Joseph is carried away to Egypt

Didn’t take any pictures last Sunday.  Just too busy “doing” to step back with the camera.  First we reviewed that Joseph was Jacob’s favorite kid.  Showed a picture of Joseph, wearing an origami shirt and labeled, “Jacob loved Joseph…he was Rachael’s son.”  Then asked, who is Mary’s favorite kid?  Before anyone had a chance to guess, the mom who was helping out that day said, “every single one” which was the right answer.  I reeled off my (prepared ahead of time, I admit) reasons each one was special, and then we sang our “God created so-and-so and did a great job” song, with one verse per kid.  Then they made little origami shirts like Joseph’s, stuck them onto a paper-doll type background, added their own photo faces, and stuck on labels that said “We love so-and-so…he/she is such-and-such”  (note I deliberately left out the word “because”) This was one of those crafts everyone chose to take home, so the only picture I have is Joseph’s.

                Then we began our story.  Chose the only boy as Joseph, and had him wear the “coat” we’d made two weeks ago.  His brothers (all the other kids) were at the front of the room watching the sheep (flock picture on the whiteboard), while Joseph waited at the back.  The brothers said, hey, here comes our little brat of a brother.  Nobody is around to see us, let’s kill him!  We asked, was that a good idea?  One brother yelled out NO!  And of course that was what happened in the Bible too.  So instead of killing Joseph when he came to the front of the room, they ripped his fancy coat off and threw him in a pit, which in our case was the kneehole under the teacher’s desk.  He did NOT like being under there, though.  So we ended up putting him in one of the chairs (all our chairs have desktops attached, so I say “in”) against the wall, and surrounding him with other chairs so he was “trapped.”  Then all the brothers sat down to eat their snacks.  They had pity on Joseph and let him have a snack too, but didn’t let him out of the pit.  That is, until the slave traders (the two teenage helpers) came along and the brothers decided to make some money off Joseph.  The traders gave each brother a couple of coins & then took Joseph away with them.  The brothers then squirted ketchup on the torn-up coat, and brought it to show “Jacob”  (a father who happened to be there as a chance to see his daughter—parents are separated) who obligingly pretended to cry over his presumably dead son.

                Next took a break from the action to talk about how the brothers thought they’d be happy if they got rid of their brother, but they weren’t.  First they had to see their dad cry, and then they had to spend the rest of their lives worrying about whether he would find out what they did!  So our verse from the last lesson, pursue what makes for peace, shows its merit again.

                Meanwhile what has happened to Joseph?  He becomes a slave to Potiphar, and he decides that he will pursue what makes for peace.  For example, if Potiphar tells him to sweep the floor, is it better for him to sweep, or to say he’d rather eat something first?  Sweep, of course.  So Joseph swept.  How about if Potiphar gives him money to go buy fruit?  Should he go buy the fruit & bring it back, or should he take the money and use it to run away back home to his father?  Everyone agreed he should buy the fruit.  So he did.  And Potiphar trusted him, and so even though he was a slave, he was a lot happier than if he’d tried to get his own way.

                So then we wound up by playing a game about being faithful slaves.  Kids were paired up & the “master” had to tell the “slave” to do things like: spread peanut butter on a cracker and feed it to the master, comb the master’s hair, carry the train of the master’s long robe as he walked down the hall and back…silly things, but fun.