A Brave and Humble Woman

We started our story by not introducing Jesus: we just put our "traditional" white vest on the one male present & immediately everyone knew who he was supposed to be. Yes, that was a problem Jesus had when He was on earth. Everyone recognized Him, and wanted to hear Him preach, or ask Him for healing. Sometimes He & His disciples got so busy they didn't have time to eat! So they went together to the country of the Phoenicians for a "getaway." (The reason for His going is not given in Scripture; I give this as a possibility. If Jesus could fall asleep in a boat during a storm, for example, He must have gotten extremely tired sometimes. He talks about knowing when power has gone out of Him, when the hemorrhaging woman touched Him. Did He need to rest and restore His strength for His miracles? Is that perhaps why He was reluctant to heal the Syrophoenician woman's daughter, and possibly open Himself up to more demands, leaving Him unready for the needs of the Jews? All speculation, I admit. But I found it helpful when I was studying the story & hoped others might too.)

Anyway, escaping to this other country didn't help after all, because at least one woman recognized who He was and wanted Him to deliver her daughter from a demon. The Mark version of the story has Jesus and His disciples in a house; the Matthew account sounds like they are out of doors. So we put both in the story. First the woman came and knocked on the "door" where Jesus and a few disciples were sitting drinking tea. One of the disciples goes and answers the door, shoos her away, and comes back and tells Jesus it was just someone knocking on the wrong door. Then the next day they were out walking and the woman starts yelling for Jesus to help her. The disciples say, get rid of her. But Jesus does nothing, either to help her or to send her away. Finally she throws herself at his feet and begs for His help. We had Jesus kneel down and gently explain, if I help you, what would stop all your neighbors from looking for my help? I'm really supposed to be here for the Jews, you know. Spending my time helping people here would be like taking the children's food and letting the dogs eat it, and that wouldn't be right, would it? The woman responds, yes, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs from the children's table. (In other words, call me a dog, I don't care, just heal my daugahter!) Jesus is moved by her humility and her bold faith, and grants her request.

We followed the "dog" theme for game and craft time. We crumbled up cookies on small plates and had the kids lap up the crumbs like a dog. The adults all ended up trying it too; partly to help persuade one reluctant girl, partly just for the fun of it. It was quite humorous, we all got crumbs on our noses and chins!

Then we made these little dogs out of toilet paper rolls.

Simon and the Sinful Woman

I thought Mrs. Lei did an exceptionally good job at leading the story today. Unfortunately several people were too late to see it and a couple of others were too busy chatting to watch the skit, so it didn't get the attention it deserved. We had almost enough kids to play all the roles; Bruce ended up playing Jesus. He, Simon, and two others sat around a table set with bowls and chopsticks, all with their feet off to the side up on stools. (All except 2-year-old Marco whose legs were too short—ha). Then we introduced this woman who wished she could invite Jesus for a meal, but her home--and her life--were too messy. But as she looked longingly at the feasting, she noticed that for all Simon's righteousness, he didn't know how to treat a guest. She could see Jesus feet and they were DIRTY! So she went right in and started rubbing his feet with some lotion (anti-bacterial hand sanitizer—she didn't actually put it on, as Bruce kept his socks on). She started to cry over the privilege of doing this for him, and then she wanted to dry them and all she had was her hair, so she used that. All this time Simon is looking at her like she is something the cat dragged in, but it's interesting that he never orders her out—just sits there and passes mental judgment on Jesus for letting her touch him! Jesus abruptly stands up and says he has something to tell Simon. He says, lets say your two friends here owe you money, one $500 and one $50. (We gave them signs to hold with these amounts.) Neither one can afford to pay you back, so you cancel their debts. (Simon rips up the signs.) Which one would love you more after that? Simon says, the one who owed the most. Jesus agrees and says, you are pretty righteous, so you don't love me very much. But this woman loves me very much, because she knows she is a sinner and needs the forgiveness I bring. Then He turns to the woman and says, don't cry, your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.

Simon didn't know how to treat his guests (I mistakenly used the word "tourists" for "guests" when I introduced this game—oops!); it's also important as a guest to treat your host or hostess properly. To practice this, we played "visiting Grandma." One adult was Grandma and sat next to a table with a tea set and a tin of cookies. Each child in turn had to great Grandma by title, kiss her on the cheek, sit down, pour tea, use both hands to give Grandma a cup of tea, and then ask her how she was doing. When they did it all right, Grandma would open the tin and give them a cookie. Again, lots of distracting chatting going on between the adults while the game was going on. Which was too bad, because some of the kids that don't always speak well did a great job & they deserved to be noticed! Sigh.

Craft time was an easy choice: this woman showed her love for Jesus by anointing His feet, which is not the way most of us are going to show love for anyone! A more typical way would be giving them a card—such as for Valentine's Day! I found this great bunny valentine in a craft book; perfect for the Year of the Rabbit!

In spite of the lack of attention during the joint activities, Bruce said the adult Bible study went really well, with more participation from our non-believers than usual! Thank the Lord for what only He can do!!

Raising of Jairus’ Daughter

Our story was brief this time—we didn't show the interruption of the hemorrhaging woman since we had done that in a separate story. We introduced Jairus & family. The daughter was very sick (we took her temperature with one of these fancy "radar guns"), so Jairus left her lying on her bed (a board across two stools) with her mother stationed next to her. Then he went off to look for Jesus. He pushed through the crowd around Jesus and begged him to come heal his daughter. Jesus agreed and they started off. After walking one round of the room, the servant appears and tells Jairus he might as well send Jesus away, the girl was already dead. But Jesus told him not to be afraid, so they kept going. When they arrived, the mother and several others were wailing loudly. Jesus tells them they don't need to mourn, the girl was only asleep. They stop wailing and start jeering at Jesus. But he goes in and tells the girl to get up, and she does. Jesus gives her to her parents and tells them to give her something to eat. So they give her a cracker.

For the game we focused on Jairus having to force his way through the crowd to get to Jesus. Several adults linked arms to block the way from one end of the room to the other. If the kids could push their way through, they, like Jairus, could get what they wanted from "Jesus" (in this case, a sweet treat). The kids enjoyed the game, but maybe it wasn't so brilliant to encourage them to use physical force to move people out of their way! Our visiting (neurotypical) preschooler was good at sneaking through between people's knees though.

For craft time we made these reversible dolls to illustrate how, like with Jairus and his family, God turns our sorrow into joy.

The week after this story was the fourth day of the Chinese New Year. We always use the first Sunday of Chinese New Year just to chat and munch New Year's goodies. Low attendance, but that was not surprising. I really enjoyed the break from having to prepare anything new. Especially since I caught a bad cold from the cat we're taking care of for a vacationing friend, so it would have been extra unpleasant to go at the normal pace. I'm fine now & looking forward to this coming Sunday!