A Beautiful Gift for Jesus

First, for a brief review, we saw how last week Jesus (sitting on nice chair) was asked by the mother of James and John to give them seats at His right and left hand in His coming kingdom (one child sits on either side of Jesus). We reminded everyone that they didn't understand what Jesus was trying to tell them about His coming death. But that today's story highlights someone who did understand.

Jesus and several of His disciples are once again seated at a table for dinner. This time, a servant did wash their feet for them. Mrs. Chu took an (empty) basin and (dry) towel and started wiping everyone's feet. At least two of the kids thought that meant they had to take their shoes off. So to our servant added the additional task of tying shoelaces.

But the woman highlighted in the story wanted to do something special for Jesus too. So she "ran home" and came back with a pretty jar, empty but purportedly filled with an expensive perfume. When she "poured it out" over Jesus' head, we gave a good spray of air freshener into the room, to emphasize that the scent of the perfume filled the house. It worked—some latecomers arrived just then and mom's first comment was, what's that fragrance?

We had our Jesus really enjoying the anointing experience—smoothing his hair & smiling. But then one of the disciples complains that the woman was wasteful; that if she didn't want the perfume she could have sold it and given the money to the poor. The woman looked embarrassed. But Jesus said, "Don't criticize her! I appreciate what she has done for me. You can give all the gifts you want to the poor after I am gone, but I will not always be here to give gifts to. And this gift is extra special. When other people are anointed with this beautiful perfume, they are already dead and being prepared for their burial, so they don't even know what is happening. This dear woman has anointed me for my burial early enough so that I can appreciate it! Thank you so much, daughter. It means a lot to me." He gave her a little kiss and that was the end of our brief story.

As soon as the people in our story smelled the perfume, they knew what it was. Are we also able to recognize smells right away? That was the question to be answered during our game! We had prepared 11 baby-food-sized jars with a range of "fragrances," (chocolate, peanut butter, alcohol, garlic, lemon juice, peppermint, catsup, coconut, vinegar, soy sauce, & plain water), and due to a Chinese holiday we had only a total of 11 adults and children besides myself. So each one got to draw the name of one of the fragrances and then come & smell different jars until they found it. Decided to make it a little easier by only giving each person three jars at a time from which to choose theirs. Fun.

For craft time each one received a glass bottle with different designs drawn on them in permanent marker—flowers, butterflies, hearts, whatever. They painted them as desired with tempera paints. Pictures when I go back and take them…

An Ambitious Woman

As Jesus nears the end of His life, He tries to explain to His disciples more than once what lies ahead. The first time, we had Jesus say he was going to be beaten (he picks up a rope and demonstrates) and crucified (he takes a disciple's hands and pretends to pound nails in) and would die (he pushes the disciple back down onto his chair). The disciples don't understand. They all keep walking, (walk one round of room), until now they're really close to Jerusalem. Jesus so wants them to understand and feel with Him. He tries to explain again. He says he is going to be beaten, do they understand? One child who says yes is chosen to demonstrate with the rope. He is going to be crucified, do they understand? Another child is chosen to show his understanding by stretching out Jesus' hands and pretending to nail them. He is going to die, do they understand? Another child mimics dying. But on the third day, He will rise again, do they understand? This time, no one understands. Finally someone says, must be a parable, and they all nod their heads. So Jesus is left without anyone to truly understand and sympathize with Him.

Then, who comes to greet them but the mother of two of the disciples. She takes Jesus aside and says she has something to ask Him. She says, when you come into your kingdom (she seats him on a nice chair and puts a crown on His head), may my two sons sit at your right and left hand? (she chooses two disciples and seats them at His right and left)

Jesus says, you don't know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I must drink? They say yes. Jesus says, you will drink, but in fact I can't choose who is going to sit at my right and left hands; only the Father can say that.

The other disciples realize what is going on and they all get jealous & start giving James & John a hard time. Jesus says, you still don't understand. He asks, who really wants to be great in the kingdom? He takes one child who raises her hand and says, if you really want to be great in God's kingdom (seats her on the nice chair), then you need to become the servant of all (gives her a towel & has her go polish the shoes of all the seated adults).

For our game, we had a competition to see who qualified to sit at Jesus' (Kevin's) right and left hand, by drinking cups of juice the fastest. First by twos, and each pair was assigned to either right (faster) or left (slower). Then each of those groups drank all at once & the winner of each group got to take the honored seats.

Since our story talked about people at the right or the left hand, we then made for a craft, people from the right or left hand: i.e., surgical gloves. Simple, but fun. Not everyone quite got the idea that the thumb was supposed to be a nose though, so we had a couple of rather off-center faces!

Two sisters, two choices

The way we do this story, Martha is busy making up a bed in the guest room while Mary is in the kitchen chopping up vegetables. Jesus and His disciples arrive and Mary lets them in & serves them all some water. She never makes it back to the kitchen because she gets too interested in listening to Jesus.

When we did this before, we only had one girl, which worked well enough because then we could choose a mom, who would know how to unfold & make up the cot, to be Martha. This time we had plenty of girls, even though our two neurotypical regulars were absent. So I chose a new visiting volunteer (I love throwing the new volunteers in at the deep end—ha). Well, then the only girl willing to play Mary was Lai Wun, who is the big sister in her family, not the younger sister. There was no way she was going to let herself be demoted to little sister! There was also no way she was going to be able to handle that cot by herself. So we enlisted her mom as a "servant." Whatever it takes! Our Mary was a good sport, handing out empty teacups all around and letting me tease her about not remembering to do so with both hands.

So then Martha finishes the bed and comes down to the kitchen and, where's Mary? Look at this, the vegetables haven't been finished, the meat (some slabs of clay in a plastic bag) hasn't been put in the marinade, the fire (a candle) hasn't been lit—what HAS she done? So then Martha is supposed to try and get Mary's attention by whispering & waving. Mary played her part well; i.e. didn't pay any attention to her but kept looking at Jesus. Then Martha is supposed to come out and tell Jesus to make Mary help. Our Martha apparently didn't want to bother Jesus. She just grabbed Mary by the arm and tried determinedly to drag her bodily back to the kitchen. She was so noisily insistent that most of the adults missed Jesus' statement about Mary choosing the better part. We wound up by saying that the Bible doesn't say how Martha responded to Jesus. We asked what people thought she might have done: flounced back to the kitchen in a huff, apologized and sat down with her sister, or dragged the table out and finished her preparations while listening to Jesus. We all thought she should have chosen #3.

The game was originally a table-setting race, but there were too many kids to do this well, so we just had kids come up one at a time, overlapping as each one finished drawing all the components (plate, cup, napkin, knife, fork, spoon, and bud vase) out of a box and setting up a placemat to match our model. Still a worthwhile & interesting game for all.

Martha of course would have wanted to set a pretty table, with perhaps nicely folded napkins, right? I had planned on two different napkin folding projects, one very simple and one taking a little more concentration. But we were running a bit late so ended up only doing the simple one.

Later I taught the second one to one of the boys (the only one vaguely interested) during the free time.

The Widow’s Mite

Didn't take a single picture today, oops! Nine kids, including a new one, over six feet tall but fortunately well-behaved!

Another way-extra-biblical story line today. Took a couple of sentences in the passage and let my imagination run wild! Jesus told His disciples to beware of those who were falsely pious but "robbed widow's houses." So we opened with a rich man going to visit a poor widow to demand payment on a loan. She begged for more time. He said, all right, you won't give me my money, I'll just take these chairs instead, and walked off with the only two wooden chairs in the room.

Next we saw the rich man standing by the temple treasury's offering box, loudly ringing a bell for attention. He praised God for allowing him to prosper, and announced that he was giving the required 1/10^th to God. He placed a large handful of silver coins in the box.

Next we jumped to a chance phrasing which actually came right after the "mite" story (did I mention I also re-arranged the sequence for dramatic effect?), where the disciples are pointing out to Jesus the beauty of the temple, its stones and "the gifts". I asked myself, how did they know what were gifts and what were just part of the original temple? We introduced a priest. Along comes a man with a beautiful vase full of flowers. He presents it to the priest who thanks him, puts it on the table next to the offering box, and has the man sign his name on a card reading "Donated by__________" which was then propped up against the vase. Then came a woman with two candlesticks, who signed her name to another card to be displayed with the candlesticks. It was these gifts the disciples pointed out to Jesus, who did not seem very impressed.

But then along came the widow we'd seen earlier. She quietly dropped two small coins in the offering box. Jesus jumped up and exclaimed to His disciples, "Did you see that? Now THAT was truly beautiful!" The disciples asked, huh, what? He pointed out the widow who had given more than anyone else, because she had given all she had. We concluded by having Jesus say, in the eyes of the world she is just a poor widow, but in the eyes of God, she is a princess! And an angel with a halo came and crowned the woman.

Our game involved dropping coins in an "offering box"—a glass jar. The catch was that they had to kneel backwards on a chair, & the jar was on the floor behind it. It was just about the right difficulty. Out of five coins, each child managed 1 to 4. However, for the new boy, we had to move the jar a lot farther away from the chair. His arms were so long he couldn't possibly miss otherwise!

We emphasized that the point of this story was not that you are supposed to put everything you have in the offering box, but that what Jesus really wants is for us to give our hearts to God. So we made simple origami hearts. And then, since the kids don't usually take their crafts home anyway, they placed them in the offering box!

Woman caught in adultery

A couple of our kids were gone today to a sports competition in Guangzhou, but both of their moms came anyway. One brought her other daughter, as usual, but the other mom came all by herself! A first time; she once said she only comes because her son "makes" her come. I'm thrilled!

So: Jesus is at the temple when a group come leading a woman with her hands tied in front of her. They tell Jesus they caught her in the very act of adultery (so where's the other guilty party, eh?)

They ask Him whether they should stone her like Moses' law says. They really want to trap him. If He says no, they can say He doesn't obey the law of Moses; if He says yes, then He's going to lose a lot of popular support. So what does He do? Perhaps He needs a little time to think—he leans over and starts writing in the ground with His finger. (We chose Man Chun to be Jesus, partly because he needs more practice at leaning over. I had to physically push his head down. If I had this to do over I think I would have slowed action and explained carefully to him that he needed to bend over, as I'm sure he wasn't paying much attention to the narrator saying "Jesus leaned over…" So that he would have had more of a clue as to why I was pushing him down. Not that he got upset, he just laughed.)

So anyway, then he sits back up and says whoever has no sin can be the first to throw a stone. To add more visible action, we had one fellow pick up a large stone (a chunk of concrete from some local demolition rubble), look at Jesus, look at the others—and then put the stone down and leave. One by one the others also left. Then Jesus is allowed to straighten up again and asks where everyone went. "So no one condemned you?" He says. "Neither do I." He unties her hands and says, "Go in peace, but don't sin any more."

We don't throw stones at people nowadays if we don't approve of their behavior. But often we will throw ugly words at people. For our game, we set up four double-sided dolls (all with the sad side showing) around a stool. Threaded through the hole on top of the stool was a block on which was written [恨惡] or "hatred." The kids were supposed to get the string swinging so that the words could knock the dolls down. (I had come up with this as a way to avoid actually throwing the words, as one of our boys is just too enthusiastic about throwing things once he gets started. Wouldn't you know, that was the boy who went to Guangzhou—oh well). It took a lot of patience and coordination, so for some of the kids we turned the stool upside down and it was still enough of a challenge for them to swing the string in the right direction. So that worked out well.

Since Jesus wrote something in the dirt, we also wrote something in the "dirt" (squares of clay), and then made them easier to read by pressing little beads into the words we'd written with toothpicks. In contrast to the "hatred" we wrote the words for "peace."

The Woman at the Well

This story has a little more conversation than action, which isn't ideal for our group, but a worthwhile story nonetheless.

We introduced Jesus and His disciples, then looked at a map and explained that while many pious Jews would go the long way around to Galilee to avoid passing through Samaria, Jesus chose to walk straight through. After they walked for a while, Jesus stopped to rest by a well (a large bucket) while His disciples went into the town to buy some food. While Jesus is resting, this woman comes along with her water jug. Jesus is glad to see her, because He is thirsty. He asks her for a drink. She says, huh, you're asking me for a drink? Aren't you afraid it would be unclean? Jesus responds, what you say makes some sense; in fact it would make more sense for you to ask ME for water, because the water I would give you would be better than anything you could get from this well. The woman responds, how could you give better water than from this famous well handed down by our ancestor Jacob? You don't even have a bucket! Jesus says, if you drink this water, you will eventually get thirsty again. But if you drink the life-giving water I have to give you, you will never thirst again. Of course the woman wants some of this water. Jesus says, okay, go get your husband so I can give it to you both together. The woman is a bit embarrassed and says, well, I don't exactly have a husband. Jesus says, I know; you've have five husbands, but the man you're living with now is not your husband. Whoa, now the woman is REALLY embarrassed! Time to change the subject! She says, obviously, you're a prophet, so tell me something I've always wanted to know: Since our famous ancestor Jacob himself worshipped the Lord right here, how come you Jews say you can only worship God at the temple in Jerusalem? Jesus says, it's not where you worship, it's whom you worship that is important. (I skipped the spirit-and-truth line as a bit too abstract for the moment). The woman says, oh, it sounds too complicated; when the Messiah comes, He will explain it. Jesus says, I am the Messiah.

The woman is amazed but before she can say anything, the disciples come back with some food. They can't imagine that Jesus would really want to be having a conversation with a Samaritan woman, so they ignore her and try to get Jesus to eat. In the Bible story, Jesus doesn't eat but tries to explain to them that doing His Father's work is the best food—kind of like the living water He gives is the best water. And I wrote our story this way BUT did not take into account the fact that when our "Jesus" was urged to eat, there was no way he was going to refuse food!! So we scrambled a bit and let him while saying something like, this food is fine but doing my Father's work makes me even more satisfied. The disciples are amazed and a bit skeptical—talking to a Samaritan woman is the Father's work?? But just then the woman, who has been grabbing all sorts of people from the "audience" to come back with her, arrives at the well with a crowd who want to see who this prophet was who had come to Samaria. Jesus talks to them and they all believe in him (he shakes hands with everyone). So—talking to this woman was a good way to do God's work after all! (I hoped people would make the application that we should invite/welcome anyone, no matter how much they do or don't "fit in," because you just never know whose heart God is calling.

We used a game Kevin Hui created several years ago called "drinking living water". Everyone got a small bottle of a popular drink containing live lactobacillus. The twist to make it fun was that everyone also received a long straw made up of five regular straws joined together. They went two by two to see who could finish their bottles the fastest. Ka Ho (on the left) was the star!

For craft time we made these little "wells" out of craft sticks and cut-up toilet paper rolls. (This is after having made toilet-roll dogs last week. I NEVER throw away the rolls any more when I change the paper at home!)

A Brave and Humble Woman

We started our story by not introducing Jesus: we just put our "traditional" white vest on the one male present & immediately everyone knew who he was supposed to be. Yes, that was a problem Jesus had when He was on earth. Everyone recognized Him, and wanted to hear Him preach, or ask Him for healing. Sometimes He & His disciples got so busy they didn't have time to eat! So they went together to the country of the Phoenicians for a "getaway." (The reason for His going is not given in Scripture; I give this as a possibility. If Jesus could fall asleep in a boat during a storm, for example, He must have gotten extremely tired sometimes. He talks about knowing when power has gone out of Him, when the hemorrhaging woman touched Him. Did He need to rest and restore His strength for His miracles? Is that perhaps why He was reluctant to heal the Syrophoenician woman's daughter, and possibly open Himself up to more demands, leaving Him unready for the needs of the Jews? All speculation, I admit. But I found it helpful when I was studying the story & hoped others might too.)

Anyway, escaping to this other country didn't help after all, because at least one woman recognized who He was and wanted Him to deliver her daughter from a demon. The Mark version of the story has Jesus and His disciples in a house; the Matthew account sounds like they are out of doors. So we put both in the story. First the woman came and knocked on the "door" where Jesus and a few disciples were sitting drinking tea. One of the disciples goes and answers the door, shoos her away, and comes back and tells Jesus it was just someone knocking on the wrong door. Then the next day they were out walking and the woman starts yelling for Jesus to help her. The disciples say, get rid of her. But Jesus does nothing, either to help her or to send her away. Finally she throws herself at his feet and begs for His help. We had Jesus kneel down and gently explain, if I help you, what would stop all your neighbors from looking for my help? I'm really supposed to be here for the Jews, you know. Spending my time helping people here would be like taking the children's food and letting the dogs eat it, and that wouldn't be right, would it? The woman responds, yes, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs from the children's table. (In other words, call me a dog, I don't care, just heal my daugahter!) Jesus is moved by her humility and her bold faith, and grants her request.

We followed the "dog" theme for game and craft time. We crumbled up cookies on small plates and had the kids lap up the crumbs like a dog. The adults all ended up trying it too; partly to help persuade one reluctant girl, partly just for the fun of it. It was quite humorous, we all got crumbs on our noses and chins!

Then we made these little dogs out of toilet paper rolls.