Simon and the Sinful Woman

I thought Mrs. Lei did an exceptionally good job at leading the story today. Unfortunately several people were too late to see it and a couple of others were too busy chatting to watch the skit, so it didn't get the attention it deserved. We had almost enough kids to play all the roles; Bruce ended up playing Jesus. He, Simon, and two others sat around a table set with bowls and chopsticks, all with their feet off to the side up on stools. (All except 2-year-old Marco whose legs were too short—ha). Then we introduced this woman who wished she could invite Jesus for a meal, but her home--and her life--were too messy. But as she looked longingly at the feasting, she noticed that for all Simon's righteousness, he didn't know how to treat a guest. She could see Jesus feet and they were DIRTY! So she went right in and started rubbing his feet with some lotion (anti-bacterial hand sanitizer—she didn't actually put it on, as Bruce kept his socks on). She started to cry over the privilege of doing this for him, and then she wanted to dry them and all she had was her hair, so she used that. All this time Simon is looking at her like she is something the cat dragged in, but it's interesting that he never orders her out—just sits there and passes mental judgment on Jesus for letting her touch him! Jesus abruptly stands up and says he has something to tell Simon. He says, lets say your two friends here owe you money, one $500 and one $50. (We gave them signs to hold with these amounts.) Neither one can afford to pay you back, so you cancel their debts. (Simon rips up the signs.) Which one would love you more after that? Simon says, the one who owed the most. Jesus agrees and says, you are pretty righteous, so you don't love me very much. But this woman loves me very much, because she knows she is a sinner and needs the forgiveness I bring. Then He turns to the woman and says, don't cry, your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.

Simon didn't know how to treat his guests (I mistakenly used the word "tourists" for "guests" when I introduced this game—oops!); it's also important as a guest to treat your host or hostess properly. To practice this, we played "visiting Grandma." One adult was Grandma and sat next to a table with a tea set and a tin of cookies. Each child in turn had to great Grandma by title, kiss her on the cheek, sit down, pour tea, use both hands to give Grandma a cup of tea, and then ask her how she was doing. When they did it all right, Grandma would open the tin and give them a cookie. Again, lots of distracting chatting going on between the adults while the game was going on. Which was too bad, because some of the kids that don't always speak well did a great job & they deserved to be noticed! Sigh.

Craft time was an easy choice: this woman showed her love for Jesus by anointing His feet, which is not the way most of us are going to show love for anyone! A more typical way would be giving them a card—such as for Valentine's Day! I found this great bunny valentine in a craft book; perfect for the Year of the Rabbit!

In spite of the lack of attention during the joint activities, Bruce said the adult Bible study went really well, with more participation from our non-believers than usual! Thank the Lord for what only He can do!!

Raising of Jairus’ Daughter

Our story was brief this time—we didn't show the interruption of the hemorrhaging woman since we had done that in a separate story. We introduced Jairus & family. The daughter was very sick (we took her temperature with one of these fancy "radar guns"), so Jairus left her lying on her bed (a board across two stools) with her mother stationed next to her. Then he went off to look for Jesus. He pushed through the crowd around Jesus and begged him to come heal his daughter. Jesus agreed and they started off. After walking one round of the room, the servant appears and tells Jairus he might as well send Jesus away, the girl was already dead. But Jesus told him not to be afraid, so they kept going. When they arrived, the mother and several others were wailing loudly. Jesus tells them they don't need to mourn, the girl was only asleep. They stop wailing and start jeering at Jesus. But he goes in and tells the girl to get up, and she does. Jesus gives her to her parents and tells them to give her something to eat. So they give her a cracker.

For the game we focused on Jairus having to force his way through the crowd to get to Jesus. Several adults linked arms to block the way from one end of the room to the other. If the kids could push their way through, they, like Jairus, could get what they wanted from "Jesus" (in this case, a sweet treat). The kids enjoyed the game, but maybe it wasn't so brilliant to encourage them to use physical force to move people out of their way! Our visiting (neurotypical) preschooler was good at sneaking through between people's knees though.

For craft time we made these reversible dolls to illustrate how, like with Jairus and his family, God turns our sorrow into joy.

The week after this story was the fourth day of the Chinese New Year. We always use the first Sunday of Chinese New Year just to chat and munch New Year's goodies. Low attendance, but that was not surprising. I really enjoyed the break from having to prepare anything new. Especially since I caught a bad cold from the cat we're taking care of for a vacationing friend, so it would have been extra unpleasant to go at the normal pace. I'm fine now & looking forward to this coming Sunday!

A Brave Woman

Today we introduced a woman who, like last week's character, had been suffering for a long time. This woman had had an issue of blood for 12 years. She had spent all her money on doctors, to no avail: we gave our "actress" a small purse with three coins and had her visit three different "doctors" who listened to her heart with a home-made stethoscope and/or took her temperature with a pretzel stick. She was supposed to pay each of them one of her coins but it took a considerable amount of persuasion to get her to part with them. Somehow she ended up with all three back in the purse at the end; I missed how she did that. Anyway, the first two doctors gave her medicine to drink. After drinking the first bottle, we could see that the "blood" (a long red string tucked into her belt) was still there. The second bottle, we said (just to make the story more interesting) not only didn't make the blood go away, it made her throw up. Lai Wun obliged by spitting in her sister's lap—yes, it did make the story more interesting! :-) The third doctor took her money but only shook her head sadly and said, sorry, nothing I can do for you. So by now she was desperate. Then she hears that Jesus has come to her town! She didn't dare ask Him outright for help. After all, she was "unclean," and not worthy of God's care. But, Jesus was so powerful, if she could just touch his clothes, she very well might be healed. So she threaded through the crowd, quickly touched his cloak, and ran away. She did the running away part really well. When Jesus asked who had touched Him, there was no way she was going to be persuaded to come back and tell Him who it was! So Jesus had to go and find her hiding in the corner of the room and tell her not to worry, never to think that God loved her, and that in fact she was healed because God was so pleased by her faith. So, a little different from the original story, but it worked okay.

This woman had sneaked up to Jesus to "steal" power from His body. So for our game, each child had to try to "steal" a piece of chocolate dangling on a string from "Jesus'" clothes. Our volunteer Jesus wasn't very good at dodging, so the game was a little too easy, but this did not disappoint the kids terribly!

The woman was supposed to never forget that God loved her, and we shouldn't forget either. So for craft time we made simple picture frames and wrote on the top "Jesus loves" and their names on the bottom. Then we inserted their personalized angels from the December 19^th craft time. I still had the heads leftover from the kids who hadn't come that day, so since Sally was there this time, I made her an angel while they were putting the frames together, so she had an angel too. Of course she had never seen it before and loved it! While some of the other kids were still working on their projects, Sally was gazing at hers with her chin on her hand and a radiant smile on her face. So sweet.

A Crippled Woman Healed

We took some major "poetic license" here! In order to lengthen the story & increase the participation, we added some hypothetical situations to give background to the theme of the day. First we had the "leader of the synagogue" getting ready to go to the Sabbath meeting. No cooking allowed on the Sabbath, so he had to eat a cold breakfast (a small piece of pound cake, which is considered by some to be Western breakfast food). Then before he went, he needed to make sure his cows were fed and watered. So he pumped some water with the cardboard pump leftover from the marriage at Cana & then led his two handsome cows (steers, maybe!) out to drink. Led them back to their seats & gave them some "hay". Then he could go to the synagogue.

Next we saw another family—father, mother and small son—also eat their cold breakfast and start off. But on the way they encountered a neighbor's sheep with its head caught in a fence. (I have kicked myself for not getting a picture of Sally in the fence—I'll have to ask her to do a make-up pose another day.)

Here it is:

Of course, according to the Law you must rescue a neighbor's animal in distress, so the son ran home to get a hammer & dad took the fence apart to let the sheep out, and then hammered it back together. Then they, too, go to the synagogue.

The next person we see is this woman (girl) who is bent over from the waist and unable to straighten up. She has been that way for 18 years. She is pretty lonely, because people have to practically lie on the ground to talk with her & few people do that. But she likes to go to synagogue, because she can talk to God anyway!

Today, Jesus is speaking at the meeting. Some more poetic license—He is giving a sermon on God's mercy. Everyone agrees with His wonderful message. Then He calls the crippled woman to the front and says, daughter, God wants to show you His mercy today! He lays His hands on her and she stands up straight. She begins to rejoice, but then the leader of the synagogue gives her a hard time. "If you wanted to be healed, you should come some other time, not on the Sabbath! Healing is work & shouldn't be done on the Sabbath!" But Jesus refutes this statement. Come now, He says. Weren't we just talking about mercy? Don't you show mercy to your cattle on the Sabbath, and bring them out to drink? (Synagogue leader looks embarrassed) Or if you saw your neighbor's sheep stuck in a fence on the Sabbath, wouldn't you have mercy on it and help it get free? (family looks embarrassed). God shows us mercy every single day, after all, and wouldn't He want to show mercy to this dear woman today? And give her the best Sabbath "rest" that she has had for 18 years?

The game for today was originally written to be a relay race, but it quickly became obvious that just doing the running—with hands clasping the ankles—was hard enough for almost everyone that just doing it individually, without competition, was challenge enough to make it fun!

The woman in our story stood up straight and tall for the first time in 18 years. How tall are we when we stand up straight? Craft for the day was making individual "growth charts" which were simply measuring tapes stuck to sheets of paper. Then we measured everyone. Unfortunately, I had not anticipated that we would have a new visitor this morning—a 4-year-old boy who was considerably less than 4 feet tall. The only measuring tapes I could find went up to only five feet, and we have several boys taller than that. So I had cut the tapes short, and had 20-80 cm become 120-180 cm. Everyone easily fell within this range except our new little boy, who wasn't all that thrilled to be there in the first place. Mr. Lei worked hard to figure out how to measure him anyway. Thanks Mr. Lei!

I led the Bible study which centered on the idea of mercy. I assigned "homework" which was looking for ways in the coming week to show mercy to someone who doesn't "deserve" it. We're supposed to report back this coming Sunday. Hope we will have at least some people who did the homework!

Luke 7

Since this is supposed to be starting our unit on New Testament women, the main story is meant to be the widow of Nain. But that is too short a story to make much of a drama out of, so we started with the story before it in Luke, about the healing of the centurion's servant.

First we introduced Jesus, then we divided the rest of the room into "Jews" and "Romans" who generally kept separate from one another. But there was this one Roman, whose servant was sick (centurion puts him in recliner with feet up & covers him with blanket), who had good relationships with the Jews. When he heard Jesus was in town, he asked some of his Jewish friends to ask Jesus to heal his servant. They do & he says okay & starts to go with them. But one guy runs ahead to tell the centurion that he is coming. He sends him back to Jesus to say, please, don't take so much trouble for me; your power is so great, you can just say the word and he will be healed. Jesus is impressed and says "he is healed." The servant immediately gets up and starts sweeping the floor.

Then we have some people saying: "Did Jesus really heal him, or was he going to get better anyway? And, "Well, He healed him, but He only does this for people who are important and do good works." Thus we introduce the next story that highlights both Jesus' healing power and His willingness to serve nobodies.

Jesus is walking along and sees two men coming along the road carrying a funeral bier (a board with a doll on it, covered with a blanket). Behind them walks a widow (wearing a black scarf) & no other family, so Jesus knows she is very needy. He stops the procession, pats the widow on the shoulder to comfort her, then puts his hands on the covered figure and says, sit up. The doll sits up (with help), and is given to the mother. Everyone is amazed and they sing a praise song. (The "widow," a real widow, actually, who is usually quite shy, made her doll-son dance with the music—that was cute!)

When the centurion's servant was healed, he sat up. When the widow's son was brought to life, he sat up. So of course our game was a sit-ups contest!

Some of the adults gave it a try too. They couldn't all manage sit-ups, but some could do other kinds of exercise!

Craft was more "headwork" than "handwork" this time—an English word-search with words from the widow of Nain story. The definitions were added in Chinese, but the word-find was only English. The kids do work on English in school (whether or not it's very useful), but they had a hard time with this. The parents found it fascinating though!

I liked what Bruce brought out in the Bible study time, about how the centurion asked for (and received) healing for his servant, but how Jesus raised the widow's son without her asking for anything. Many people today ask for healing and then rightly thank Jesus for it, but how often are people healed & it's also Jesus but because they didn't ask they don't guess it was He? Unfortunately we ran out of time to discuss the problem of those who ask for healing but don't receive it. I did at least try to emphasize in the closing prayer that this is a legitimate question that I wish I knew the answer to. But that we ask anyway, because who else is there to ask? Ourselves?

The Ideal Woman

The ideal woman is not I. I don't imagine the Proverbs 31 woman would have gotten behind in her posting because she wasted a couple of days moping around after her cat died.

Proverbs 31 is of course not in story form, but it still lent itself nicely to our Sunday morning program. In theory we were supposed to be in the New Testament by the New Year, but there are SO MANY Sundays before this year's unusually late Easter, that I sneaked this in.

The way we did it was to first select the number of "volunteers" needed for each verse, then have someone read the verse (or verses) before having the kids act out the scene:

vv 10-12—"she is more precious than jewels"—boy puts necklace on girl

v 13—"she seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands"—girl knits.

v 14—"she brings her food from far away"—girl goes around the room with shopping basket buying fruit from different people

v 15—"she rises while it is still night and provides food for her household…"—this was unplanned but a funny touch. Lai Wun was our star actress; she had gotten into the knitting scene as if she really knew what she was doing. Wing Yan was our next volunteer, and she did okay as far as lying down on the sleeping mat with her "husband" and then letting him sleep on while she got up. But then she was done & wouldn't set the table like she was supposed to. So Lai Wun jumps up and starts doing it for her. Well, the verse does continue "…and tasks for her servant-girls"!

v 16—"she considers a field and buys it…plants a vineyard"—girl buys box of dirt from boy and waters it

v 17—"she…makes her arms strong"—girl lifts weights

vv 18-19—"her lamp does not go out at night…her hands hold the spindle"—girl tucks boy into bed then sits up with sewing

v 20—"she opens her hand to the poor"—boy begging with tin cup, girl drops money into cup

vv 21-22—"all her household is clothed in crimson"—girl dresses boy & then herself in red jackets

v 23—"her husband is known in the city gates"—boys sit in a group, boy wearing the red jacket shakes hands with the others

v 24—"she makes linen garments and sells them"—girl goes around the room selling articles of clothing to different people

v 25—"she laughs at the time to come"—girls make remarks about cold weather/bad economy, girl says, no problem

v 26—"the teaching of kindness is on her tongue"—two boys fighting, girl breaks it up

v 27—"she…does not eat the bread of idleness"—boy sits in recliner, girl sweeps floor

vv 28-29—"her children rise up…her husband, too, and he praises her"—several people praise girl & give her a crown

vv 30-31—"give her a share in the fruit of her hands"—girl takes basket & goes around the room while people put garments, fruit & money in basket

This woman had a lot to balance! So for game time, we had a relay where the kids had to balance a tray with cups & bowls using one hand. A couple of the kids didn't get the one-hand bit right, but a couple of them insisted on doing it over and trying it one-handed, and they did it! Great job, kids!

Our craft followed verse 13—they used yarn and worked with fairly willing hands to create these pictures with it.

The adult Bible study took an interesting twist. Some of the women came to the conclusion that this woman's husband must be a lazy good-for-nothing who just let her do everything! I don't think that was supposed to be the point of this passage!

The Three Wise Men

I didn't get any pictures this time. I was telling the story & was just too wired from the busy weekend. Oh well, we had a good time anyway. We introduced our three wisemen ("wisepersons"), all wearing neckties to illustrate their status. They were looking at the stars stuck to the ceiling fan through a telescope (two telescoping paper towel rolls). Then suddenly this very large star appeared, held up on a stick by one of the girls. Interesting, most stars travelled in some kind of orbital pattern (ceiling fan turned on slow speed), but this new one was going in a straight line. They decide to follow it, so each takes a tote bag containing a towel and a wrapped gift, and set off following the star.

Eventually it leads them to King Herod's palace. They figure this must be because the star signifies a newborn king, so they get in to see Herod and ask, where's the new baby king? We've been following the star that told us he had been born. Oh-oh, Herod doesn't like this news. He has no new baby son, but he remembers some prophecy from somewhere about a star arising from Jacob that will rule. (we had someone read parts of Numbers 24:17-19 from a prepared scroll) But HE wants to keep ruling! So he goes and finds some Bible experts and asks them where this ruler is supposed to be born. They look up and read Micah 5:2—answer: Bethlehem.

So Herod goes back and says, okay, no new baby here, but you can expect to find him in Bethlehem. When you do, come back and tell me where exactly, so I can go pay my respects too. They agree & leave, after which Herod gloats, ha, I can kill this baby and then I can be the only king again!

The star now leads them to one of the side rooms. They knock and out comes one of the girls holding a baby doll. They ask when it was born & she answers, "December 25^th," so they know it must be the right baby. They give mother & baby the gifts from their bags, and they all get a chance to cuddle the baby a little. Then they leave. They know they're supposed to go back to Herod's palace, but they're too tired from all their traveling & it's late, so they pull the towels from their bags and go to sleep on the floor. But during the night an angel appears and tells them not to go back to the palace. So when they get up they go into the other bedroom and re-enter the living room through the back balcony.

Our game was another relay race, based on the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Various small wooden blocks had been labeled with one of these gift names, & each team had enough so that each kid could find & bring a set of three to "Mary & baby" sitting at the front of the room. Somehow, it should have been more fun than it was. I think it would have been better if there had been more blocks to have to paw through, with some having totally irrelevant labels. I was too cheap, I guess. I was able to find a box of 32 small blocks (actually Chinese Chess pieces) for a very cheap price and said, good, I don't have to spend a lot. I could have bought two boxes and it still would have been cheap.

The wisemen brought their gifts in "treasure boxes" but we usually receive our Christmas gifts in stockings, so we made stockings for our craft. The patterns were cut out of plastic report covers which were handily red in back & clear in front. They added a white top made from a folded card with cotton balls stuck to it, punched holes around the edges, then sewed the whole thing together with green yarn, leaving enough for a hanger at the top. The hole punches were not quite heavy-duty enough (even though I'd bought bigger ones—in fact, the small ones that had been a disaster with the crossing-of-the-red-sea craft (May 28) did a better job than the big clunkers—sigh), so there was some frustration. But all was forgiven when I got them all filled with candy during the free time!

We had a potluck scheduled, with food to be delivered at 12:00. They had trouble finding the place and didn't arrive until 12:45. Mrs. Ng had brought some scrumptious homemade dumplings so we polished those off while we waited. Finally the food came—and along with it, a boy & his mom who have been frequently late in the past, but NEVER this late. I mean, if the food had come on time, we would have been mostly done eating it by the time they showed up! How did they KNOW??