Abigail

Kevin Hui led this story the first time around, so this week I got to do more "creative writing" instead of just translating/updating. Enjoyed that! We started out by introducing King David, crown and all, but then explaining that he wasn't actually king yet, Saul was. Crown to Saul. And Saul was jealous of David so was trying to kill him (Saul chases David with sword). So now David and some of his friends were on the run, which meant they didn't always have enough to eat. Today they were passing a sheep farm, and it happened to be shearing time. So we put sheep headbands on a couple of the girls & had them get down on all fours while a servant "sheared" them with a buzzing electric razor (safety cap on!).

David sent a couple of his friends to ask Nabal, the farmer, for some food, but he refused. So David and his friends decide to kill the farmer and his whole family (so who's the big fool here, Nabal or David?). Fortunately, one of the guys was smart enough to look for Nabal's wife Abigail and let her know what was going on. She put some donkey ears on another volunteer, then packed a basket with some meat, bread, fruit and wine, and led the donkey to meet David (oops, should have gotten a picture of this too.) David is grateful not only for the food, but for how her intervention had prevented him from rash action that would not have been pleasing to God. He kisses her hand & leads the donkey away.

The next day, she tells Nabal what happened, and he's so upset he has a stroke (which for some reason struck everyone as very funny). Then we all counted to ten (days), after which Nabal dies and is carried away to be buried. Our Nabal is an older boy who is not always overly cooperative, but he really liked being carried away by two men. We don't always get to see him smile so nicely!

So, after David hears that Nabal is dead, he starts thinking about how beautiful and wise Abigail was, and now she's all alone…hm…so this time, instead of receiving a gift from Abigail, he sends a servant with a gift for her! The servant also relays David's proposal. She accepts, and we end with the wedding march.

Now, when Abigail put fruit and other foodstuffs in the donkey's basket, she undoubtedly packed it neatly and carefully. For our game, however, while we had a donkey drawn on the blackboard, with a basket attached, we put the (fake) fruit in it by throwing it from a few feet away. Not quite so efficient, but more fun!

For our craft, I had to start preparing way ahead of time. Each sheep for our sheep-shearing craft took me over an hour to make, and I needed to prepare for ten kids. (Then of course we only had six…) Here is the "before and after" photo:

Hannah

No pictures again this week, which is really too bad as we had at least one great Kodak moment. We had introduced Elkanah and his wife Hannah, whom he loved very much. Elkanah was instructed to demonstrate this by kissing Hannah, which he did using the "MLFF kiss"—kissing two fingers and then pressing them into the cheek of the kissee. In spite of his love for Hannah (I hypothesized), he took a second wife so he could still have children. I hadn't written into the story that Elkanah loved her, but the narrator told him to kiss her anyway. This time, he bent over (our tallest boy & shortest girl) and kissed her on the cheek! It was very sweet, but alas no photo!

The whole family (including Peninah's three children) walked to Jerusalem, where Elkanah presented his sheep to the priest. I had deliberately chosen an adult to be the priest so that I could instruct him on how to be very careful when offering the sheep…He first tore off one part of the paper sheep & laid it on the altar (a stool) and burned it (sprinkled orange tissue scraps on it)—no problem. Then he was supposed to tear off another part and keep it for himself by stuffing it in his pocket. This is where he was supposed to be careful not to tear into the stapled-off section that had little chocolate beans in it, but his tear went astray and a bunch of the chocolate beans scattered on the floor. <Hold action while these were cleared away…> The last part of the sheep was for the family to eat and give thanks as part of their worship, so the family sat down & the remaining chocolate beans were poured from the sheep into their individual bowls (real food=willingness to stay seated!).

Then Peninah was supposed to start ragging on Hannah, loudly thanking God for her healthy children and asking Hannah what SHE had to be thankful for. Unfortunately, just about this time someone decided that Peninah was too cold and started helping her drink a full glass of hot water. Sort of cramped her "provoking" style and I think everyone missed exactly what was supposed to be going on, sigh. Hannah just had to pretend to have been provoked. She got up & poured her leftover beans into the "children's" bowls and went off to the other end to pray. The priest accused her of being drunk, she said no, she was just pouring out her heart before God, and the priest blesses her & says he hopes God will answer her prayer. This somehow gives Hannah great peace & she gets up, washes her face, and goes home with her family.

Around a year later, she gives birth to Samuel…here we had another glitch, as our normally extremely reliable actress playing Hannah disappeared into the bathroom (long story), so Elkanah had to show off the baby. So while Hannah was in the bathroom, the narrator explained how she wouldn't go with the family to Jerusalem that year. When she came back out, it was deemed time for her to bring little Samuel to the temple. She gave him to Eli the priest. And God further rewarded her by giving her five more children (our recycled paper-towel roll people).

Well, if people missed the bit about Peninah provoking Hannah during the story, they got something of a recap for game time. All the kids sat in a circle. The first child to be designated "Hannah" got a juice bottle filled with more of those little chocolate beans, and a pair of chopsticks. She was allowed to start eating them (with the chopsticks to keep it reasonably slow) while the child next to her, designated "Peninah", started throwing our big foam die—the metaphor being, when Peninah rolled a six this would be counted as managing to provoke Hannah to quit eating. Then the candy jar passed to this child who became the new Hannah, and on around the circle (we did two rounds).

Had a hard time coming up for a craft for this story. Three years ago, we were just preparing to say goodbye to Melissa Lathrop who had been with us for about a year. We talked about how Hannah would make a little garment for Samuel each year when they went to the temple. Then together we used fabric markers to decorate a T-shirt to give to Melissa as a farewell gift. But this time around we didn't have anyone to send off. Finally got the helpful suggestion from Sharlene Ortlund (thanks, Shar; even if you didn't help me make any sheep, you were a big help nonetheless!) of making little praying figures out of pipe cleaners. They weren't too hard for the kids except for a couple of them who managed to get them to balance better by having the praying hands clasped behind the body instead of in front…they seemed to understand when I pointed this out, and fixed them without protest; I was pleased.

Discussion questions during the adult Bible study asked, have you ever thought of your child as a gift from God/heaven? And, If you do, how have you seen this to be true; & if not, how might things be different if you could view him/her this way? Again, I wasn't in on the study, being in with the kids, but I heard there was good discussion. One of our nonbelievers shared her Buddhist viewpoint that family members are "assigned" by "heaven" based on some kind of affinity demonstrated in a previous life, so you assume your children were meant for you & treat them accordingly. (This comment came from not a mother but an aunt who has recently taken on the care of her young-adult niece and couldn't be kinder to her than her own mother would be. We have been quite impressed by her sincere dedication to her second-hand "gift.") We appreciate learning more about our families' worldviews. Her comments suggest she feels no need to turn to Jesus for help in raising her niece. We can only pray she will learn to love Him for Himself.

Ruth and Naomi

Good to have the troops back this week! We even had some visitors; relatives of one of our families. They were Mandarin- rather than Cantonese-speaking, so the young man was rather alarmed when the first thing I did to start the story was to grab him and bring him to the front to introduce him as Elimilech. One of the moms translated for him & then he was okay with it. He didn't have to do much anyway—just walk around the room ("to Moab") with his wife and sons and then "die." Then the two sons got married, and then they died—by this time the moms were interested in what was going to happen to these poor women left alone!

One of the daughters in law stays put, and Ruth follows Naomi around the room again, back to Israel. She gets the idea of helping feed them by going out gleaning. If there's a place that sells dried grasses that look like grain, I don't know where it might be. But I found some great vegetables that very much like sprouting grain to a non-farmer like myself. We had two bunches of these that we'd sprinkled with rice before scattering on the ground for Boaz's servants to gather while Ruth got busy picking up the little pieces of rice off the floor. Boaz asks a servant who that hard-working, pretty girl is. When he learns it's Ruth, he is very impressed; he's heard of her. He instructs his servant to drop extra grain in front of her, which he does.

When Ruth brings the grain home, Naomi asks whose field she was in. When she learns it's Boaz, she's really excited, and whispers some strange instructions in Ruth's ear. Ruth has never heard of such a strange custom (maybe she had, but I sure hadn't, and I was sure it would seem strange to our moms as well!), but she is obedient to her mother-in-law's instruction.

Boaz lies down next to a heap of sprouting veggies and begins to snore. Ruth climbs under his blanket down by his feet and waits for him to wake up. When he does, first he's shocked, but then tickled to death that Ruth would propose to him. He sends her home with an armful of sprouting veggies. Soon he sends for her and they get married.

One of our girls had brought a bouquet of flowers as a gift that morning. So we used it for Ruth's wedding bouquet!

Then about a year later, Ruth & Boaz had their baby Obed.

For our game, we "gleaned" grains of rice from paper plates in the center of the table, using chopsticks. At the end of the game we counted how many grains they had managed to get in their individual bowls. One girl had cheated by grabbing a plate of rice and using the chopsticks to just sweep it into her bowl. Well, you might say she followed the letter of the law, anyway! I was impressed with how hard some of the kids worked on this. It wasn't easy—try it yourself (uncooked rice—no cheating)!

Craft was making "bundles of grain" by tying together about 20 strands of twine each and then shredding the top centimeter or so. That took patience! Again, I was pleased with how a few of the kids applied themselves diligently. I was helping a boy who was NOT into it. I did get him to make at least one genuine pull at each strand of twine with one hand while I was being the second hand. Proud of myself for my own perserverance—ha!

We’re Ruthless

Ha. No pictures this time either, as there was nothing to take pictures of. Due to a big Special Olympics competition, we didn't have enough kids in attendance to meet our minimum for doing our regular program. This week's Bible story was supposed to be on Ruth; hence our title.

One of the "kids" who did come is actually a woman in her 30's who has no apparent mental handicap. However, she has become very withdrawn, not wanting to leave her home for any reason. Her mother, who cares for her, is out of ideas for how to help her daughter. Our dear Mrs. Chu managed to persuade them to come to MLFF several weeks ago, and they've been there every week since. The daughter is content to consider herself a "kid" and to participate in games & crafts as one of them. She seems much happier than when she first started coming. Today we enjoyed some very sweet smiles.

With the small attendance, we were free to focus on this new family and get to know them a little better. I didn't get to know them as well, as our one other kid (really a kid) was getting restless and I felt the best thing was for me to go hang out with her in the free-play room. So I missed how it went, but mom was also clearly happier at the end of the morning after being on the receiving end of some compassionate listening and encouragement.

Afterward we all went out to lunch together at a local teahouse.

Next week, we should be back to our regular schedule.

Gideon

Didn't manage to take any photos this week. Too busy refereeing! We had a very hyper Gideon who probably could have tackled the Midianites single-handed. When the Biblical Gideon is confronted by an angel who greets him with "the Lord is with you," he responds, "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?" Our Gideon had a more "human" response to the shock of being greeted by an angel: "I have to go to the bathroom!"

We cut out a lot of the story to make it reasonable length; our Gideon (after his bathroom break) asked this angel right away about getting a sign with the fleece. Then while he "slept," the angel wet down a towel on the floor with a watering can. Then in round two, sprinkled the floor but not the towel.

Once this was settled, Gideon was all ready to set off with his huge army, but of course God had to pare it down first. We volunteered all the adults to be the ones afraid to go to battle, so that all the kids could be left to act out the water-drinking test. We just put a sheet of blue paper on the floor and had them either kneel & put their faces down to it, or just pretend to scoop some up & drink out of their hands. They were all very cooperative; it was great. But the power of suggestion was just too much for Gideon. He had to go get himself a real drink of water before his little army of three (each representing 100) could march off to battle.

Got to recycle again—we used the trumpets from the fall of Jericho craft time. Then had "jars" made of yet more toilet paper rolls (I've been saving them for months) covered with wrapping paper and stuffed with tissue-paper "torches." Of course these wouldn't break with enough noise to frighten the Midianites! So when they were supposed to smash them we had someone stir around the bucket of Legos. Plenty noisy enough! The Midianites (i.e. everyone but Gideon & his three companions) fled out the balcony door. We ended there, with a rousing rendition of, "Isn't He wonderful, wonderful, wonderful."

For game time, we had everyone, adults & children, stand up & then started through a list of things meant to winnow people out. Things like: stand on one foot (right vs. left), you're your birthday (odd vs. even dates), check feet (socks vs. no socks, etc.) Unlike Gideon, we always rejected the minority rather than the majority, so we could play longer!

Since all those jars got broken in the Bible story, our craft was "mending broken jars": taping cut-up paper cups back together. The kids (and parents) had a harder time than I'd anticipated. I had cut each cup into five pieces. If we use this craft again, we should cut them into just two or three pieces. Just holding them steady and getting the tape on was enough of a challenge for the kids; they didn't really need the extra challenge of figuring out how to fit so many pieces together. So I could have taken pictures of the "mended" cups but they were just too ugly!

Deborah

This story turned out a little too short, in spite of adding some "filler" at the beginning with introducing Moses, who dies, then Joshua, who dies, before explaining the role of the judges, of whom we'll meet just two in this unit.

We had Deborah sitting in front of a palm tree drawn on the blackboard. Lai Wun did a great job. She is non-verbal, yet when she was supposed to tell Barak to go destroy Sisera, she got all the tones exactly right!

While she and Barak were chasing Sisera, our Jael invited him into her tent, which was a sheet over a desk. He was very cooperative about going in there and lying down. Deborah and Barak were also cooperative about not noticing his feet sticking out!

The cooperation evaporated real quickly when Jael crept into the tent and started hammering on the end of the tent peg. I don't think she was actually pounding it on his head! But it took some coaxing to get him back under the sheet, so that Jael could get Barak to come look at him with the tent peg through his temple…

Last week a visitor had complained that our game was "dangerous" because we were having kids throw things. Funny she did not object to this week's game, which was screwing large plastic screws, relay fashion, into cardboard heads. (Actually less dangerous than pounding something through.) I had wondered if it was a little too gruesome, but the kids just had fun. It was good practice for them to learn to use a screwdriver; two kids went from clueless to getting the idea during the course of the game!

For craft time we made leaves for our palm tree, by sticking two pieces of tissue paper together around a stem, and then fringing the edges. Here is "Deborah under her palm tree."

We might have made too big a deal out of the palm tree. It was a great craft! But during the adult Bible study, one of the moms asked if Deborah got her power from the palm tree she sat under! Oops! Another mom helped clarify that the palm tree was special because Deborah sat under it, rather than the other way around. It is so great when they ask questions like this though. So much better that they ask them than just think them!!

The Fall of Jericho

Of course before we could conquer Jericho, we had to get across the Jordan, right? So we had everyone line up behind our two "priests" who were carrying the ark of the covenant between them. I used this ark I'd made a couple of years ago for a different story. It was somewhat the worse for wear after today's story; our priests couldn't quite hang onto the idea that they were supposed to stand still in the middle of the Jordan. So with all the forward and backward pushing and shoving, the sockets for the poles got ripped off the sides—oh well!

After everyone crossed over, but before the priests came up out of the riverbed (not yet, not yet), Joshua had 12 people go & each retrieve a large stone from the riverbed to build a memorial. When I was planning this story, I was trying to think, what can I use for stones? The small planter/aquarium stones I have are too small & hard to make a solid pile of. Legos didn't seem right either…aha! A perfect use for all those boxes of individually wrapped mooncakes we were recently given for the Chinese mid-Autumn festival!

Next it was time to conquer Jericho which, we reminded everyone, was the home of Rahab. She was sent up to the upper bunk with her "family" (half-a-dozen paper-towel rolls with faces) where she tied the red cord to the top of the ladder, and waited. In the meantime, we began our marching. When we did this three years ago, we had a smaller crowd. Today's was extra large & it was not working as well to get everyone out of the living room, out the balcony, in past Rahab's house on the edge of the city wall, & back out to the living room. So we didn't do the whole thirteen circumnavigations this time. Did two (sitting down and "sleeping" after each) & then said now we were at the seventh day…and the seventh trip around. Then when the people shouted and one of the priests "blew" a trumpet, our cued-in Rahab dropped a "wall" of legos off the top bunk with a satisfying crash! Our two spies then rescued her and her family, taking the paper towel rolls from her before helping her down the ladder. Rahab hammed it up very thoroughly, I love it! Only after she was safe did a bunch of kids run in with swords & then come back out and throw a bunch of tissue paper flames into the doorway. End of story.

The obvious game consisted of knocking down a small wall of wooden blocks (NOT mooncakes—you'd have to have a bowling ball to knock them over!) with a sponge "trumpet." Then we made our own little trumpets of toilet paper rolls, colored paper, & stickers for the valves.