Blessed are the Peacemakers

Unfortunately, to be a peacemaker, you have to first have an “unpeaceful” relationship. We gave the example of twin brothers Jacob and Esau, how Jacob was always tricking his brother out of stuff. (They sit down next to each other with bowls of food, Jacob points and says look, and when Esau looks he quick scoops some of Esau’s food out of his bowl.) Esau got so mad at him for all his trickery that he wanted to kill him (our Esau made great threatening gestures toward Jacob on cue), so Jacob had to flee to his ancestral village. Does anyone remember what he did there? He got married and had LOTS of kids, right? We lined up his two wives and two concubines and filled their arms with paper-towel-roll “children” according to number. He also multiplied flocks and herds (hang pictures of flocks of sheep and goats on wall). But even though everything was going fine, and his relationship with his brother wasn’t very good, he still missed home, so he decided to go back.

He sent a servant to tell Esau he was coming, and Esau took some armed men to come greet him! When the servant came back and told this to Jacob, he was very afraid. So he prayed and asked God what to do. (He kneels down & an “angel” comes and taps him on the head with an idea). So what he does is send one servant ahead with one (picture of a) flock of sheep, and another with a (picture of a) flock of goats, as gifts for his brother. Then, just in case this didn’t help, he lined up his wives & children in order of least-loved to most-loved, so in case anyone got killed, maybe the ones to the rear—including himself—would be spared. (The parents thought this was very funny.) But everything is all right because Esau is very moved by the fact that instead of stealing something from him, Jacob sends him gifts—he’d never gotten a gift from his brother before! So when they finally meet, they embrace. (They actually did this, it looked so sweet; I wish I’d had my camera out & ready!)

For our game we said, Jacob was going out to meet Esau, and Esau was going out to meet Jacob. Not that they had a specified meeting place, but we pretended there was and asked, “who will get there first?” We had a long (about 20 feet) piece of twine, taped to the floor in the center. The kids played in pairs, with one “Jacob” and one “Esau.” Each had a small dowel & the object of the game was to roll up the string on the dowel until you got to the tape, and see who would get to the tape first. We had some very fussy, neat rollers, and some very messy rollers, but it was all good fun.

Our craft was these very simple “Doves of Peace.” As you can see, some of our kids are better at cutting than others.