Christmas 2011

A full house today! Including Mr. Poon from downstairs (see the October 2009 post "from Noah to Abraham") who came for the whole morning, a first! He was chosen by popular demand to be our Joseph. Okay, it’s very possible that Joseph was quite a bit older than Mary! (Maybe not THIS much older though!) So we introduced Joseph and his fiancée Mary. Then a friend comes to Joseph and whispers, “Hey, did you know that your fiancée is already pregnant?” Mr. Poon, who had never heard the whole Christmas story before, had a huge reaction. “What am I supposed to say to that??!” But then of course an angel comes to him and tells him not to be ashamed to marry Mary, because the child was conceived of the Holy Spirit and would be the Savior of the world. So they have the wedding.

Then, when Mary is big with child (pillow under the dress), they have to go to Bethlehem to register for the census. They walk there but can’t get a room at the inn (folded table with “full” sign), so they have to go to the stable(folded table with picture of ox & ass in stall). The baby is born (out with the pillow, turn around with baby doll in arms), and to avoid putting the baby on the dirty floor, they put it to sleep in the manger. At this point Mary, a bit embarrassed by the proceedings, holds the doll by one leg and dumps him from about waist height into the grass-filled box on the floor. Poor baby Jesus! We all sing “Away in a Manger.”

Next there are some shepherds in towel headdresses keeping watch over their picture of a flock of sheep. Angels appear to them and tell them the good news of the birth of the Savior (here we were supposed to sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, but the leader missed it). The shepherds decide they better go see for themselves. We sing “O Come All Ye Faithful.” They find the stable and kneel down to worship the baby (or at least the two shepherds that are capable of kneeling do so). We all sing “Joy to the World.”

12-year-old Melissa Chu led the game, and she did a wonderful job of explaining how it was ironic that the child born King of the Universe would be born in a stable, when he should have had the red carpet rolled out to welcome Him. That we would walk the red carpet in his honor. Of course just walking down a red carpet hardly qualifies as a game, so we made it more fun by making a hoop out of the “carpet” & each person had to keep moving the hoop along in order to keep walking on the carpet. Originally I thought I could do it with just red fabric, but I found it was not real practical. I ended up pasting it along a long stretch of cardboard pieces—had to stretch the material to make it long enough for a decent hoop & kept praying that the glue wouldn’t come loose under the pressure. Duh, I could have just done this with red cardboard and saved myself a lot of hassle. But the shiny red velveteen certainly was prettier.

We had a visiting American friend who couldn’t understand the Chinese explanation & no one translated for her. She wondered WHAT was going on when, after watching the Christmas story, suddenly everyone was taking turns walking in this big hamster wheel…

Craft time was simple; everyone was given various figures to make up a crèche scene which they were to glue on to a large sheet of paper to match the example. (At least it would have been simple if I hadn’t misplaced half the glue sticks…)!

The Great Banquet

Originally we were going to tell this story a week ago. But that day there were too many other activities going on in Macau & when it came time to start we only had two kids; our “policy” is that we have three before we trot out the whole program. So instead we all went out for tea. One other family (with two girls) made it in time for tea, another (with one boy) came so late that we were done already! Need to think of changing our name again to “Latecomers’ Family Fellowship” (only one syllable’s difference in the Chinese phrases). Sigh. I kind of appreciate the break myself; this puts me an extra week ahead in preparation. But I feel bad for our helpers from Hong Kong who were going to lead the story for the first time.

So this week, we had some other volunteers from a different Hong Kong church. We didn’t have them lead anything as they don’t know our kids & had no prep time either, but I was very happy to have them help out during the game & craft & then the free time.

This parable was lots of fun! The king announces he is preparing a wedding banquet for his son. So first a servant helps him set a table with a white tablecloth, candlesticks, and bowls & chopsticks. Then the king sends out the servant to tell the invited guests that things are ready. The first person shows him a deed for land and says, sorry, have to go look at my new property. The second says, oh but I just bought an ox and I have to try him out with the plow! So we put our cow horns on another kid and the apologetic guest puts a harness around him and leads him off to go plowing. The third says, but I just got married, so I can’t come! She put on a tissue wedding veil and her ”husband” (mine!), a huge paper bowtie. (The Hong Kong volunteers were taking pictures; I sure hope they send us some!!) So the servant goes back to the king and says, nobody wants to come. The king says okay, then, we’ll invite the poor, the lame and the blind! First a couple of “poor” were dressed up in ripped clothing, and escorted to the table. Next, one using crutches and another a cane, and another one ended up being carried (under some protest) to the table. Finally, the last two kids were decked out in black-paper-covered glasses and led to the table.

Next, the servant explains, you are very welcome at the king’s table but he wants you to dress up in special garments to honor his son. Our “wedding garments” were party hats. I was half counting on at least one kid refusing to wear a hat, but they were all very cooperative—however, we were actually one hat short. Fortunately the one left without a hat is intelligent enough to respond to a whisper that we know she is not rebellious, we just need her to act the part. Otherwise she might have gotten her feelings hurt when the king comes in to personally distribute cookies in everyone’s food bowl but the one without a party hat is scolded for her lack of respect and thrown out of the party without any food!

The poor girl—she was also the very last to get a cookie in our game time, which was kind of like musical chairs. There were enough chairs for each person, so when the music stopped they first all sat down, but then had to get up and check whether their stool had a “wedding garment” (this time, a small paper bowtie) stuck to the bottom of it. Only one did. That person got a cookie and then he/she & one “undressed” stool were taken out of the game. We kept playing until everyone got a cookie. Everyone liked this game just fine! One girl kept trying to sit on two stools at once though, to double her chances. Turned out she was second to the last to win!

Because we had the volunteers here, the parents were able to have their longer Bible study starting right after the story. It worked out well that they were gone during craft time; the project was to make invitations not to a banquet, but to a Christmas Eve Open House we’ll be holding this Saturday at our home. So when the parents finished, they were presented with the completed invitations! I had written out the details earlier & copied then onto parchment paper; we glued these onto a red card and made a lacy border. They were pretty and the moms were surprised!

Parable of the Net

I confess, I chose this parable for this week because of the ease in thinking up the game and craft part! Planning the story was a little harder, and it did turn out pretty short.

First, everyone in the room got stickers, mostly fish, but a few crabs and lobsters. Originally four of the “fish” were to become “fishermen” but we had a smaller crowd than usual so went with two fishermen. They got on stools and started to “row” out to deep water. In the deep water, all sorts of sea creatures (everyone with a sticker—i.e. everyone) were swimming around. So they fishermen got out their big net (a bedsheet with strings safety-pinned to each corner) and draped it over all the sea creatures. Then they had to haul them to shore. One of them was supposed to hang on the the net strings while the other rowed, but somehow that got missed. So the story was even shorter, ha. Once they got to “shore,” the fishermen’s job was to sort out the crabs & lobsters, which were “unclean,” and go dump them back in the ocean. Only then could the fish be put into baskets (sit on the sofas). To finish the story, to make it clear that this wasn’t just a “fish tale,” the narrator was to finish by saying, this is how it will be at the end of the age, when the angels separate out the unclean from the righteous, and only then can the children of God enter the kingdom of heaven. But we could just imagine how this would get missed in the general noise & hubbub that is always part of our morning. So, as she was saying this, another volunteer held up a large poster of an ear, prefacing her remarks with, and Jesus said, let him who has ears, listen! It helped!

Like I said, the game was easy. I just brought in my little magnetic fishing pole & plastic fish. Simple, but everyone enjoys it.

For craft we made fish, starting by covering a marble with a small piece of clay & then pulling out fins, tail & fish lips. Add small googly eyes and glitter for “fish scales” and there you have it. Fun and cute!

Parable of the Lost Coin

Yikes, falling behind again! On Sunday November 27^th, we did the parable of the Lost Coin. Of course in the text it is very brief, so we had to go some to make our morning skit out of it:

So there was this woman who was saving up silver coins for some unknown reason (probably it was her dowry, but, ssh, don’t tell!). She had to do all sorts of different things to earn the money, such as walking a neighbor’s dog (Lai Wun didn’t want to keep the mask on her face, but hey, around the neck worked), or delivering newspapers (passing one out to everyone in the room), or watering flowers for another neighbor (I liked this one best—the “volunteers” squatted holding their flowers, then when the “woman” held her watering can over them, they stood up/grew). Finally, on her birthday, an elderly relative (my gray-haired husband) gave her the last coin she needed.

As she earned different amounts of coins for these different jobs, they were crossed off on a picture of 10 coins put up on the board. This was so we could keep the treasure box with only eight coins in it, untouched in its niche until we needed it. She goes to put in the last coin and then counts the total—what? Only nine coins? What happened to the 10^th? So she gets the broom and starts sweeping under furniture to see where it might have fallen. I had thrown a couple pieces of candy under one sofa, so she did find some “treasure” but not her coin. So she has to ask some of her friends to help her move the sofa and look behind it. While they are doing this, I make a little “adjustment” and then sat in the recliner & put my feet up—and waited for someone to notice that the “lost coin” was stuck to the bottom of my shoe! (I can’t remember which website I found that fun idea on. I really should give more credit to different sites. Okay, starting as soon as I remember.)

Finding lost coins was the obvious game theme. The kids were taken out of the room one at a time; while they were out a chocolate coin was hidden in not-too-hard-to-find places. When the kids came back in, the rest of the group had to give them verbal instructions like, behind you, to the right, look higher, etc. They all followed the directions very well. After all, there was chocolate at stake!

For craft we made these little “brooms” out of pencils and bristles cut from a small whisk broom. One of the few crafts the kids have ever taken home, I was very pleased with the reception it got!