Hi again, friends!

Today we will continue the story of Joseph found in Genesis 39-45.

So Joseph’s brothers had sold him and he ended up in Egypt, working for Potiphar (the king’s top guard). Joseph was a good worker, but sad to be far away from his home.

Potiphar’s wife fell in love with Joseph and tried to get him to love her too, but he said “that would be wrong! You’re married to Potiphar!” That made her mad, so she lied and said Joseph did bad things and he was thrown in jail.

Later, two of the king’s helpers were put in jail and they each had dreams. God helped Joseph understand the dreams. He told the 1st one that he would be free from jail in 3 days, but the other one’s dream meant he would be killed in 3 days.

Both of those came true. Joseph asked the 1st man to remember him when he got out and to tell the king good things so he could get out too, but the man forgot to say anything for TWO YEARS!

One day, two years later, the king had a dream and none of his helpers could figure out what it meant. That’s when the king’s helper remembered Joseph, so the king called for Joseph and told him his dream.

Joseph said, “I can’t tell you the meaning of your dream, but God can!”

So the king said, “I had two dreams. In the first one, there were 7 healthy, fat cows and then 7 skinny, sick cows and the skinny, sick cows ate up the fat, healthy cows. In my second dream, there were 7 big, wonderful stalks of wheat, and then 7 yucky, thin heads of wheat and the yucky wheat ate up the good wheat.”

Joseph replied, “Your dreams both mean that there will be 7 years of good food and then 7 years of famine (or no food, usually because there’s no rain.) You should find someone very responsible and put them in charge of saving up food, so when the bad years come, you’ll have leftovers and no one will be hungry.”

Well the king liked this idea very much, so he put Joseph in charge of saving up the food…in fact he put Joseph as 2nd in command over all of Egypt.

After 7 years, the famine came, and Joseph helped give all the people the food they would need.

People even came from all over to ask for food. And do you know who came? Joseph’s brothers.

They didn’t know Joseph was in charge in Egypt, they just came looking for food, and they didn’t even recognize Joseph when they saw him! But Joseph knew who they were!

Joseph had to know how they felt now, so he gave them some tests. The brothers showed Joseph that they were very sorry for what they had done to him.

He couldn’t stand it any more. Finally, he told them who he was and they SO were surprised and scared! Joseph was in charge of all of Egypt. He could have them killed! But instead, he forgave them!

The brothers went him, got Jacob the daddy and they all moved to Egypt to be with Joseph. God told them it was ok to move to Egypt, and that He would bring them back home someday.

The brothers had meant bad things for Joseph, but God turned them into good. He was sold and put in jail, but God used all of that to do great things. And everyone in Egypt learned about God because of Joseph.

You can be sure God has great plans for you too!

We didn’t do a craft today, because we watched the veggie tales “Ballad of Little Joe.”

Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!