Unit 4B: NT Women

1/6/08	widow of Nain	sit-ups	maze & word-find	Luke 7: 11-17
1/13/08	woman with issue of blood	picking pockets	photo frames	Mark 5: 25-35
1/20/08	woman caught in adultery	throwing words	writing in soil (clay)	John 8: 2-11
1/27/08	anointing Jesus	pouring into jars	painting glass jars	Mark 14:1-9
2/3/08	Mary Magdalene & risen Christ	recognizing "master"	craft-stick butterflies	John 20 (various)
2/10/08	Chinese New Year free talk & play	--	--	--
2/17/08	woman at the well	drinking living water	cross bookmarks	Heb. 4: 15-16
2/24/08	Syrophoenician woman	grabbing at crumbs	t.p. roll dogs	I Pet. 5: 6-7
3/2/08	Mary & Martha	table setting race	napkin folding	Luke 10:38-42
3/9/08	mother of sons of Zebedee	servants at R. & L. hands	latex glove balloon faces	Matt. 20: 24-28
3/16/08	widow's mite	throwing gifts into treasury	treasure banks	God's grading system
3/23/08	Pilate's wife	matching "dream" pictures	ribbon & clothespin crosses	Phil. 2: 6-11
3/30/08	Damons' farewell	--	--	--

The Bible studies for the first five weeks of this unit were lifted pretty much straight from the IVP Bible study "Jesus Cares for Women," which is the best evangelistic study book I've EVER seen. Actually that was what inspired this whole unit 4A-B!

I knew our non-thrower-non-kneeler was going to have trouble doing the "find your way to Jesus" maze for the first week. He has a lot of perceptual issues. So what I did with his maze was to build up all the areas around the one correct path, with about ¼ inch of extra paper. So all he had to do was to get his pencil at the start and keep going in whatever direction he didn't bump into a wall. Eventually he did get there, but it was still hard for him! All the other kids did well. The word-find, which I found on the internet, I threw in just to see how the kids would do with them, since most of them have learned the English alphabet at school. It was too hard for some of them, though—but the parents, who had never seen such a puzzle before, were quite fascinated and more than happy to complete the puzzles for them!

For the resurrection game, we held up a large sheet and each child was supposed to find his own mother/caregiver by feeling all the adults through the sheet. But one tall boy kept cheating and pulling the sheet down to look. I guess we needed taller people to hold the sheet up!

The table setting race was a really great game. The kids would take one piece of paper at a time with the name of a place-setting on it (plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife, napkin & bud vase) & then go put it on their assigned placemat. Fun and educational at the same time!

Well…the last Sunday of March was our farewell party, and so two days later we took off for our home assignment. A young man from the mother church, Kevin Hui, who had been interning with us for the past year, has been in charge while we were gone. He has been doing a great job. Attendance is stable and even up! And he has helped our Christian parents to get more involved in leading the activities. That is truly exciting; I hope I don't cause things to go backwards after our return.

Recently Kevin sent us a list of the parables of Jesus they have been learning over these three months. As soon as I find out what the game or craft was for each session (we agreed that they could choose just one to have each week rather than both, since creating those are the most time-consuming), I will post that chart.

 

Pause unit 4 for Christmas & the New Year

12/16/07		Elizabeth and Mary		jumping for joy	origami angel ornaments	Luke 1: 76-79
12/23/07		Magi		??	Christmas stockings	Jer. 29: 11-13
12/30/07		10 Lepers (thankfulness)		race on knees	foil pie plate tambourines	Ps. 92: 1-4

We had our sixty-year-old grandmother play the part of the pregnant Elizabeth. She brought the house down! But she absolutely refused to let me take her picture; I was SO disappointed!

The game that week was planned by our intern, Kevin--it was a little confusing to me as to how it was played, so I'm leaving this space blank. Game ideas always welcome

I found some cute pre-printed origami angels on Tammy Yee's website, but instead of adding her angel heads, I had prepared pictures of everyone (everyone's heads)—I took digital photos of our newcomers as soon as they arrived, and got them printed out during the game time. So each person got to attach his/her own head & then a halo, to the angel body. Then we put them all up on a large green poster-paper Christmas tree! Our kids almost never take their crafts home anyway. And they loved having them up on the tree.

For the game the week we talked about being thankful for the past year, I had embroidered the ten lepers' story a bit to say that the one thankful leper "ran to Jesus and fell on his knees." So for our game, we reversed that and ran on our knees to "Jesus" & then got up "healed" & ran back to the team. But running on your knees can be uncomfortable, so I basted thick foam pads on two pairs of legwarmers. Each runner then had to take them off at the end of his/her turn and the next person on the team had to put them on. Much hilarity!

I mentioned in the last post that one of our boys didn't know how to throw or to cut with scissors. We found out when he was playing one of the Magi that he didn't know how to kneel down either! Oops! In trying to help him get down, I ended up dropping him flat on his face. Some physical therapist I am, ha! I really wish I could have time with this boy outside of Sunday mornings to do more stuff one-on-one with him. (By the way, we let him WALK with the legwarmers on the next week!)

We JUST learned a couple of days ago that this boy, Man Chun, lost his excellent paid caregiver last week due to visa problems. Now he has a new "auntie" who doesn't speak Cantonese! Which means she cannot communicate with him verbally. What a setback for the poor kid. Just in time for summer vacation, too.

Doubly disappointing is the fact that the former auntie had said she wanted to become a believer, but was hesitating for fear of not being able to take the pressure from family to continue worshipping the ancestral gods. Now she will be away from any known Christian influence. So we are sad for her as well as for Man Chun.

We return to Macau on the 4^th of July—just three more weeks! I am so looking forward to seeing everyone again. We've been hearing great reports about how well things have been going. But maybe more about that AFTER I catch up the backlog here. Just one more unit to go!

Unit 4A: OT women

9/23/07	Rahab & the fall of Jericho	Wall-bashing	Trumpets (or lanterns)	I Tim 1: 12-15
9/30/07	Ruth	Gleaning rice (chopsticks)	Ruth & Naomi coloring page	Isaiah 54:4-6
10/7/07	Deborah	ping-pong ball war	palm tree	Gal. 3: 26-29
10/14/07	Hannah	eating until provoked	"Samuel's" shirt (gift for Melissa)	Luke 18:1-7
10/21/07	Melissa's farewell (Acts 20)	capturing Melissa (London bridge)	farewell card	--
10/28/07	Abigail	filling baskets (throwing fruit)	sheep shearing	I Pet. 2: 18-23
11/4/07	Elisha & the widow's oil	confetti relay	oil jars	Jn. 6: 5-13
11/11/07	Elisha & the Shunamite woman	prophet in the corner pocket	craft houses	Gal. 6: 9-10
11/18/07	Esther (guest leader)	??	??	??
11/25/07	GC outdoor service/picnic	--	--	--
12/2/07	Athaliah, Jehoshebeath, & Joash	hide & seek with baby doll	crowns	II Chr. 24:1-2, 15-18
12/9/07	Proverbs 31 woman	loaded tray relay	yarn pictures	Rom 3: 19-24

The sheep shearing for Abigail's craft was one of my all-time favorites. Took me ages to make enough hairy sheep.

That was the week we discovered that one of our boys could neither throw (he's since learned! Way to go!) or use scissors. I'm very careful now about crafts that require cutting. I try to keep it to short, straight cuts that are easy to help him with.

Obviously our curriculum can't be replicated 100% because future groups will not have a volunteer leader happening to end her term of service right when we needed to make "a shirt for Samuel." And the way the timing worked out so we could switch to NT at Christmas—two years in a row now—was dictated at least as much by outside factors (e.g. poor attendance) as careful planning. I'm hoping that after we get more believers who begin to invite their friends, we can start the curriculum over with those parents doing most of the work using the materials available, while I work on new stuff for a different population such as multiply handicapped kids rather than our physically active autistic boys. I don't know how the dates will work out a second time through! God, it's up to You!

Transition—Into the Promised Land

9/16/07

The first attempt to enter

Running the gauntlet

Marshmallow giants

Deut. 8:2-5

 

For this story we sent the "12" spies into the land ("sneaking" past all the adults who were standing on stools to seem like giants, out to the balcony). They came back with a huge basket of fruit slung on a pole, which was a big surprise to the adults! We then had the complaining & the refusal to enter. Well, then we skipped the next 40 years, and had them entering the land for real the next Sunday. That started our next unit already, so this is all for this post!

Unit 3B—the Ten Commandments

Date	Bible story	Game	Craft	Bible study
6/17/07	No other gods: II Chr. 34	"old Maid"	Fathers' Day cards	Matt. 22:35-40
6/24/07	No idols: Daniel 3	Balloon air guns (unseen power)	Balloon string balls	Dan. 6
7/1/07	Indoor picnic with American visitors
7/8/07	Using God's name rightly: Acts 8:4-24	Transporting paralytics	"God loves me" mirrors	Acts 19:13-17
7/15/07	Sabbath: Genesis 1 + Luke 13:10-17	Six tasks, one gift to open	Wrapping gifts (used in game)	Matt. 11:28-30
7/22/07	Honoring Parents— Prodigal Son	Musical hats— tea ceremony	Prodigal son's money bag	Eph. 6:1-4
7/29/07	Killing— Joab and Abner	"Duck Duck Gray Duck"	Congrats card for new baby	Matt. 5: 21-22a, 43-45
8/5/07	Adultery— David and Bathsheba	3-legged races (2 become 1)	Wedding paper dolls	Mal. 2:13-16
8/12/07	Stealing— II Kings 5	"stealing" from under pendulum	"what has been stolen?" (worksheet)	Luke 19: 1-10
8/19/07	Free talk/play
8/26/07	False Witness— Naboth's vineyard	"Mother May I?" (only if true)	Belts of truth	Matt. 5:33-37
9/2/07	Covetousness— Ananias & Sapphira	Overloading a container	"contented cats"	I Tim. 6:6-10
9/9/07	10 Comm. Review	Arranging laws in order	Graduation hats	Is. 53:4-6; I Pet. 2:24-25

 

I become more and more aware that my charts here are far from self-explanatory. I'd better save my paper copies, huh!

We had a lot of fun—as usual—with the ten commandments. Highlights were probably a couple of the games: For "Musical Hats," whoever got one hat was the child, & the other was the parent; the child then poured tea for the parent. We played several rounds & the final round had my pastor husband as the child, and an Indonesian hired maid as the parent. This was SO culturally bizarre, for a white professional to serve the maid—she was laughing so hard she could hardly keep from spilling her tea! For "Mother May I," at each turn a child would draw a card with some statement such as "Ka Hei is wearing a red shirt today" or "Wing Tung is 13 years old"—some were inherently true or false, some might be true or false on any given day, so had to be checked before the child could or could not "take a giant step."

Guess that's all for this time. I need to hurry up and get this blog up to date so I can start fresh & be current when we return to Macau a month from today…

Unit 3A: Moses and the Exodus

After Easter and an early Ascension, we went back to the Old Testament.

Date	Bible Story	Game	Craft	Bible Study
4/29/07	Birth of Moses	Pass the baby à drawing things out of water	Honey/peanut candy "Moses baskets"	Ephesians 2:10
5/6/07	God calls Moses	"excuses answered" flash card game	Burning bush pictures	Review of Moses' excuses & ours
5/13/07	First nine plagues	Paper wad war (getting locusts out of the house)	Clothespin locusts	Exodus 9: 27-30, 33-35
5/20/07	Passover	"Musical cards"—reds live.	Bubble bottle lambs	I Peter 1: 18-19
5/27/07	Crossing the Red Sea	Drowning (paper) chariots w/ squirt gun	Phylacteries	Isaiah 43: 1-2
6/3/07	God's provision, man's complaining	Gathering cotton-ball manna	Slingshots (to shoot quail)	Psalm 78: 18-22
6/10/07	Receiving the Law	Race to find ten number discs	Clay tablets	Psalm 1: 1-3

 

For our game for the birth of Moses, we passed the "baby" until the music stopped, then whoever had it got to fish a malted milk ball out of a prune juice bottleful of water—with chopsticks! One mom thought this was a great way to teach her chocolate-loving son patience and perseverance. But for the paper-wad war two weeks later, the same boy got very uncomfortable, because he felt like we were really fighting.

The Passover story went really well. For killing the Passover Lamb, I had glued cotton balls all over a water bottle & added pipe cleaner legs and a lamb face (same as we did for our craft). The lamb was "killed" by wringing its neck and letting the ketchup-blood out. We poured that into a bowl which the kids then dipped small bunches of dried flowers in to smear on the top & side posts of a door I'd drawn on a piece of brown posterboard. It was quite realistic.

I couldn't think of a good craft for the crossing of the Red Sea, so we did phylacteries because it was actually between the Passover and the Crossing that the Bible mentions for the first time (I think) having a sign on your hands and forehead (Ex. 13:9). It did seem like a bit of a stretch, so once again, I would love to hear of other ideas.

For receiving the Law at Mount Sinai, first the kids all had to wash their faces and put on my husband's neckties again. Then a couple of us held a large white sheet over the top of a tall ladder. One of the kids had to climb the ladder up under the sheet to get the tablet. It's a real plus that we're borrowing the mission dorm for our services, because there are so many great props handy!

For the clay tablets, we smeared clay over Styrofoam templates (another exercise in patience) & then just wrote in Roman numerals I-X with nails.

The moms enjoy some of these crafts at least as much as the kids!

Unit Two

Starting with Christmas, we left the OT for a while and did a series on the life of Jesus

Date	Bible story	Game	Craft	Bible study
12/24/06	Birth of Christ	Pin the baby in the manger	Christmas cards	Isaiah 9:6
12/31/06	Jesus at 12	Hide and seek	??	Prov. 2:1-5
1/7/07	(guest speaker)	??	??	??
1/14/07	Jesus' baptism	Bobbing for plums	Paper cups	John 1:29-34
1/21/07	free talk/play	--	--	--
1/28/07	Jesus' temptation	Red light, green light	Making "bread" (micro muffins	Story + Heb. 2:15
2/4/07	Jesus as teacher	Follow the leader	Teaching scrolls	Luke 15:4-7
2/11/07	Sermon on the Mount	Turning somersaults	Wrapping gifts	Matt. 7:24-27
2/18/07	(Chinese New Year fun)	--	--	--
2/25/07	Calming the storm/Jesus as miracle worker	Soaking paper boats with squirt gun	Stormy waves sponge painting (total flop)	John 9:1-7
3/4/07	Gadarene demonaic	Bowling	Origami pig faces	Rom. 8:38-39
3/11/07	Free talk/play	--	--	--
3/18/07	Cleansing the temple	"money exchange" flash cards	Braiding cords	True prayer— examples from various Psalms
3/25/07	Triumphal entry	Giant steps (winner=king)	Leaf prints on paper cups	Mark 10:42-45
4/1/07	Death of Jesus	Casting lots (for treats)	Colored rice crosses	Gospel review (5-color verses)
4/8/07	Resurrection	Egg & spoon relay	Origami butterflies	I Cor. 15: 14:19
4/15/07	Free talk/play	--	--	--
4/22/07	Ascension & promise to return	Silly wedding shower game	Ascension picture puzzles	John 14:1-3

Some notes on this unit: We had a few Sundays where only one family unit showed—we wondered if our fledgling work was going to crash. We eventually did recover, but the "free talk/play" times were on the whole not planned for!

I don't seem to have a record of what I did for a craft for Jesus at 12. Any ideas?

Bobbing for plums—they're softer than apples; easier to bite into. They also sink! But that worked out well; we just put them in enough water so that the kids would get their noses & chins a little wet, but didn't have to submerge their whole faces.

Jesus as teacher was a fun Sunday. We first talked about what kind of teacher Jesus was not—for example, His disciples didn't have to sit in rows wearing school uniforms. We lined the six kids up in rows & had them each put on a (pre-tied) necktie. It was SO cute; I should have gotten a picture. We told how he did teach, by walking along with His disciples, and camping together—at one point all the kids had to take big towels out of their "packs" and spread them on the floor and go to sleep. Another missed Kodak moment!

The sermon on the mount was an absolute riot. I will try to insert my favorite picture from that morning: acting out the principle of not looking at a woman with lust in your heart. (The paper was blank, but you couldn't prove it by Ka Hei's expression!

"God-sightings" in our little venture include amazing timing of some of the units, NOT consciously planned by me. We did gift wrapping as a craft for the sermon on the mount to highlight Jesus' exhortation to anonymous giving. It just happened to be the week before Chinese New Year, so we wrapped gifts to deliver to a daycare center for children from poor families.

We did somersaults for a game that week because Jesus' teaching turned traditional thinking upside down! J

The storm paintings might have worked, but I thought I knew how to make some washable paint & I didn't. It was washable enough, it just didn't color the paper very well! Sigh. But one of the delights of working with this Merciful Love bunch, is that bombing out on occasion is not a big deal. Everyone knows all too well what it feels like to try & try & still not see results. So we laugh and try something else next time.

Finally, the Ascension was another all-time highlight. A friend (thanks again Joy!!) helped me find a shop selling helium balloons. After a brief story time, we said, yes, it's hard to imagine, so let's go picture what it was like. We went down to the alleyway in front of our building and released a balloon & watched it go. Most of the adults, never mind the kids, had never seen this done before and all were quite fascinated. As was the workman repairing a balcony just across the alley. But the real show-stopper was yet to come. Again, with un-plannable timing, that happened to be the Sunday when we had two blond missionary friends visiting. They didn't come right down to the alley with us, but quickly changed clothes. So while we were all staring up at the shrinking balloon, suddenly two blond angels appeared in white choir robes & haloes. I think the workman almost fell off his scaffolding when one of them opened her mouth and scolded the rest of us--in fluent Cantonese--for staring up into heaven, & then shooed us back upstairs!