I had Sunday the 16th
“off” again, thanks to Grace. (Though I
did lead the adult Bible study, which I enjoyed.) She had chosen the story of the three wisemen
for her theme, which I’m planning to do on Sunday the 30th, but it
doesn’t really matter. Likely the kids
won’t remember the subject matter anyway—sigh.
So for Sunday the 23rd
we did the Luke 2 story. First, though,
we harked back to the main character of our last three stories together, named
Joseph. Said it was now time to meet
another Joseph, from many, many years later.
This Joseph was very happy, because he was going to get married. But then he found out his girlfriend was
going to have a baby. It’s not good to
have a baby before you’re married is it?
No. So Joseph didn’t really want
to marry her then. But when he went to
bed that night (on a mat on the floor), an angel came and told him it was okay
to marry her because God Himself had asked her to have this baby, and it would
be God’s own Son. Now He was asking
Joseph if he was willing to take care of the baby and raise it as his own. So Joseph said yes. Then the last thing the angel said was to
name the baby Jesus.
Here we took a little break to
explain what the name Jesus (Yèh-Sòu in Cantonese) meant, which was God
(Yèh-wòh-wàh) saves. Each of the
kids’ names have meanings too, and we had them all written out on star shapes,
and explained them. Some were very apt—like
the tall, willowy girl whose name means beautiful and graceful; others were
deeply meaningful—like the girl whose name meant to swim in grace(!); while
some were a little funny—like the basically non-verbal, but constantly giggling
boy whose name proclaims that his speech is refined and dignified! For our craft, then, the kids cut out their
star shapes, plus another yellow star shape with a precut X in the center. After gluing the yellow stars on top of the
name stars (on the points only, not the center!), they could fold out the
points formed by the X and let their names show through. Then we stuck them all to this big Christmas
tree.
Next—back to our story. Mary and Joseph are now married, and they
need to go to Bethlehem for some business Joseph needs to attend to. The two walk around the room together &
when the get back to the front, knock on the cupboard door. They are told there is no room for them in
the inn, so they end up in a stable (next to a picture of a cow & donkey
taped to the side of the teacher’s desk).
They lie down together to go to sleep, but that night Mary has her baby.
While they sit there admiring
her baby, a couple of shepherds sitting in the back of the room next to a
picture of sheep taped to the wall are visited by an angel who tells them there
is good news, that God’s Son has been born in Bethlehem. They go to see Him. They go away rejoicing, and singing a song we
adapted from our “God created…” song to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb. One of the real carols that we’d learned
would have been nicer BUT I only had bells for do through sol, so our options
were limited. After singing the song a
few times, we passed out bells to the kids at their individual desks and worked
with them on ringing them in the correct sequence as I pointed to them. They weren’t perfect, but it got to sounding
recognizable after several repetitions.
Unfortunately, when we tried to perform it during announcement time back
in with the adults, it didn’t go so well.
They didn’t have the individual seats but were crowded together at the
front desk, distracted both by each other and by the watching adults. Sigh.
I think (I hope) the parents liked it anyway!
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