hold action while these were cleared away…> The last part of the sheep was for the family to eat and give thanks as part of their worship, so the family sat down & the remaining chocolate beans were poured from the sheep into their individual bowls (real food=willingness to stay seated!).

Then Peninah was supposed to start ragging on Hannah, loudly thanking God for her healthy children and asking Hannah what SHE had to be thankful for. Unfortunately, just about this time someone decided that Peninah was too cold and started helping her drink a full glass of hot water. Sort of cramped her "provoking" style and I think everyone missed exactly what was supposed to be going on, sigh. Hannah just had to pretend to have been provoked. She got up & poured her leftover beans into the "children's" bowls and went off to the other end to pray. The priest accused her of being drunk, she said no, she was just pouring out her heart before God, and the priest blesses her & says he hopes God will answer her prayer. This somehow gives Hannah great peace & she gets up, washes her face, and goes home with her family.

Around a year later, she gives birth to Samuel…here we had another glitch, as our normally extremely reliable actress playing Hannah disappeared into the bathroom (long story), so Elkanah had to show off the baby. So while Hannah was in the bathroom, the narrator explained how she wouldn't go with the family to Jerusalem that year. When she came back out, it was deemed time for her to bring little Samuel to the temple. She gave him to Eli the priest. And God further rewarded her by giving her five more children (our recycled paper-towel roll people).

Well, if people missed the bit about Peninah provoking Hannah during the story, they got something of a recap for game time. All the kids sat in a circle. The first child to be designated "Hannah" got a juice bottle filled with more of those little chocolate beans, and a pair of chopsticks. She was allowed to start eating them (with the chopsticks to keep it reasonably slow) while the child next to her, designated "Peninah", started throwing our big foam die—the metaphor being, when Peninah rolled a six this would be counted as managing to provoke Hannah to quit eating. Then the candy jar passed to this child who became the new Hannah, and on around the circle (we did two rounds).

Had a hard time coming up for a craft for this story. Three years ago, we were just preparing to say goodbye to Melissa Lathrop who had been with us for about a year. We talked about how Hannah would make a little garment for Samuel each year when they went to the temple. Then together we used fabric markers to decorate a T-shirt to give to Melissa as a farewell gift. But this time around we didn't have anyone to send off. Finally got the helpful suggestion from Sharlene Ortlund (thanks, Shar; even if you didn't help me make any sheep, you were a big help nonetheless!) of making little praying figures out of pipe cleaners. They weren't too hard for the kids except for a couple of them who managed to get them to balance better by having the praying hands clasped behind the body instead of in front…they seemed to understand when I pointed this out, and fixed them without protest; I was pleased.

Discussion questions during the adult Bible study asked, have you ever thought of your child as a gift from God/heaven? And, If you do, how have you seen this to be true; & if not, how might things be different if you could view him/her this way? Again, I wasn't in on the study, being in with the kids, but I heard there was good discussion. One of our nonbelievers shared her Buddhist viewpoint that family members are "assigned" by "heaven" based on some kind of affinity demonstrated in a previous life, so you assume your children were meant for you & treat them accordingly. (This comment came from not a mother but an aunt who has recently taken on the care of her young-adult niece and couldn't be kinder to her than her own mother would be. We have been quite impressed by her sincere dedication to her second-hand "gift.") We appreciate learning more about our families' worldviews. Her comments suggest she feels no need to turn to Jesus for help in raising her niece. We can only pray she will learn to love Him for Himself.

Ruth and Naomi

Good to have the troops back this week! We even had some visitors; relatives of one of our families. They were Mandarin- rather than Cantonese-speaking, so the young man was rather alarmed when the first thing I did to start the story was to grab him and bring him to the front to introduce him as Elimilech. One of the moms translated for him & then he was okay with it. He didn't have to do much anyway—just walk around the room ("to Moab") with his wife and sons and then "die." Then the two sons got married, and then they died—by this time the moms were interested in what was going to happen to these poor women left alone!

One of the daughters in law stays put, and Ruth follows Naomi around the room again, back to Israel. She gets the idea of helping feed them by going out gleaning. If there's a place that sells dried grasses that look like grain, I don't know where it might be. But I found some great vegetables that very much like sprouting grain to a non-farmer like myself. We had two bunches of these that we'd sprinkled with rice before scattering on the ground for Boaz's servants to gather while Ruth got busy picking up the little pieces of rice off the floor. Boaz asks a servant who that hard-working, pretty girl is. When he learns it's Ruth, he is very impressed; he's heard of her. He instructs his servant to drop extra grain in front of her, which he does.

When Ruth brings the grain home, Naomi asks whose field she was in. When she learns it's Boaz, she's really excited, and whispers some strange instructions in Ruth's ear. Ruth has never heard of such a strange custom (maybe she had, but I sure hadn't, and I was sure it would seem strange to our moms as well!), but she is obedient to her mother-in-law's instruction.

Boaz lies down next to a heap of sprouting veggies and begins to snore. Ruth climbs under his blanket down by his feet and waits for him to wake up. When he does, first he's shocked, but then tickled to death that Ruth would propose to him. He sends her home with an armful of sprouting veggies. Soon he sends for her and they get married.

One of our girls had brought a bouquet of flowers as a gift that morning. So we used it for Ruth's wedding bouquet!

Then about a year later, Ruth & Boaz had their baby Obed.

For our game, we "gleaned" grains of rice from paper plates in the center of the table, using chopsticks. At the end of the game we counted how many grains they had managed to get in their individual bowls. One girl had cheated by grabbing a plate of rice and using the chopsticks to just sweep it into her bowl. Well, you might say she followed the letter of the law, anyway! I was impressed with how hard some of the kids worked on this. It wasn't easy—try it yourself (uncooked rice—no cheating)!

Craft was making "bundles of grain" by tying together about 20 strands of twine each and then shredding the top centimeter or so. That took patience! Again, I was pleased with how a few of the kids applied themselves diligently. I was helping a boy who was NOT into it. I did get him to make at least one genuine pull at each strand of twine with one hand while I was being the second hand. Proud of myself for my own perserverance—ha!

We’re Ruthless

Ha. No pictures this time either, as there was nothing to take pictures of. Due to a big Special Olympics competition, we didn't have enough kids in attendance to meet our minimum for doing our regular program. This week's Bible story was supposed to be on Ruth; hence our title.

One of the "kids" who did come is actually a woman in her 30's who has no apparent mental handicap. However, she has become very withdrawn, not wanting to leave her home for any reason. Her mother, who cares for her, is out of ideas for how to help her daughter. Our dear Mrs. Chu managed to persuade them to come to MLFF several weeks ago, and they've been there every week since. The daughter is content to consider herself a "kid" and to participate in games & crafts as one of them. She seems much happier than when she first started coming. Today we enjoyed some very sweet smiles.

With the small attendance, we were free to focus on this new family and get to know them a little better. I didn't get to know them as well, as our one other kid (really a kid) was getting restless and I felt the best thing was for me to go hang out with her in the free-play room. So I missed how it went, but mom was also clearly happier at the end of the morning after being on the receiving end of some compassionate listening and encouragement.

Afterward we all went out to lunch together at a local teahouse.

Next week, we should be back to our regular schedule.

Gideon

Didn't manage to take any photos this week. Too busy refereeing! We had a very hyper Gideon who probably could have tackled the Midianites single-handed. When the Biblical Gideon is confronted by an angel who greets him with "the Lord is with you," he responds, "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?" Our Gideon had a more "human" response to the shock of being greeted by an angel: "I have to go to the bathroom!"

We cut out a lot of the story to make it reasonable length; our Gideon (after his bathroom break) asked this angel right away about getting a sign with the fleece. Then while he "slept," the angel wet down a towel on the floor with a watering can. Then in round two, sprinkled the floor but not the towel.

Once this was settled, Gideon was all ready to set off with his huge army, but of course God had to pare it down first. We volunteered all the adults to be the ones afraid to go to battle, so that all the kids could be left to act out the water-drinking test. We just put a sheet of blue paper on the floor and had them either kneel & put their faces down to it, or just pretend to scoop some up & drink out of their hands. They were all very cooperative; it was great. But the power of suggestion was just too much for Gideon. He had to go get himself a real drink of water before his little army of three (each representing 100) could march off to battle.

Got to recycle again—we used the trumpets from the fall of Jericho craft time. Then had "jars" made of yet more toilet paper rolls (I've been saving them for months) covered with wrapping paper and stuffed with tissue-paper "torches." Of course these wouldn't break with enough noise to frighten the Midianites! So when they were supposed to smash them we had someone stir around the bucket of Legos. Plenty noisy enough! The Midianites (i.e. everyone but Gideon & his three companions) fled out the balcony door. We ended there, with a rousing rendition of, "Isn't He wonderful, wonderful, wonderful."

For game time, we had everyone, adults & children, stand up & then started through a list of things meant to winnow people out. Things like: stand on one foot (right vs. left), you're your birthday (odd vs. even dates), check feet (socks vs. no socks, etc.) Unlike Gideon, we always rejected the minority rather than the majority, so we could play longer!

Since all those jars got broken in the Bible story, our craft was "mending broken jars": taping cut-up paper cups back together. The kids (and parents) had a harder time than I'd anticipated. I had cut each cup into five pieces. If we use this craft again, we should cut them into just two or three pieces. Just holding them steady and getting the tape on was enough of a challenge for the kids; they didn't really need the extra challenge of figuring out how to fit so many pieces together. So I could have taken pictures of the "mended" cups but they were just too ugly!

Deborah

This story turned out a little too short, in spite of adding some "filler" at the beginning with introducing Moses, who dies, then Joshua, who dies, before explaining the role of the judges, of whom we'll meet just two in this unit.

We had Deborah sitting in front of a palm tree drawn on the blackboard. Lai Wun did a great job. She is non-verbal, yet when she was supposed to tell Barak to go destroy Sisera, she got all the tones exactly right!

While she and Barak were chasing Sisera, our Jael invited him into her tent, which was a sheet over a desk. He was very cooperative about going in there and lying down. Deborah and Barak were also cooperative about not noticing his feet sticking out!

The cooperation evaporated real quickly when Jael crept into the tent and started hammering on the end of the tent peg. I don't think she was actually pounding it on his head! But it took some coaxing to get him back under the sheet, so that Jael could get Barak to come look at him with the tent peg through his temple…

Last week a visitor had complained that our game was "dangerous" because we were having kids throw things. Funny she did not object to this week's game, which was screwing large plastic screws, relay fashion, into cardboard heads. (Actually less dangerous than pounding something through.) I had wondered if it was a little too gruesome, but the kids just had fun. It was good practice for them to learn to use a screwdriver; two kids went from clueless to getting the idea during the course of the game!

For craft time we made leaves for our palm tree, by sticking two pieces of tissue paper together around a stem, and then fringing the edges. Here is "Deborah under her palm tree."

We might have made too big a deal out of the palm tree. It was a great craft! But during the adult Bible study, one of the moms asked if Deborah got her power from the palm tree she sat under! Oops! Another mom helped clarify that the palm tree was special because Deborah sat under it, rather than the other way around. It is so great when they ask questions like this though. So much better that they ask them than just think them!!

The Fall of Jericho

Of course before we could conquer Jericho, we had to get across the Jordan, right? So we had everyone line up behind our two "priests" who were carrying the ark of the covenant between them. I used this ark I'd made a couple of years ago for a different story. It was somewhat the worse for wear after today's story; our priests couldn't quite hang onto the idea that they were supposed to stand still in the middle of the Jordan. So with all the forward and backward pushing and shoving, the sockets for the poles got ripped off the sides—oh well!

After everyone crossed over, but before the priests came up out of the riverbed (not yet, not yet), Joshua had 12 people go & each retrieve a large stone from the riverbed to build a memorial. When I was planning this story, I was trying to think, what can I use for stones? The small planter/aquarium stones I have are too small & hard to make a solid pile of. Legos didn't seem right either…aha! A perfect use for all those boxes of individually wrapped mooncakes we were recently given for the Chinese mid-Autumn festival!

Next it was time to conquer Jericho which, we reminded everyone, was the home of Rahab. She was sent up to the upper bunk with her "family" (half-a-dozen paper-towel rolls with faces) where she tied the red cord to the top of the ladder, and waited. In the meantime, we began our marching. When we did this three years ago, we had a smaller crowd. Today's was extra large & it was not working as well to get everyone out of the living room, out the balcony, in past Rahab's house on the edge of the city wall, & back out to the living room. So we didn't do the whole thirteen circumnavigations this time. Did two (sitting down and "sleeping" after each) & then said now we were at the seventh day…and the seventh trip around. Then when the people shouted and one of the priests "blew" a trumpet, our cued-in Rahab dropped a "wall" of legos off the top bunk with a satisfying crash! Our two spies then rescued her and her family, taking the paper towel rolls from her before helping her down the ladder. Rahab hammed it up very thoroughly, I love it! Only after she was safe did a bunch of kids run in with swords & then come back out and throw a bunch of tissue paper flames into the doorway. End of story.

The obvious game consisted of knocking down a small wall of wooden blocks (NOT mooncakes—you'd have to have a bowling ball to knock them over!) with a sponge "trumpet." Then we made our own little trumpets of toilet paper rolls, colored paper, & stickers for the valves.

Rahab and the two spies

Back up to eight kids this week. It was a shorter story than usual. Three years ago we'd done Rahab and the fall of Jericho together; this time I decided to split it into two stories so we could have a little more fun with the fall of Jericho (for next week). Which meant that I was desperate to embellish this one, ha!

We started by introducing Moses and reiterating how they'd followed him around the wilderness until all the older generation had died off—so we all marched around the room, pushing the adults down into chairs one by one. Finally Moses (last adult standing) died too. And Joshua was introduced as his successor.

Joshua tells everyone they are going to enter the land in three days. This time no one dares to say no! But he still sends a couple of spies in first to check out their first big obstacle, the city of Jericho. It was a big city, so they needed to spend the night there. This woman named Rahab invited them into her home, i.e. one of the side bedrooms. (Decided not to point out that she was a prostitute.) Some people got wind of this and went to tell the king of Jericho, who decided to send a couple of soldiers to capture them. So Rahab sent the two spies up the ladder to the top bunk. I wasn't sure how Sally would manage the ladder but she did fine! (Wish I'd gotten a picture.) Then Rahab did her best to cover them with a sheet. It definitely was a good thing the soldiers didn't inspect the "roof" too closely, ha! Rahab sends them off to keep searching, then she makes her deal with the spies to rescue her family. We almost missed giving her the red cord, but then they managed to give it to her before they climbed back down & left. End of story. A lot of parents missed the action since it was taking place in the side room & they didn't come look, sigh.

Since the soldiers had been looking for spies who were covered up, our game involved looking for candy that was covered up by one of three overturned teacups that were moved around the table. Most of our kids kept very careful track & found the candy without hesitation. The two Wong girls have a little more trouble concentrating, & the younger girl was starting to get upset because she hates to try anything she doesn't know how to do. And if she won't, neither will her sister. Mr. Lei, who was leading the game, got the brilliant idea of asking Lai Ting (the younger sister) to do the mixing up of the cups, which she could handle, so she was happy. Then some other kids wanted to do that to. That was a fun twist to the game.

Craft time was pretty simple. Each child had a drawing of a house with a flat roof. They first were given two stickers of men lying down (flannelgraph figures scanned in, shrunk, and printed on label sheets) to put on the roof. At first one of the girls didn't quite catch which side of the house was up (no one ever sees one-story houses here!) and stuck a spy on the wall. When her mistake was pointed out, someone else immediately suggested he was climbing up to the roof. He then made it to the top safely. :-) When everyone's spies were in place, glue was smeared over the whole roof, spies and all, and shredded-tissue "grass" (or "flax," whatever flax looks like—I have no idea) was stuck on to completely cover the spies. Not elegant, but possible for everyone; I don't think anyone needed parental help this time!

Spying out the Land

Extra low attendance this Sunday, due to a big Special Olympics event. Only four kids total—two mentally handicapped & two neurotypical. I don't know if this was good timing or not: We were being visited by a woman from Hong Kong who is planning on applying to the mission to be sent to take over at MLFF while we are in the US next year. So she didn't get the whole picture. Sigh.

Other than attendance, it was a good Sunday. We got our Israelites (kids) to the edge of the promised land, but could see that it was full of people (adults)! In fact, the people of the land were very tall (all the adults stood up on stools). So Moses sent a bunch of spies in to see just how good the land was. They all had to sneak quietly through the gauntlet of "giants" and head out to the balcony. While there, adults and children counted loudly to 40 (for the number of days they spied out the land) while the spies were collecting evidence of the land's fruitfulness. Then they brought it back carefully past the giants again.

Of course, in spite of this, everyone whined and complained again about how tall the people were, so they ended up being sentenced to wait another 40 years, for the next generation to enter.

For game time, we had a narrow aisle to pass through between two rows of stools, with two volunteers waving long cardboard tubes up and down for the kids to have to dodge. Our volunteers got a little too enthusiastic and one cardboard tube got destroyed! But no one was hurt and everyone had fun.

Our craft was making "giants" from marshmallows.

Playing Catch-up

Apparently things were a bit slow at Merciful Love while we were on vacation. Well, I hope it made things easier for the leaders.

The first week (August 22) they finished up the last commandment. For the story, they used Naaman the leper, with Elisha's servant Gehazi being covetous of the gifts Naaman had offered for his healing (which Elisha had refused).

The game was about the perils of coveting too much. A pan was prepared with a paper towel spread over it and fastened in place with a rubber band. This was placed on a stool in the middle of the group. Then a bag of small stones of various sizes was passed around the group. Each person would place one stone on the paper towel in turn. The object was to see whose "coveting" of "just one more…" would tear or otherwise dislodge/destroy the prepared pan. Even the cheap paper towels we used are amazingly strong—this game works better if you dampen the paper slightly before beginning the game.

The opposite of covetousness is contentment, so the craft was cutting & pasting these "contented cats."

The next week was the review of the ten commandments. The instructions were for each family to receive one or two slips of paper listing one of the commandments and the story that had gone along with it. I really wanted the parents to try to lead their kids to act their stories out. Even if they didn't remember the story, to at least act something out that would give a clue to the commandment for others to guess which one was being portrayed. But the volunteer helper who came that week, an even bigger ham than myself, ended up capitulating and acting everything out for the others to guess. I do hope she involved some of the kids (I didn't want to ask, in case it came out too grumpy/controlling), since it would be the adults in general who would be doing the guessing.

For the game, the kids were to divide into two teams, each with the commandments written out on ten slips of paper. With our big poster board example displayed in the front, they were supposed to place them in the correct order on smaller "stone tablets," relay fashion, racing to see which team was fastest and/or most accurate.

I don't know how it went speedwise, but I did notice that neither group got them all in the right order!

Since they were now done learning the ten commandments, the kids made paper graduation hats for craft time.

Whining and complaining

Yes, I know, this story belongs a lot earlier in the Exodus account. I doubt any of our people noticed though. :-) We had talked about manna when we talked about honoring the Sabbath. This time we talked about water and quail, with emphasis on the people's whining and complaining, not trusting that God would provide.

Included were:

The bitter water at Mara, with Moses throwing a tree branch (broken off of Zaccheus' sycamore, I love it when I can recycle props) into the crumpled-blue-tissue-paper water supply.

The water that came out of a rock (came out from behind the folded table that the rock was taped onto) when Moses struck it.

The flock of paper quails that came "flying" down among the Israelites when they were complaining about not having meat to eat.

We did craft ahead of game time this week. The craft was making slingshots such as perhaps the Israelites could have used to bring down the quail. Tied two craft sticks together in an x-shape, with the top part of the x being much larger, then strung a twisted rubber band across the top. Then of course we shot down (or tried to shoot down!) some stand-up quail targets using the slingshots, with small squares of cardboard, the same size/shape as our "manna wafers" but that could be folded slightly around the rubber band for gripping & shooting.

I was standing behind the targets and got hit a lot more often than the quail. I guess they wanted to eat "hippo meat" more than they wanted quail, ha!

Fourth anniversary

We took another break this week before finishing the commandments. Besides it being our 4^th anniversary, we wanted to do something special to say good-bye to some of our special helpers who are leaving Macau this month. So we told two brief Bible stories, relating each one to a different "honoree."

First we introduced the prophet Elijah (Kevin Hui, who will enter Tokyo Christian University this fall). He was a famous prophet, probably most famous for the time he was going to sacrifice a bull on the altar (one of the kids wearing cow horns, stretched out on a board across several stools), and God Himself sent fire down from heaven to consume the burnt offering (girl in halo sprinkles tissue paper flames over the bull). God really loved Elijah, so much that when it didn't rain for three years and a lot of people didn't have enough to eat, he sent ravens to feed him (kids with black wings carrying crackers and a water bottle). Not only that—God loved him so much that when it came time for him to leave this world, he didn't have to die! Instead, God sent a fiery chariot, drawn by horses of fire, to carry him up to heaven!

I was quite proud of this fiery chariot—a leftover from the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, with tissue flames added. I was also very proud of our two horses. I never guessed Ka Ho would be willing to keep his horse mask on long enough to help carry Elijah away, much less long enough to pose for a picture afterward! Good job, Ka Ho!

Wound up this story by saying that Kevin was like Elijah. He had done some wonderful things in God's service, and now he was going to fly away from us in a "fiery chariot." We presented him with his farewell gift. Then it was time for the next story.

Unfortunately, our second honoree had to work! But her daughter came, so she was the main character in our story: Jesus. Jesus, of course, also did mighty miracles, and God loved Him very much. Although He had to die, that wasn't because God didn't love Him enough. Instead, it was because both Jesus and His heavenly Father loved us so much that He died in our place so that we could go to heaven. But then, of course, He rose from the dead and also went to heaven in a special way.

But when all this was about to happen, He wanted to make sure His followers knew just how much He really loved them, and how much He wanted them to love one another. So He and His followers ate dinner together (Jesus passes out crackers to all). While they were eating, Jesus got up & tied a towel around His (her) waist & got a basin of water…and began to wash everyone's feet! We didn't have Man Man actually do this for everyone; it could have weirded some folks out. We just said, when He got to Peter (a girl we'd gotten to okay this before we started), Peter said, no way! You are my Master, you can't wash my feet! And Jesus replies, but it is important that you let me do this, or else you won't really belong to me. So Peter lets him. And Jesus concludes, now I want You all to follow Me in this. You need to love one another as I have loved you, and be willing to serve one another humbly.

Our absent friend Ka Lin learned this lesson well from Jesus, we pointed out. Even though she didn't do a lot of upfront stuff in the time she was volunteering with us, she was always willing to do any little behind-the-scenes thing that needed doing. And we appreciate Man Man too, because it was hard for her, being shy and not used to being around mentally handicapped/autistic kids, to come to Merciful Love with her mother. But she was obedient, and fit in very well and ended up liking it very much! So we presented Man Man with gifts for herself and her mom.

Our game followed the foot-washing theme. The kids lined up in two teams, each on a row of stools, sitting shoulder to shoulder. While we didn't actually do any foot-washing, we did the before-and-after. Kid one had to take off kid two's shoes, then sit down while kid two took off kid three's shoes, etc., until the last kid took off kid one's shoes. Then the procedure was repeated only putting the shoes back on. It was great fun, and once again I was thrilled with how well everyone cooperated. It was a little unfair; the first team one because they had more kids wearing flip-flops as opposed to regular shoes! Something else interesting to note: a-Wai, from our very poorest family, never wears anything but flip-flops. He was supposed to take off the lace-up shoes of the person next to him and he had NO idea where to begin! But he hung in there while Bruce was helping him, hand-over-hand.

For craft time, we used a worksheet I found on the internet where the kids glued pieces of cereal ('food that the ravens brought Elijah") in the spaces provided and then added them up to see what the total amount was.

We had ordered in food, then, for a meal to celebrate the anniversary. During our Bible stories, A-Wai had been demonstrating a new odd behavior pattern—holding his face under the water faucet while scratching at it vigorously. Then coming back into the room with water dripping off his chin. Finally I told him that he either stop this, or he would have to leave before the meal. And he stopped! After the meal, however, he was right back in the bathroom doing it again. We hadn't cut the cake, though, so I told him that he would have to leave now, without cake. "But I won't do it again!" he said. (A complete sentence!!) However, I felt that it was more important to be consistent in penalizing his aberrant behavior just then, than to reward his grammatical excuses. And he & his mom had had a good meal.

I still feel bad about the whole thing though. I wouldn't do this with any other kid; they all have behavior problems of one kind or another. One big difference, however, is that their parents take charge of discipline themselves. A-Wai's mom is simply unable to do this. She was smiling as she left; it's possible that she appreciated someone taking him in hand. (And he didn't lose his temper! He just tried his excuse & then left!) I need to talk to her more about this some time, I know. But we left the next day for vacation. Will not be back until September. Praying for them, and the best way—and the most pleasing to God, which I still don't know whether this was--to help both a-Wai and his mom.

Pictures will also have to wait until September!

Commandment Nine

Well, we more than made up for our low attendance of the past couple of weeks! "Just" eight kids, but three visitors from Hong Kong, who come once a month as volunteers, and six American visitors from our home church in Rapid City, South Dakota, here to teach at an English day camp.

Our story was about Naboth and his vineyard. (A plate of grapes Naboth stood over with his watering can.) The one that King Ahab wanted for himself but couldn't have because he at least did know last week's commandment about not stealing! So he went home and pouted. His wife Jezebel had no such conscience concerning God's commands, so she arranged for him to be hauled before the judge (visitors beware—you WILL be recruited!) and have some people accuse him of blaspheming God and the king. Then we all "stoned him to death" with wadded newspapers. When Jezebel told her husband it was all taken care of, he knew better than to ask too many questions. He just went & dumped out Naboth's grapes, put in his own bunch of broccoli (the Bible says he wanted it for a vegetable garden) and stood over it with his watering can. End of story.

For game time, we had a bunch of true or false statements stuck face down to the blackboard for the kids to take turns choosing. If it was true and they knew it, they got an M&M. If it was false and they knew it, they could win their candy if they corrected the statement. With enough coaching, everybody won. Even the boy who kept insisting that the statement "big sister Mary is a boy" was true. We used a lot of statements that had to be verified on the spot. Things that I didn't know for sure would be true or false when I wrote them, such as, "Ka Hei is wearing a red shirt," or "Sally is wearing earrings today." I was pretty much positive that I was not a boy though!

Thanks to Pauline Yeung for the craft idea. We said, Jezebel had those worthless fellows in the story tell lies about Naboth on purpose. But a lot of times, when we bear false witness about others, it's because we have not taken the time to look carefully at what the truth really is. You need to see things clearly before you talk about others—in other words, you need to have your glasses on!

Normally when we have visiting volunteers, we have them watch the kids in the side bedrooms while the adults have their Bible study in the living room. But we had too many visitors to squeeze them all into those rooms with the kids. Having the Americans join the Bible study would be too overwhelming, though, with the translation that would be needed. So, the perfect solution: the Hong Kong volunteers got to join the Bible study, while the Americans and I took the kids to a nearby park and bought them all something to drink. It was HOT, but that was okay.

While we were out there we also got all the kids to sign Kevin's birthday card, which we presented to him when we got back.