Isaac the Peacemaker

                Things went a teeny bit better today—still had a little more time than I had ideas.  Almost none of the activities suggested in the curriculum booklet were workable in our setting. :-(  We started by reminding the kids of what God had promised Abraham (a baby), then showed one of the craft papers from last week that tell us another promise from God:  He gives peace.  So today’s story was about how God helped Abraham’s baby, Isaac, to become a man of peace.

                We introduced Isaac, now all grown up with a wife and two children.  Isaac was a wealthy man with lots of cattle and sheep.  What do sheep and cattle eat?  Grass.  Nobody could think of anywhere there was much grass in Macau.  But where Isaac lived, there was plenty of grass—at least, until it didn’t rain.  So what could they do if it didn’t rain and there was no grass?  They had to move.  We asked who had ever moved, and if they thought it was a good thing or a hassle.  Everyone agreed—hassle!  So, the family had to pack their suitcase to move.  I should have slowed this down a lot more.  I had brought a huge suitcase full of stuff for our “family of four” & unpacked it in & around the teacher’s desk in our classroom.  Basically kids just grabbed stuff and threw it in & I tried to name it as it was being dumped.  Then the family had to haul it once around the room to arrive at “Gerar.”  I was originally going to have them unpack the suitcase at this point, but after the first free-for-all I decided, forget it.  So anyway, the reason they went to Gerar is that Abraham had once dug a well there.  But—someone had filled it in!  So the family had to work together to “dig out” the black circle taped to the floor.  Well, then along came the local folks and said, hey, that was their well, they couldn’t use it.  Isaac did not lose his temper; they just went a ways away and dug another.  And the neighbors came again and said, sorry, since we lived here first, this well you just dug is ours too.  Now, that’s unfair!  Who dug this well, anyway?  But Isaac did not lose his temper.  Instead, he told his family they would just have to move again.  Another trip with the suitcase around the room.  Dig some more, tape down the third black circle.  This time, none of the neighbors fought with them over the well.  So Isaac thanked God for giving them peaceful neighbors, and good water to drink.

                After this, we all sat back down & divided the kids into two groups (of three each).  Helpers asked the kids if they had good neighbors or if they ever got in fights with their neighbors.  Or their classmates, or their siblings.  Two of the kids in my group insisted they never lose their temper.  Ha!  I’ve seen them both hard at it!  Then the helpers prayed that they would be able to get along with their neighbors/friends/siblings, with the peace that God promises.

                So after praying to be peaceful neighbors, our next two activities focused on doing what the bad neighbors had done, oh well…we passed out two paper cups to each kid; one full of sand and the other empty, though with a blue circle stuck in the bottom to represent water.  They got plastic spoons and were instructed to use them to fill up their “wells” like Isaac’s neighbors had.  (Sorry, with the spoon, not by just pouring from one into the other!)  When they were all done, we pointed out that the now empty cup also had “water” in the bottom.  If you try to fill up a well by digging up the dirt right next to it, you’re going to end up with another well!  So much for filling it up!  So if you really want to plug up a well, you should bring the dirt from somewhere else, probably in a wheelbarrow.  So of course then we had to play at being wheelbarrows.  I wasn’t sure if any of the kids had done this before and how willing they would be to do it, but everyone seemed to really enjoy it, even Wing Yan who could NOT hold herself up with one hand while dumping a cup of sand with the other, collapsing in helpless laughter!  Our helpers weren’t real used to it either and preferred to go with one helper per wheelbarrow “handle” but that was okay!  The only trouble was the game didn’t take nearly as long as I thought.  We probably should have gone out into the hallway for a longer “runway” rather than stay in our small classroom, oh well.  So after I proclaimed we were done, I looked at the clock (horrors!) and retracted my statement.  Said we had to do it as a race now.

                Finally, after all that work—it’s hard work being a bad neighbor, much easier to live at peace!—we all needed a drink of water.  (Not from our sandy wells though.)  And a little snack.  Then, to be “good neighbors” to the Education Center whose rooms we borrow, we all worked together (more or less) to sweep up and put the desks back into rows before going to meet the adults for final announcements.  (We just started this last week—having the kids signal “time’s up” by invading the parents’ classroom rather than the other way around.  The kids get antsy but the parents could chat on forever and forget we need a break over in the kids’ room!)

Father Abraham

           The curriculum I’m following jumps from Adam & Eve to Isaac; for a couple of reasons I didn’t want to do that.  I compromised with a brief overview of Abraham.  So had to totally make it up myself and yes, I’m afraid it was a bit boring.  Sigh.

                 We needed a starry sky for our story, so rather than make one myself, our opening activity was sticking star stickers (everyone got a little baggie with 20 stars) onto a big piece of black paper.  That done, we had a brief review of last week’s theme of making good choices.  (For example, if you have homework, do you do your homework or play on the computer?  “Do your homework!” Ka Ho shouted out.  Yea, Ka Ho!) Said we were going to learn today about a man who made a good choice, the choice to believe and obey God.

                But first, we illustrated the idea by choosing one volunteer as “God” (complete with halo), who held a mysterious bag of goodies.  Then each kid was offered a choice.  I would give them a piece of chocolate, or they could believe “God” when He said He had something much better in the bag that they could trade it for.  We had seven kids, altogether 3 of them opted for the chocolate, and 4 for the mystery gift which turned out to be a whole box of chocolate pretzels.  Then all the kids had to wait, though; we marked down on a list what they had chosen & they would get it at the end of class.

 

                Next, to our story.  We introduced Abraham and Sarah, who lived in a big city called Haran.  God had already blessed them, since they were rich and lived in a big city with lots of friends and neighbors and relatives.  But God told them that He would bless them even more if they would follow Him to another land.  They had to make a choice, and they chose to believe God and follow Him.  So we had a couple of the kids help move Abraham & Sarah from their home in the city in the back of the room to the “bleak,” empty whiteboard at the front of the room.  So there they were, and they expected God would bless them right away, but just like with our game, they had to wait.  Had they done the right thing?  Look at how empty this place was!  They didn’t even have any kids; if they died who would bury them?  Should they give up and back to Haran?  Everybody who answered verbally said no, they should stay and believe God.  Good choice.  Not long after this, God tells Abraham to look at the night sky, which we now put up on the board.  Could anybody count all those stars? No.  Well, God said, you’re not going to be able to count all the grandchildren & great-grandchildren you’re going to have either!  So now Abraham and Sarah think they’re going to have a baby real soon.  But still they wait, and wait.  Abraham is really old now—one of the kids glues on a cottony white beard.  He’s almost 100 years old—that’s even older than ME! :-)  But God says, now you’re going to have a baby.  And sure enough, they did (out comes the baby doll).  So now Abraham and Sarah knew that when God made a promise, he would keep it, even if it seemed impossible.

                Then we talked for a little about why it is good to know that God keeps His promises.  I asked if any of the kids had ever had been promised they could go to McDonald’s, for example, and then later been told they couldn’t go.  Or if a teacher (like me) had ever promised them they could play at the end of the class, and then they didn’t get to.  I’m pretty sure such things had happened to most if not all of them (I know our play time got cut short last week!), but no one seemed to remember any such things.  I guess I should have expected that.  It made for a very short & flat “discussion” time. :-(

                Okay, so if God always keeps His promises, we can be glad about that, but only if we know what His promises are!   I had one ready as an example, but they would have to work to find out what it was.  I held up one of the “promises” and asked if anyone could read it.  It was written in black crayon on black construction paper, and you could read it if the light hit it just right—and apparently the angle was just right for our smartest kid, who called out “他賜平安”(God gives peace).  So much for the element of surprise!  Everyone got one of the black sheets, and a paintbrush and a small cup of watered-down yellow paint.  What I hadn’t realized, and so neglected to  emphasize, was that you needed to paint over the paper LIGHTLY for the words to show up.  Most of the kids really ground the paintbrushes into the paper so the crayoned characters got drowned out. :-(  I hate it when this happens—when a craft works beautifully at home and bombs in the classroom.  Sigh.

                   Then we tried to talk about when we need peace, what things they are afraid of.  (Too much homework?  Mean kids?  Dogs or cats?  I got NO clear responses except from one boy who said he’s afraid of wolves.  Wolves?  There are no wolves in Macau!  At first I thought he must mean high waves like when you take a boat to Hong Kong, since it’s the same sound in Cantonese, but no, he meant wolves.  Kind of weird to pray that he would have peace when facing wolves!

                After we cleaned up, the kids got to eat their long-awaited snacks.  The ones who’d chosen the small piece of chocolate ended up with the better deal, as the other kids were generous and shared their chocolate pretzels with the kids who still wanted more to eat!

                I hope next week goes better, somehow!

Learning to do Good

Part two of the Adam and Eve story.  We reviewed that the first people had lived in a beautiful 

garden, so everyone helped put last week’s flowers and trees up on the whiteboard (because we borrow classrooms that are used by other groups during the week, we can’t leave anything posted).  Now, in the garden, they could basically do anything they wanted, such as—and we all did these together—playing ball, running around, eating a snack, singing and dancing, “swimming”, and “sleeping.”  There was just one thing they couldn’t do, and what was that?  But they did it anyway.  Not good!

                So we need to try and do better than they did, and learn to make the right choices.  We reviewed our 4-character Bible verse which, taken word by word was learn, review, do good.  So first we “learned”: everyone stood in a line & we read off ten different scenarios (e.g. I let my sister use the computer, my brother took my candy so I hit him, etc.).  If they were “good,” everyone could take one step forward, otherwise they weren’t supposed to move.  They were not real coordinated with their stepping, but the real point was discussing whether or not it was good, so that was okay.  Next we moved on to “review.”  Ten scenarios again, but this time one kid at a time came up & was asked questions like, you have homework to do, do you get it done or play on the computer?  Everyone was allowed to give hints.  If the kid who was “it” chose the “good” answer, he/she got a happy face sticker.  Our first kid stuck to his I’d-play-on-the-computer answer so didn’t get his sticker.  But then I realized I hadn’t been entirely fair to him, so called him up to ask him one more time.  Only this time, I worded it, “Do you play on the computer, or do the homework first?” and of course he answered, do the homework first.  He always chooses option #2 in an either-or question (great way to get him to do what you want, ha)!

                Next we went on to “do”.  Since not everyone will necessarily face all our scenarios, we need to apply our learning to something specific.  Each of us took a couple of kids and helped them brainstorm ways they should choose good behavior (e.g. verbalizing instead of grunting, not sneaking food from the fridge); then we prayed for God’s help for each one.  One of our newer girls couldn’t think of anything.  I asked her if she was feeling shy about it and she nodded.  So I asked if we could pray that she would not feel so shy and could speak up more spontaneously.  She nodded.  So after we finished praying and moved on to our next activity, she started asking all the other kids what their birthdays were!  Too bad most of them didn’t know, but she obviously had taken her need to learn this good thing to heart!  Sweet!

                The word for “do” in the particular Bible phrase we’d chosen also happens to be the word for “walk.”  And what body part do you walk with?  Your feet, of course.  So we made these cute little “footprints” for a craft, using our fists.  Of course none of them had ever seen them done on frosty school bus windows like I had growing up in Minnesota.  It never gets below freezing here!

 

                We had a little time left and decided to redo last week’s game with the M&M’s.  First we practiced the cup passing until they basically got it.  That took a while.  Then we played one round and the girl who hadn’t been there last week got the brown one.  Unlike all the kids from last week, she chose to eat it right away and be out of the game.  Well, it turned out to be the right choice for her because the adults came in & we never got to round two!

The First, Worst, Wrong Choice

                This time, when I started by asking the question, what have we been talking about so far, Lai Ting piped up with, “God created the world!”  Woo-hoo!  Made my day!  We reviewed that He also created each of us, and loves us.

                So—when God created the first people, they lived in a beautiful garden.  The first thing we did, then, was to make flowers for the garden, out of chenille stems, and taped them up along the bottom of the whiteboard.  Next we put up six different fruit tree drawings.  God told the people they could eat the fruit off of any of the trees except this particular one.  We reviewed this several times so hopefully everyone had it in their heads which trees were okay & which was the no-no.

                To tell the Bible story, we had one girl come up to the front to be Eve.  At first none of the girls wanted to volunteer; finally one suggested that one of the boys do it.  I said, but he’s a boy, he’ll have to play the man.  Did you want him to be your husband?  Yes.  Okay, then, you have to be the woman.  Voilà, instant volunteer!  So then along comes a snake (another boy, with a sock snake puppet on his arm) and started talking to her.  Do snakes talk?  No, but they must have back in that perfect garden, because the woman didn’t seem all that surprised.  So the snake asks, did God say you couldn’t eat any of the fruit in the garden?  (Did God say that? NO!)  So Eve explains and the snake says, ha, God is lying to you, you won’t die!  (Would God lie to us? NO!)  But he persuades her to try the forbidden fruit.  She pretends to pick and eat some.  Then along comes her husband, and she says, look, I ate some of this fruit and I’m not dead!  Do you want to try some?  (Should he try it too? NO!)  But he does.  And the snake laughs at them.

                Now, God comes to the garden to talk with them.  One of our boys loves to wear the halo, so he got to be God.  The man & woman tried to hide from Him, but there are no good places to hide in our new classroom, so God found them! :-)  He said, why are you hiding from me; did you eat the fruit you weren’t supposed to eat?  They admitted they did.  I skipped the bit about nakedness, and also decided to forgo the specific punishments as too much to digest.  Instead, the snake just went & sat down, while God told the people that He was going to have to punish them for their disobedience by banishing them from the perfect garden.  That they would grow old, and get sick, and die, and all their descendants would die too.  But when they did die, they would be able to see Him face to face again, just like they had in the garden, because God still loved them (hugs them both).

                I tried to get some feedback from the story—what did you learn?  Is it a good thing to obey the rules?  Does God still love you even when you are naughty?  Does your mom/teacher still love you even when you are naughty?  Does your mom/teacher sometimes have to punish you even though they still love you?  So is it a good thing to be obedient?

                Next we played a fun game to reinforce the story.  We sat in a circle & everyone got a paper cup.  We explained that this jar of M&M’s was like the fruit in the garden.  Brown M&M’s were the fruit you weren’t supposed to eat; everything else was okay.  So first, everyone got one M&M in their cup, with one person getting a brown one.  Then we turned on some music and had them start passing the cups.  When the music stopped, whoever had other colors could eat them right away.  But the one with the brown piece had to make a choice.  Either they could go ahead and eat their M&M, but then be out of the game, or they could choose not to eat it, but keep playing and have a chance to get other colors.  We played it enough times so that every kid got the brown piece once, and every single kid made the choice to not eat it.  I was impressed!!  NOT impressed with their ability to pass the cups along smoothly, however.  If we have time to play the game again this Sunday, we will, even though they already “got it,” partly because games with food are popular, and partly to help them work on passing stuff, ha!  I’m sure it will be a useful skill for more games down the road!

                By now time was starting to run out, so we didn’t take time to discuss specific applications to our Bible verse/phrase for the lesson, which was 學習行善 or, “learn to do right” from Isaiah 1:17.  Instead we just passed out copies of the verse written in large “hollow” characters for them to color in.  We’ll talk and pray about applications this coming Sunday.