Between having been sick, and adding four new patients to my physical therapy schedule, I never did get around to updating this last week! So we'll cover two sessions with this entry. Conveniently, last Sunday was the first nine plagues of Egypt, and this morning we had the Passover.
We greatly condensed the story of the plagues. Had Moses and Aaron go straight to Pharaoh & ask that the people be let go. When Pharaoh said no, Aaron threw down his rod & it "became" a snake. Then three kids in fancy hats threw down their newspaper rods & they became small snakes which got "eaten up" by Aaron's. This was insufficient to impress Pharaoh. We skipped the bricks-without-straw part of the story and went straight into the list of plagues that were supposed to soften Pharaoh's heart (but, of course, they didn't):
1. water into blood—a small jar of "ripened" beef blood for everyone to smell—eeuuww!!
2. frogs—everyone had to get down & hop
3. fleas—everyone scratched
4. flies—one of the kids given a flyswatter to swat imaginary flies. (Had to borrow this from a friend who'd brought hers with her from the US. Couldn't find them anywhere here! Strange. It's not like we have no flies (though, granted, not as many as in Minnesota!)
5. animal sickness—had a couple of kids imitate cows, sheep & pigs, then on cue, fall over & die
6. boils/sores—everyone got bandaids
7. thunder & hail—everyone crowded for cover under three umbrellas
8. grasshoppers—gave brooms to a couple of kids to try to sweep out the invisible invaders
9. darkness—covered all the kids' eyes for a count of three (days)
That week's game involved trying to get all the grasshoppers and/or frogs out of your house—by throwing them into the opposing team's house! Kids divided into teams on opposite sides of a tape line, & bags of a few dozen newspaper wads were dumped on each side. The game was to keep picking up & throwing the things over to the other side until time was up; the winning team had the most pest-free house.
For a craft we made these darling grasshoppers out of 
clothespins. Very simple & a lot of fun, but I can't post a picture until I take my memory card in to the photo shop; something went flooey with it today & it doesn't fit in my computer…
So then this morning we finished with plague #10, the death of the firstborn. Started by distributing bits of jewelry to all the adults {"Egyptians"}. Then briefly reviewed the previous plagues. Since Pharaoh was still holding out, Moses warned him that this plague was going to be more horrible than any of the rest, with all first-born being killed. But in spite of all other plague warnings coming true, Pharaoh wasn't going to take this seriously.
But God did! He instructed the Israelite families to take a lamb (a small water bottle with a sheep's face on the lid and covered with cotton balls), slaughter it (saw at the neck with a plastic knife) and catch its "blood" (ketchup) in a bowl. We'd made two doors, with frames, out of brown poster paper. Different kids then dipped some plastic flowers into the ketchup and painted along the top and sides of the doors. I love this visual!
The next instruction was about not leavening their bread—a fluffy bread roll was a reject, saltine crackers were displayed as acceptable. The kids then had to go "plunder the Egyptians" by collecting the jewelry from the adults and placing it in their prepared carrier bags. Then they had to stand, with their bags over their shoulders (but no staves; I didn't manage/bother to have enough for everyone), and eat their crackers. While they were doing this, the "angel of the Lord," (a parent in a halo), walked around the room looking at the six(!) wooden doors and our two paper doors. None of the wooden doors had blood on them, of course, so they got a thumbs-down from the angel, while the paper doors with their markings got thumbs-up.
Then the wailing started by the Egyptians, and Pharaoh yelled at the Israelites to get out of there NOW. So they all trooped to the end of the room, end of story!
I thought the game was going to be simple but for some reason it wasn't. The kids sat in a circle & when music started, were supposed to pass cards around the circle, so that each child would always have a card. Some kids were collecting cards & not passing them on; one boy started standing up and throwing his cards to the four winds. I interrupted the leader at this point with my trademark yell and told the kids that if they weren't going to listen and play according to the rules, we were not going to play any games. My, it got quiet! And the game went much more smoothly after that! When the music stopped, a number tile was drawn from a bag; whichever child had that number sticker on his/her shirt would have his/her card checked. If it was a white one (no blood), the child "died" and was out of the game; if it was a red card (blood), the child got a cracker. We were going to play until the white cards were all gone, but with the confusion at first it was taking too long, so we quit before everyone died who was eligible. :-)
Craft time went well. We did smaller versions of our water-bottle sheep, using bubble-stuff jars (I've got enough bubble solution in some other containers at work now to blow bubbles until I retire, I think!)
With most of our core group folks gone for World Vision's Famine Day, and Bruce preaching elsewhere, I got to lead the adult Bible study. I really enjoyed preparing it. Application verses were from I Cor. 5:6-8 about cleansing yourself from the leaven of sin because Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. It struck me that, if the children of Israel had not killed their lamb & come under the protection of its blood, they would have died. If they had gone with leavening their bread and wanted to wait around for it to rise, they wouldn't have been killed by the destroying angel, but they might have gotten left behind in Egypt and have been stuck being slaves for the rest of their lives. Just so, in the Christian life, we are saved from eternal death by the blood of Christ, our Passover lamb, but we need to get rid of the sin in our lives (also with His help, I would like to add!) in order to not live as slaves to it.
I don't know that any of the parents thought this was quite as cool as I did, but at least we got to take note that there are these two sides to the Christian life. ("What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" –Rom. 6:15)
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