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!