Hello all. So yesterday we did the story of Jacob returning to meet his brother Esau which can be found HERE (no new one this year–we just read last year’s).

Today’s story can be found in Genesis 37 and last year’s story and craft can be found HERE.

Jacob had had a LOT of kids. He had 12 boys and 1 girl. Joseph was not the oldest boy…but he was Jacob’s favorite. Mommies and Daddies should love all their kids the same…but Jacob had a favorite…and that was Joseph.

One day Jacob gave Joseph a very fancy coat. (Most people draw it look like a rainbow, but the Bible just says it was REALLY colorful.) Back then if a coat was going to have lots of colors it cost a LOT of money. Usually only really rich important people could have a colorful coat. All the other brothers had boring brown coats. The other brothers did not like Joseph being the favorite so they were mean to him.

Joseph also had a dream that he would one day rule over and be in charge of his brothers. This made his brothers EVEN madder and they decided to get rid of him. They wanted to kill him.

At first they were going to throw him into a well. (A well is a big hole in the ground with water. People could pull a bucket up and down to fill it up with water. They didn’t have water in their houses…they had go outside to these wells to get water. But the wells were deep and hard to get out of.) So they decided to put him in the well and he could die there, but then they saw some other people coming and came up with a new plan.

Instead of letting Joseph die in the well, they decided to SELL him to the other people. They would get money, Joseph would be gone and the other people would have a new servant who could do all their hard work for them. Didn’t the brothers have yucky sad hearts? It does NOT make God happy that the brothers were being so mean to Joseph. But God had a plan. A GOOD, BIG plan for Joseph.

Only one of Joseph’s brothers, Reuben, the biggest brother, was sad that he was gone. And Jacob, the daddy was very VERY sad that Joseph was gone. The brothers told the daddy that  Joseph was dead. (That was a lie, but he believed them that Joseph WAS dead.)

Instead of Joseph dying, those other people DID buy Joseph and took him to a place called Egypt. It was very far away…but Joseph started working for one of the king’s helpers. Next time we will see what happens to Joseph while he is in Egypt.

This sounds like a sad story doesn’t it? But don’t worry…God has big plans for Joseph and God will take this very sad, very hard thing for Joseph and turn it into something good.

 

For our craft today we made our own colored coats. We used some of dad’s old undershirts, but you could buy some cheap shirts at walmart–or use paper grocery bags. Tutorial here (Tutorial posted by ExpertHowTos with demonstrator Sherie Tengbergen).

We just cut a slit up the middle of our shirts and then decorated. The wonderful thing about this project is: you can use anything you have! Today we used markers and stickers–but you could use paint, fabric, feathers, gems, glitter if you’re brave :0) anything you’d like.

     

 

If you’re looking for media, Veggie Tales has a title called “The Ballad of Little Joe.”

The Beginner’s Bible has THIS VIDEO on youtube.

THIS SONG posted by GodsKidsWorship is about trusting God’s plans for us.

 

Thanks for joining us, love to you all!