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!