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!