Believe

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’

But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’
Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20 v 24-30

Relativity

It's strange - an hour spent reading a book (especially when you really should be getting on with something else) goes really quickly.

When you have to wait twenty minutes for the drain unblocker to work, every minute seems endless.

Jethro's daughters 2

 Finally got the illustrations of Jethro's daughters done:

 
These ones needed a bit of thought:

• What should 'Midianites' look like? Later, Moses' wife is described as 'Cushite' (African). But Midian is not in Africa. On the other hand, there are many African-looking people in Sinai and Arabia. So I've made them be a big mish-mash of styles inspired by various Egyptian pictures of Africans and others.
   
• Moses marries Zipporah. When he returns to Egypt, he puts his wife and sons on a donkey, suggesting that the boys are fairly young (otherwise, poor donkey!). Yet Moses was in Midian for 40 years. I've therefore assumed they did not actually get married for quite a few years, and then had to wait a while for the children to be born. I'd always assumed he married the oldest daughter, but actually it makes more sense with a younger one. So that's what I've done - the cute wee one all grown up!

 The pottery in the meal scene really is Midianite (roughly).

Amazing what you can buy on Amazon these days

I recieved an email with the subject line:

Amazon.co.uk order of Eternal Life (John 3:16)

:-)

Design

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” 

– Steve Jobs

The temple curtain tears

Here's an activity we did last Easter.

The point was to show that the temple curtain symbolised our sin separating us from God, and that Jesus' death made a way for us to get to him.

During the story, I explained:
"Jesus was dying for us. We have all done bad things and don't deserve to be God's friends."
So I got the children to write/draw sins on a big sheet of paper*.

Later, at the point in the story where Jesus died:
"In the temple there was a curtain. God had a special room behind, that no-one** was allowed to go in, to remind people that God is good and we can't come near to be his friends.

"When Jesus died, the curtain tore - "
then I suddenly tore the paper in half. That startled them!

"Now we can be God's friends."

---

*This actually took quite a long time, as they are just beginner writers. I told them it didn't matter how they spelled them, but they still wanted to know. Also they didn't want to stop writing.

**Well, technically not no-one, but one person in the entire world, once a year, is pretty near no-one. Of course, that one person once a year was very significant, but there really wasn't time to go into that.

Wake me up (Amnesia)

"Won't you wake me up when my faith is asleep?
You never let me go;
bring back my memory.
You bring these bones to life* when you breathe into me.
Remind me how much I need you 
when I get amnesia"

---

*At least, I think that's what it says - all the lyrics I've found online say 'fools to love' which makes much less sense!

Edit: I did think it was 'coals', but 'bones' makes even more sense. (Ezekiel 37)

Not cheating

Me: I cheated a bit with this picture: I just drew three camels and then copied them and coloured them differently.
11-year-old: That's not cheating; that's logic.

Moses & the Amalekites game

 And finally, the story of God helping the Israelites to beat the Amalekites.

You will need:

• A stick.

What to do:
Essentially you are playing musical bumps, but instead of music you have a stick.

1. Someone is Moses, holding up the stick.
2. Children dance round the room, miming 'fighting'.
3. When the stick is lowered, they must immediately drop to the ground 'dead'. The last one to do so is out.

They loved this!

The only issue was that sometimes the 'fighters' got tired before Moses' arms did! I wonder how that worked out in real life? Of course, the adrenaline of having real people trying to kill you might make you keep going...

Water from the rock craft

This was for when God gave the Israelites water in the desert.

They all got a wee bottle of water to drink. We then had a fascinating discussion about where our water comes from. Rough approximation of how it went:

Me: We don't get water from a rock. Where does our water come from?

Child: The tap.

Me: And how does it get to the tap?

Child: In pipes.

Me: Where does it come from before that?

Child: People make it.

Me: No, you can't make water.

Child: The sea?

Me: You wouldn't want to drink water from the sea, because it has salt in it. Our water comes from a lake called Loch Katrine. How does it get there?

Child: In lorries?

Children living in Scotland who have no idea that the water in our taps comes from the rain!!!

Unfortunately I don't have a finished photo of any of the kids' work as we ran out of time. That's my demo picture.

You will need:

• Pale blue card/paper
• Yellow/sand coloured paper/card
• Brown wrapping paper (I used two kinds, one for the rock and one for the faces)
• Coloured/patterned paper (I used wrapping paper and scrap paper), crayons etc.
• Thin plastic food bags - cut in half length ways.
• Blue 'irridescent shreds' -  I got these in the party section of Home Bargains. Blue parcel ribbon, or even narrow strips of blue carrier bags would do as well.
• Lolly sticks or similar.
• Glue, scissors.
• Glue dots or something that can hold a stick.

What to do:

1.  Tear the blue paper in half. Each child gets half a sheet and sticks it on the yellow card, to make sky/sand (actually sticking the sand on blue card would be better, but I didn't have any).
2. Give each child a piece of brown paper (roughly) half the size of the background. They tear/cut around three sides to make a rock. Stick it on.
3. Give each child half a plastic bag. they gather it at one end and tape near the top of the rock - they're likely to need help!
4. Tape a few blue strips to the 'water'.
5. Now, let them make people with the coloured paper. They can draw as well. Add the sun, or do whatever.
6. Give Moses a stick.

Manna Sunday School

We've been learning about Moses recently.

For the manna in the desert story I had to hastily improvise a visual aid, so I used torn-up paper hankies.

 That bowl really holds an omer! It seems a huge amount for a person, but as it was evidently fairly insubstantial it probably settled a lot.

It was interesting how vague some of the children were about where our food comes from. I explained that quail were birds you can eat, like chicken. Some of them were  very surprised that the chicken we eat comes from a bird!

Very, very easy craft!!!

You will need:

• Paper plates (we had coloured ones in the cupboard, but normal white ones would be fine)
• Food catalogues / supermarket magazines
• (Optional) letter stickers
  

What to do:

1. Children cut their favourite foods from the magazines and stick them on the plate.
2. Stick on stickers (or write) to say 'Thank you God'.

So many children she didn't know what to do

It was very inconsiderate of Bible people to have so many children. I'm drawing Jethro's daughters being chased away from the well. Seven girls! Plus an unspecified number of bullies.

A picture I drew of them once before, but that wasn't an action picture with running and things.

Although Jacob's family is worse, as you keep on having to draw twelve of them.