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.