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!!