End of Phase One

For our anniversary celebration, we didn't have our usual activities, which meant I didn't have to plan/write/lead them.  Yay hurray!  One big thing we were going to do instead was look at six years' worth of pictures on the computer.  Well, look at them on the computer we did, as when we hooked up the projector we discovered the bulb had burned out, and no, we didn't have a spare.  Sigh.
Ironically, I had been halfway to church carrying computer, projector and potluck dish when I realized I did not have the cord to connect the computer to the projector, since there is no room for it in the case & we stash it separately.  So I had to haul everything back & forth again, and then it wasn't worth it!  Sigh.
Other than that, it was a good morning.  I had realized I was seriously stressing out over the new curriculum, worrying that people would think I should be able to produce it with no hiccups, no trial-and-error, since after all I have so much "experience" now.  So I shared this with the parents and received assurance of their support and appreciation for whatever I can do.
Here's the "official" photo for the sixth anniversary.  The Chinese characters are the same ones we displayed for our opening day photo (except for one that got so moldy it had to be replaced).  As part of the celebration, we had the kids climb on stools and take the characters down from the windows were they had been proclaiming our meeting place for the past six years.  Next Sunday, new location!

I had nothing to do with the arrangement of the characters; I was busy positioning the camera and setting the timer.  Turns out the way the characters read is clockwise!  First from right to left along the bottom, then from left to right along the top.  Funny.

God forgives sin

 For our picture of God’s willingness to forgive, we chose the story of Peter’s denial.  We began with several disciples sitting around the dinner table with Jesus.  Jesus announces that He is going to suffer, and that all of them would desert him.  They all say they will not, but Jesus says they will.  Peter stands up and says, even if no one else sticks by you, I will.  Jesus tells him that he will deny Him three times before the cock crows.  Peter denies it.  Dinner is over and they all go out for a walk.  They get to a park and Jesus asks His disciples to sit with Him for a while while he prays.  He kneels to pray and all the disciples put their heads in their hands and snore.  Jesus gets up and finds them sleeping, and tells them to wake up because the soldiers are coming.  A few people with swords come and grab Jesus, and all the disciples run away.  The swordsmen take Jesus into a corner of the room and guard Him.

Even though Peter ran away with the others, he really does care what happens to Jesus, and he tries to sneak in closer to find out what is going on.  A servant at the gate says, oh, are you one of His disciples?  He denies it.  It is a cold night, and several people are warming their hands around an orange-tissue-paper fire.  Peter comes to the fire too.  Someone asks him, didn’t I see you taking a walk with Jesus earlier?  He says no, I don’t know Jesus.  Then a girl says, but you have an accent, you must be one of his friends.  Peter loses his temper and says he doesn’t know anything about Jesus.  Then one of the parents crowed like a rooster.  And Jesus from behind his guards turns and stares at Peter.  Peter realizes what he has done and cries, and runs away.

Now three days later, the disciples are sitting together in a room.  Peter is in one corner with his head in his hands, too ashamed to look at anyone.  A girl comes into the group and says, Jesus’ tomb is empty, He has risen!  Peter and another disciple run over and look into the storeroom.  The other disciple jumps up and down and says, “Yes!  Jesus is risen!”  But Peter says, how can you be so sure?

The rest of the story, I confess I took more from Don Francisco’s “He’s Alive” than directly from the Biblical account—but I think it’s true to the spirit of the Scripture!  Peter goes back and sits in his corner.  He says, even if He has really risen, He won’t want me for His disciple any more.  Then Jesus appears.  All the disciples start jumping up and high-fiving each other and Jesus.  All except Peter.  Jesus comes over to Peter and pulls him to his feet and hugs him.  Peter says he is so sorry, and Jesus says, but I have conquered all your sin by rising from the dead!  Do you still want to be my disciple?  Peter says, yes, yes, I do!  Jesus says, then never worry about it again.  I love you.  End of story.  Of our final story in our old-curriculum Merciful Love Family Fellowship!

For our game, we talked about how Peter had three chances to either affirm or deny Jesus.  He chose three denials.  We played human tic-tac-toe to see if denials (X’s) or affirmations (O’s) would win.  X’s won on the second round.

 

We made roosters for craft time.  The rooster’s comb was each child’s traced-and-cut-out handprint; then we added the beaks and eyes.

 

Next week we celebrate our sixth anniversary, and then the new format begins!

God's Justice

We were on vacation over the first Sunday in August.  A couple of volunteers from Hong Kong came to lead the service.  But August is such a big month for children’s activities, that the attendance was very low.  So low that the volunteers decided not to lead the regular program.  There were only two Sundays left, then for using the old curriculum, but now three more stories.  So we decided this was worth keeping, and we’d skip the story originally planned for next week.

The story, then, to illustrate God’s justice in not punishing the innocent with the guilty was the rescue of Lot and his family from Sodom.  We first introduced Abraham and his nephew who came to Canaan together.  But because God blessed them both, they had so many flocks and herds they had to separate.  So Lot went to live in the city of Sodom (he goes & sits down).

So one day, God came with two angels to visit Abraham (three folks in haloes). First they congratulate Abraham that he will soon have a son.  Then, God tells him, another reason we are here today is that I have heard that the people of Sodom are terribly wicked.  My two angels here are going to go and see if this is really so, and if they are beyond saving then I will destroy the whole city.  Well, this was not good news to Abraham—his nephew lived in that city!  So he starts bargaining with God: since you’re so just, you wouldn’t destroy a whole city if there were 50 righteous in it, would you?  We lined up five people, each with a “10” sign around their neck.  God says, no, I won’t.  Well, how about 45?  Would you destroy it for the lack of just five of the fifty? (one of the “10” signs is exchanged for a “5”)  God says no.  Abraham continues: how about 40 (the number 5 person sits down), 30 (a 10 sits down), 20 (another 10 sits) or, please bear with me, how about if there are 10 righteous people (just one 10 stays standing).  God promises if there are 10 righteous people in Sodom, he will not destroy the city.

So God and Abraham sit down and Lot comes back to the front.  Lot has a wife (which he got to pick for himself, a cute visiting girl) and two daughters, that the girl got to pick.  So the two angels now come and spread a blanket on the floor, ready to spend the night in the open square of the city.  Lot goes out and persuades them to stay overnight at his house.  So they come, but while they are all sitting around with their bowls and chopsticks, everyone else in the room came and surrounded them, yelling, send those guests of yours out so we can “gaau” them to death (a great Chinese word that can mean almost anything you need it to mean).  Lot steps to the door and tries to reason with them but they start attacking him, so one of the angels grabs him and pulls him back inside.  Then says, in the name of God, you can’t see!  Everyone groped around and finally sat down.

So then we said, we see that everyone in the city is wicked except Lot and his family.  How many righteous did there need to be to spare the city? 10  How many are there here?  Count ‘em, four!  So the angels tell Lot that God is going to destroy the city, so they must hurry and leave.  They start slowly packing clothing into tote bags, but the angels say, there is no time for that!  They each grab two people and pull them back to the back of the room, and then God comes and dumps “fire” where they were just sitting.

Next came one of our favorite game times—everyone was split into groups of three: one Lot & two angels.  Whoever was Lot sat on a blanket, while the two angels donned haloes and dragged the blanket from one end of the room to the other.  This is especially fun when, as happened Sunday, an elderly grandmother got to be the carpet rider.  

 

For craft time we said that, no one knows for sure, but it is certainly possible that the fire that destroyed Sodom came from a volcano.  So we made little volcano shapes out of clay, filled them with a spoonful of baking soda, dripped in some vinegar and watched them foam!

And then after our Bible study, we all celebrated Sally's birthday.

God the All-Wise

 Last week we saw how David was anointed king; this week we met his son Solomon, who succeeded him as king.  We had only one boy present when we started the Bible story; another arrived later.  The story leader first introduced the boy as King David, but then had to take his crown off and make him sit down to “die”.  So who should be Solomon?  He grabbed the same boy and said, obviously, Ka Ho; he looks exactly like his father David, doesn’t he? :-)

One night when Solomon was sleeping the Lord appeared to him and told him to ask for whatever he most wanted.  Samuel asked for wisdom.  The Lord told him that was a good choice, and because he chose that he would also be given long life, riches, and honor.  The next morning when Solomon woke up he wasn’t sure if it had been a dream or if it was for real.

It was for real: God had surely given him wisdom!  He was sitting on his throne when two women came before him, one holding a baby.  The women go into an argument over whose baby it is and whose baby had died.  They are yanking the baby back and forth; finally Solomon says, give me the baby.  He takes it and lays it down on a stool.  He says, since there is only one baby for the two of you, the best thing is to cut it in two and give you both half.  He has someone come and raise a sword over the baby.  One of the women throws herself over the baby and says no, don’t kill it!  Let her have it!  The second one says, no, cut it in two, that is fair!  Solomon points to the one kneeling over the baby and says she is the real mother and hands  the baby to her.  

 Our game was called, “Wisdom takes all.”  We prepared a large cube with the six sides reading: wisdom, long life, riches, honor, try again, and wisdom.  We had also prepared little cups of different kinds/shapes of sweetened cereal, labeled wisdom, long life, riches, and honor.  Everyone got to play several times by throwing the cube up in the air and seeing what came up.  If they got riches, long life, or honor, they got to take a piece of cereal from the corresponding cup.  But if they got wisdom, they got to take a piece from all four the of the cups.   A popular game, of course!

In our story, Solomon, thankfully, did not cut the baby in two.  But for our craft each child had eight dog-stickers that had been cut in two, they had to find the matches and stick them together on a large sheet of paper.  Some of the kids needed help to focus, but when they paid attention they got them right.

 

God Knows our Hearts

To illustrate this truth we went back to Samuel’s anointing of David, which we had purposely skipped in the previous unit.  We introduced King Saul, in crown, and holding a 福 character (meaning blessings).  The Lord had blessed Saul, but Saul’s heart was not pure toward God, so he was no longer under God’s blessing:  A very dramatic angel in a halo flew in and plucked the  福 character out of his hands and tore it up.  God was going to let him continue as king, but then the line would pass to another: we displayed a hypothetical dynasty chart, listing a sequence of kings as Saul I, Saul II, Saul III, Saul IV; one of the kids came and crossed out Sauls II-IV and traced a faint arrow pointing to a large question mark representing the unknown new dynasty.

So: at that time, Samuel was still the chief prophet in Israel.  The angel comes to him and says he is to go anoint the next king.  He is afraid, but the angel pushes him on his way.  He goes to Bethlehem and invites Jesse to eat with him.  They sit down with bowls and chopsticks.  Samuel asks Jesse if he has any sons.  He goes and gets one and sticks a #1 sticker on him.  Samuel thinks, what a handsome, strong young man; surely he is God’s choice!  But God is not looking on the outward appearance, but on the heart: the angel stands up behind son #1 and gestures, “No, no!”  So Samuel asks if Jesse has any more sons, and we are introduced to sons #2-7, all of which the angel rejects.  Samuel is confused!  He asks, are these all of your sons?  Well, there is one more, but he’s just a kid, out watching the sheep while we eat.  Samuel says, but we’re not eating until I meet him.  So David is introduced and the angel gives the thumbs up sign.  So Samuel pours an (empty) bottle of oil on his head and says, “God bless you.”

God knows everything: how much do YOU know, was our game.  Before our morning started, we had put up papers of different shapes & colors, with numbers, letters, Chinese and English words on them.  Each child got several chances to play by drawing a paper out of a bag and having to look around the room and find that shape, color, number, letter, or word.  Tested some attention and perseverance as well as knowledge.

Craft time reflected David’s having been out watching the sheep.  We painted glue on a half-sheet of paper (on all but the “water” part already colored in), and first stuck on a little paper shepherd, then shredded green paper for grass.  Small cotton balls dipped into the glue went on for sheep, and then little stickers with sheep faces were stuck on to the cotton balls.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy making these.

 I was in with the kids for free play time during the Bible study.  I was trying to help one of our more “ clueless” kids stack some legos, which I thought he had finally learned, but he was not having a good day.  I gave up, but 13-year-old Melissa persevered and worked with him for quite a while.  I am so impressed with her patience and so glad she attends our church!

 

The Sin of Achan Against a Holy God

Our God is Holy.  Not to be treated lightly, or bought off with bribes.  That was something that struck me as I prepared this story.

We reintroduced Moses as the one who led Israel out of Egypt.  But now he was dead (he sits down), and so we introduced Joshua, whose job it was to bring them into the promised land.  First, everyone had to cross the Jordan river, which was a blue line held about a foot off the ground so everyone had to step over it.  The next obstacle was the city of Jericho.  It was a large city with a high, thick wall.  But Joshua was not afraid.  He organized everyone to march around the city—we pulled one of the couches away from the wall, had a few adults sitting on it while all the kids marched around it.  As they marched, we explained that they circled it once a day, and seven times on the last day.  Then, they stopped and Joshua (actually it was the priests, but too many characters gets too complicated sometimes…) blew a horn, and the walls fell down.  So the Israelites were able to get in and destroy the city (marchers belay the couch-sitters with rubber swords).  Then they burned it all down (sprinkled orange paper scraps over all).

Now, when God had commanded that the city be destroyed, He said everything, and He meant everything.  But this fellow named Achan saw some stuff he really wanted, so he took the prepacked bag that was sitting at the end of the couch, and went and hid it in the storeroom, first using a spatula to “dig up the floor.”

So, the next obstacle the Israelites had to conquer was a relatively small city called Ai.  Joshua’s advisors said, it’s not worth sending everyone to fight against such a small city; just a small company will do.  So just a couple of kids went with Joshua to attack the folks on the couch which was now pushed back against the wall.  But this time the folks on the couch got up and fought back, and the people with Joshua died!  Joshua falls to his knees and cries out to God, “God, why did you abandon us?  Didn’t you promise to fight for us?  If this is what was going to happen, we should never have crossed the Jordan!”  But God, in the person of a haloed angel, pulled him to his feet and said, what are you crying out to me for?  What you need to do is get rid of the sin in the camp and then I will fight for you!

So Joshua calls everyone together and draws a name out of a paper bag: Achan.  He asks Achan what he did to make God so angry.  He confesses he stole some booty from Jericho and that it was hidden under the floor of his tent.  Joshua sends someone to go “dig it up,” and everyone is shown that he took a beautiful mantle, a bag of silver coins, and a gold bar (book wrapped in gold paper).  Joshua commends Achan for confessing his sin, but says that for the good of Israel, he must die.  So everyone stones him with paper wads.  Then several people attack Ai again and this time they are victorious.

For our game, each kid had to rummage around in a bag of shredded newspaper for what was buried there: a piece of cloth, a silver coin, and a square of chocolate of a kind that conveniently comes wrapped in gold paper.  The cloth and coin went back in the bag for the next player, but everyone got to eat their chocolate.

Craft was making a pretty mantle out of some plain gauze hankies by sewing a strip of ribbon along one edge.

I led the Bible study.  As we reviewed the story, I said, so when they were defeated at Ai, Joshua got down on his knees and said,” God, show us where we went wrong!”  Right?  Nope.  “God, you failed us!” was more like it.  So we talked about how we blame God for things that happen that wouldn’t have happened if we’d done things the way he tells us to.  (All too relevant for some of the things that have been going on in some of our families.)  They definitely got the point.  As I said, I had also been struck by how the only way Joshua could make things right was to get rid of the sin.  He couldn’t right things by doing good deeds or making an offering.  He was supposed to right a specific wrong.  Our God is truly Holy.  He loves holiness and righteousness, and is not appeased by substitutes.  Holy and worthy of our worship!