Sermon on the Mount

We had a poor turnout this week due to heavy rain. No one but our core families, until one other boy & his mom showed up about halfway through the morning.

It was maybe just as well. I remember this from three years ago as a really fun story time, but it seemed to fall kind of flat. I think maybe one thing I did wrong was to read the Scripture first & then assemble the little tableaux, when we already knew what they were supposed to represent. Sigh.

But the game was popular once again! We said, much of Jesus' teaching took traditional ideas and turned them upside down. So we will turn upside down—doing somersaults! Most of the adults tried it as well as the kids, with hilarious results.

Conveniently, next Sunday is Chinese New Year. So our craft followed the injunction to be private about your giving. A friend of ours operates a daycare center for children from low-income families. So we bought gifts for each of the children in their center, and craft time was wrapping the presents. Which we are asking the center's director not to reveal which church donated them.

We had some pretty lively discussion during the adult Bible study time. We had just the one mom who is nominally Christian. But even some of our believers would like to get around some of Jesus' statements about things like loving your enemies, I think. But Mrs. Leung's reaction was priceless. Someone restated, "This means, when someone treats you dirty, you cannot treat them dirty in return." She yelped, "WHAT?!" Her speech is a little hard to understand, so I'm not totally sure she understood the concept by the time we were finished. But she was obviously engaged!

This was the mom of the boy I mentioned last week, that I'd given a whack on the head when he was trying to wipe his saliva on the puzzle pieces that the girl sitting next to him was playing with. So I was glad to see them back, and glad that the boy doesn't seem to be holding a grudge, as Mr. Lei was afraid he would. I still want to visit them over Chinese New Year though!

Jesus the good teacher

One of Jesus' "identities" was that of a good teacher. So, what kind of teacher was He? When you hear "teacher" what do you think of? Going to school? We lined up stools for the kids to sit on in rows, and had them all wear neckties to symbolize "school uniforms."

But no, Jesus was not that kind of teacher. So, was He a teacher like me? Here at Merciful Love Family Fellowship, we don't have to wear uniforms, and you can sit anywhere you want. But we still like to have you come on time, and if you come too late or the wrong day of the week, you won't get any teaching from me! Nope, Jesus wasn't like that either. He had a group of "students" called disciples who went with Him everywhere, walking through the whole country of Israel, from town to town. Sometimes they would have to camp out…we'd given each "disciple" a bag containing a bath towel. So camping out meant spreading our towels on the ground and pretending to go to sleep. The photo didn't turn out too great—everyone DID lie down; just not all at the same time, ha!

Then the next day they would continue walking. When they got to a village, when Jesus sat down to teach them, the local people would also gather around to hear them (we all sat on the floor at the parents' feet). Jesus would often teach in parables, drawing comparisons between common situations and God's truth.

The parable "Jesus" told that day was about a mother with many children. Although there were many, she loved each one of them. We asked each child, "Does your mother love you?" They all answered yes right away except one girl who checked with mom first! (Mom said yes.) We talked about all the things she did for them, & acted them out together—cooking, helping with homework, playing, etc. Well, then "Jesus" said, one of this mom's children was mentally handicapped. Suddenly all the moms got real quiet. They wanted to hear this! Jesus went on to say that although she loved all her children, she loved this one in a special way, and spent a lot of extra time and money to try to help her. And when she made some progress, it was more exciting to mom than if one of her other children came in first in his class! Dear children, "Jesus" said, this is what your Heavenly Father is like. Don't ever think that you are too slow, or too naughty, for Him to love you. He created all of us, and loves us all, but He has a special heart for those who need Him the most.

Yes, I know, Jesus never told this exact parable. Though He might have, if He'd visited Merciful Love Fellowship! This parable was modeled on Luke 15:4-7 about the shepherd going after the one lost sheep out of one hundred, and the great rejoicing in heaven when a sinner repents. Bruce brought that out in the Bible study.

Game time was "follow the leader". One of our girls had been begging to be allowed to teach a game or craft, so I assigned her to be the leader we were supposed to follow and imitate. Two problems: to give enough room for the long line (parents played too), we had to go out through the bedrooms & the balcony & back around to the living room, which meant the front of the line was rarely in sight of the back. But even if it had been, our leader was the shortest person in the whole group—oops! One thing that helped was positioning myself at one of the corners and copying what I had seen the leader do as she passed, so those who could see me (at 5'4" I'm considered fairly tall) could join in.

For craft time, we wrote out the two most important commandments and rolled them up on chopsticks to make scrolls. I had printed out the words for each child to copy from. Most of the kids were almost finished when I noticed that the girl who'd asked her mom if she loved her hadn't even started yet. I guess she hates to write, and mom was trying to force her to do it by not helping her. Hope I didn't ruin things, but with the time crunch, I suggested she could just glue the printed commandments on her scroll paper and roll that up. She liked that & was soon finished.

The boy I'd whacked on the head two weeks ago didn't come at all this Sunday. Last week they came just as we were winding up. I neglected to call mom this week to see if everything was okay. We will see what happens this coming Sunday. We have to leave right after the service for a conference in Hong Kong, so won't be able to call them during the week. But when we get back it will be time for Chinese New Year, and traditional house-to-house visits. They must get one, whether they come this week or not!

The Wedding at Cana

Aren't they the cutest couple?

We started out the story by introducing the bride and groom, then their guests Jesus and Mary. Next we had a couple of servants pass around trays of (empty) "wine glasses" (little plastic pudding cups I'd picked up somewhere on the cheap), that people pretended to drink from. Then Mary came to Jesus with her plea for help. Once again I rewrote Scripture…for "my time has not yet come," I had Jesus saying, mom, this isn't my day to shine; everyone's attention should be on the bride and groom today, not on me! But then, of course, He gives in and thinks of a way to help out in secret. I made these six "stone water jars" out of wrapping paper on tagboard. Then the servants "filled them with water" by using this little cardboard pump. Yeah, I don't think they did it that way either, but it was a fun visual!

Next they ladled some out and brought it to our steward, who pronounced it good. He didn't know where it came from, though, only Jesus and the servants did. The story ended with Jesus "sshh-ing" the servants, & then we pronounced the wedding party over and everyone had to file past the bride and groom offering their congratulations.

For game time, we said they probably didn't have a pump, and running back and forth from a well to fill those big jars would have been a lot of work. So we organized a "bucket brigade" relay; each team had to scoop water out of a large pail with a plastic cup & pass it on down the line to be poured via funnel into a 5-liter jug. Each team had 3 cups to keep the action going; full cups going one direction and empty cups the other. It ended in a tie, and a wet floor, of course. (Laying the newspapers down first was a good idea.)

For our craft we made these pretty silver "wedding bells," which you can't see very well--they are three-dimensional.

I was afraid they were going to be too simple, but it turned out all of the kids had some trouble tying knots & bows in the flimsy yarn. So, simple or not, they were finished up with a true feeling of accomplishment.

Wilderness Temptation

This wasn't a real high-participation story, what with our limited characters! Basically we had only one, playing Jesus, and I fed him the temptation lines (very dramatically. I miss this when others lead; it's so much more fun, and easier to remember, I think, when the emotional side is displayed). The main ways we got others to participate was asking different kids questions like, "Is that a good idea? Should Jesus do that?" And each time a scripture was mentioned in the story (four times), we had one of our three "smart" girls look it up and read it aloud.

For a game, we had a bag of 20 numbered ping-pong-sized balls, corresponding to a list of 10 should's (e.g. close the door when you use the bathroom) & shouldn'ts (e.g. wear your pajamas to school). Each child drew a ball & had to answer whether this was a "Yes, Sir" or a "No, No" (from one of our favorite choruses). Then they got to toss (or try and toss) the ball into the correct "Yes, Sir" or "No, No" box.

Craft time: changing stones into bread is not the right way to make bread. A much better way is to have everyone help stir together a batch of muffin batter, and then zap little muffins in cupcake liners in the microwave.

No pictures this time. Like I said, not a lot of action. But I'm really getting excited about this week's upcoming story, a new one for us, and hope to get some good shots of the action!

Baptism of Jesus

This week we did the baptism of Jesus. A lot of our kids were gone for a Special Olympics activity (again), but while it was too bad they missed all the fun, the game would have gone even more overtime with everyone there!

We had only one "actual" character; John the Baptist in his wooly vest and leather belt. Kids (and adults; like I said, not enough kids) brought up dolls to represent the various types of people coming for baptism. Barbie-style dolls would have been too expensive to buy so many, so I picked up these cheap plastic superhero dolls for about a quarter a piece. So we had Batman & Spiderman, among others, coming to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist, ha! No one had a problem with this. So then, except for the proud Pharisees that John rejected, each of the dolls got dunked in a basin of water (now you know why we used dolls). Lastly came the "Jesus" doll (a Ken doll; I just couldn't see using a Robocop or whatever you call these things!). I remembered to have the tissue-paper dove "fly" down & plaster itself to the wet doll, but forgot to have the voice of God speak from heaven. Oops.

So: in baptism you go down into the water and come up…so for our game we put our faces down into a basin of water (everybody had to wash with a wet-wipe first to minimize germ-sharing) and came up with apples in our teeth!

Fun…but I should have done the craft first this time instead of the game. Because of course everyone had to finish their apples before they could start the craft, so we got running a bit late.

The craft was paper cups (some people get baptized with cups/bowls rather than being dunked, right?) which we then filled with a juice drink to "test" them.

It was a day for snacking! First the apples, then the juice, and then at the end of the morning, because it was Mrs. Chu's birthday, we had cake! She thought I had the date wrong, but I didn't. The Chinese aren't big on celebrating birthdays, especially for adults. But they don't mind if we do!

By the way…we looked at this story in the follow-up Bible study with our new believer, since she hadn't been there. She was amazed by the account of the Holy Spirit's visible descent, and the voice from heaven. "Wow! Did that happen when YOU were baptized?!" she wanted to know. I LOVE this lady's questions!!

Jesus’ boyhood

In spite of the nice break the picnic gave me, I'm still feeling stressed out. The core group accepted yet another request that would make my life a little easier: for the next month or two, I will lead the stories, games, & crafts myself. I will still write them in Chinese "for posterity," but if I don't get them done until Friday or Saturday, it won't matter because I won't have to meet with any of them to go over the material ahead of time. Once I find a way to get at least a week ahead, this won't be an issue. I do love our core group folks!!

This week's story had two parts. The first was Mary & Joseph bringing Jesus to the temple as a baby, & His being recognized by Simeon and Anna as God's promised Savior. Our one stubborn-unbeliever mom got into the part of being the elderly Anna, leaning on her cane as she wobbled up to see the baby. '

Part two was Jesus visiting, and staying behind at, the temple at age 12. I asked one of our neurotypical girls, an 8-year-old, to play the part of Jesus. Took her aside before the morning program started to explain how, when the "crowd" went out through the bedroom & balcony to reappear in the living room, that she should stop in the bedroom & then turn back. She seemed quite proud to be chosen for this "secret mission"—but then forgot it when the time came and I had to yell after her several times to get her to come back & not go into the living room with everyone else! Oh well.

For our game, instead of the parents looking for their lost son, the parents went to hide one at a time to be searched for by their kids. Good fun. I finally remembered what "craft" we'd done for this story three years ago, & did it again. A maze for the kids to trace the path to help the parents find the boy Jesus.

I was watching the kids during the adult Bible study. Bruce told me that as part of the discussion he said that good parenting practice may have included Mary & Joseph discussing this incident with their son and praying with Him about how to deal with His role while still a boy. Our new believer asked, "Oh, could they pray already back then too?" I LOVE these kinds of questions!! So real, so innocent (and so easy to answer)!

Interestingly, before I heard about the Bible study, I had had a talk with one of our Christian moms about an ongoing conflict she's been having with her neurotypical daughter over the girl's tendency to dawdle over her homework. I urged her to consider praying with the girl for a solution to the problem. Even before God provides the solution, it would be a chance for the two of them to put themselves on the same side in the war-with-dawdling, rather than being only antagonists. So that dovetailed rather nicely with the Bible study application! Perhaps I can find out this week if they tried it & how it went.

A church picnic in December

The other core group folks didn't necessarily think having a church picnic at the end of December was the most brilliant idea. But they agreed to go with it to give me a badly-needed break after the Christmas rush. And oh, what a nice break it was!

The weather turned out very nice—in the 60's & overcast. We met in a local park. Sang several of our songs, and then Kevin led us in some new & fun games about "shaking off the old year" (several balloons & toilet paper rolls scotch-taped all over each child who then had to wiggle around to get them to come off), and "not letting it stick to you" (each child having to lead his/her blindfolded parent through a "minefield" of sticky-taped paper squares).

"Craft time" was making your own sandwiches, choosing from butter, peanut butter, two kinds of jelly, cheese, and tuna salad. Except that I was in charge of bringing the sandwich fillings and I managed to forget both the cheese and the peanut butter! But nobody got bent out of shape about it, and with all the other snacks people had brought, everyone got enough to eat. We so appreciate how our folks just make do with whatever. So easy to hang out with!

We did learn not to fill up a whole slew of paper cups with water for people to take. Best to fill them as people want to drink them. It may be more fussy, but we had at least one boy who was caught sampling every cup. He had a cold, of course.

I feel refreshed and ready to start the life of Christ with the New Year!