I was hoping for some encouragement this week. Thank you, God! We had good attention from everyone during the story, game, craft, AND Bible study! Wow!
We had a person role-play a demon-possessed man when we did the story in Acts about the seven sons of Sceva, but he didn't have to do much except yell and bowl over the would-be exorcists. For this story, since the man was more of a central character, I felt uncomfortable having someone represent him. So we used pictures, and that worked well. We put a paper doll-like picture up on the easel, with nothing on but a mean-looking face. Then had kids come up to add: torn, scanty clothing, wild hair, dirt rubbed over the skin, bloody wounds, and broken (paper clip) chains hanging from his wrists. This was the result:
Our Jesus character was supposed to ask him his name, which is always an occasion for frustration/laughter. You tell one of our kids to repeat, "What is your name?" and he answers the question: "Liu Ka Ho!" Back and forth I don't know how many times. Finally got him to say it by having him do so one word at a time, so it didn't feel so much like a question with a reflex answer. (Did he learn anything from this? That I can't tell you!)
Jesus tells the Legion to come out of the man, and we asked the group, did they obey? Well, before answering that question, we introduced the "legion" (same word as for herd) of pigs. Went around the room and had everyone make a pig noise before being given a paper pig. Everyone, adults and kids, cooperated beautifully with this, though we had pigs speaking with a lot of different accents (smile)! So then when Jesus sends the demons into the pigs, they all had to squeal again and throw their pigs into the sea (onto the floor).
Then the disciples helped the man get cleaned up & gave him some clothes to wear:
In the story of the sons of Sceva last summer, we did "bowling" & had our ball knock over the seven sons. This time, we said that Jesus could overcome a whole legion of demons at once—bowling again (we didn't dress up our bowling pins—water bottles—this time though).
Our craft was these origami pig 
faces. I was a little worried about having such an easy paper-folding craft right after a more difficult folding craft just last Sunday. But it was fine.
Someone asked during the Bible study, this was just a parable, right? No, we assured her, it was a true story. She's thinking!
So, the morning went really well. It went downhill after that. I don't want to share all the details here, but we as a core group had decided to ban the boy who's been spitting & wiping his face on every available surface from attending potlucks at the mother church until he breaks this extremely unhygienic & unappetizing habit. Bruce had promised to bring him to the meal this Sunday, however, so the planned compromise was for me to take him & his mom out to lunch at a restaurant, where we could just be at one table & not be affecting everyone else. Mom was okay with this when we explained it to her. But the boy was NOT!! To make a long story short, we did manage to get him to a restaurant instead of over to the church potluck, but he was extremely unhappy about it and it was not a pleasant lunch for any of us. Of course, his being agitated increases the rate of spitting & wiping…
I had told mom I would try to visit her today, but haven't been able to find her at home. She needs more personal attention & support as a single mom who is pretty overwhelmed with the task of parenting this young man. If you are reading this, please pray that we can find some practical ways to encourage her. Thanks!
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