old testament

Passover

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Hi all! Today we are continuing the story of Moses–this lesson is found in Exodus 5-12. Last year’s lesson and craft (focusing on more on the plagues than the Passover) can be found HERE.

So Moses and Aaron were headed back to see the new Pharaoh and to tell him “God says, ‘Let My people go!'” (God was going to take His people back to the promised land and away from the mean Egyptians.)

When they got to the Pharaoh they said, “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

The Pharaoh was not happy! “Who is your God? Why should I listen to YOU? NO! These people can not go! And because you tried to set them free…now they will work EVEN HARDER!”

The Israelites DID work harder and they were not very happy with Moses. Again Moses and Aaron went to the Pharaoh and said “God says ‘Let my people go!’” The Pharaoh again answered no. And now he was MAD!

Then God said “This king will not change his mind. Because he will not let My people go, I will send plagues (a lot of bad things) and you will know that I am the Lord.” God told Moses and Aaron to meet the Pharaoh at the Nile River (the river Moses had floated on as a baby…the big important river that everyone got their water from). When they did, Aaron put his staff (like a big stick) into the water and it turned into blood. EW!? The people couldn’t drink it, they couldn’t wash their clothes or take a bath. It was disgusting.

**Sidenote: Aaron’s staff was not a magical stick…it was not anything special…but GOD made it do cool things sometimes. It was God’s power…not the stick that did the cool things.

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

Pharaoh responded, “Ummmm NO.”

Then God sent frogs. They were in peoples’ houses, in their food, in their potties, everywhere! Pharaoh said “If you take these frogs away, I’ll let the people go!”

So Moses asked God to take the frogs away…but as soon as Pharaoh saw that the frogs were gone, he changed his mine and said “Ummmm NO.”

Then God sent bugs.

God sent Aaron and Moses back to Pharaoh to say “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

And Pharaoh said “Ummmm NO.”

Then God sent flies.

God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to say “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

And Pharaoh said “Ummmm NO!”

Next God killed the animals of the Egyptians, which means they didn’t have any milk to drink or any meat or eggs to eat.

God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to say “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

And Pharaoh said, “Ummmm NO.”

Next, God made the Egyptians have yucky, sick skin. They had big ouchy spots all over.

God told Moses and Aaron to go tell Pharaoh “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

Again, Pharaoh said “Ummmm NO.”

Then God sent hail (which is like big rocks of ice that come down during a storm). The hail hurt the people and their houses.

Pharaoh said “If you will take the hail away, then the people can go!”

God took away the hail, and told Moses and Aaron to say to Pharaoh “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

But Pharaoh changed his mind (AGAIN) and said “Ummmm NO.”

Then God sent locusts (kind of like grasshoppers) and they ate up all the food the Egyptians were growing in the ground.

God told Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh and say “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

And Pharaoh again said, “Ummmm NO.”

Next, God made everything dark. There was no light for 3 days. The people couldn’t cook, they couldn’t play, they couldn’t even move around it was SO.DARK.

God had Moses and Aaron say to Pharaoh “God says ‘Let my people go!’”

But once again, Pharaoh said “Ummmm NO.”

Lastly, God said, “I have one more plague. After that, he will let you all go. In the middle of the night, I will come through Egypt and I will kill the firstborn son of every person, UNLESS, you kill a lamb and wipe the blood on your door. THEN, I will pass over that house, because I will know that that house has people who love Me and who obey Me.”

This was a sacrifice. If you remember, before Jesus came and died for us, people used to give sacrifices to God…they would kill one of their best animals and that would be like a special present to God to show God they were sorry for their bad choices. This time, God asked them to sacrifice a lamb and paint their doors with the blood. It sounds gross and it probably kind of was. But this also reminds us of Jesus. Jesus is like a sacrificial lamb who died for us and when we love and trust Him and ask Him into our hearts, His blood covers over our sins, just like the blood covered the doors of the houses of the people who loved God.

The Israelites obeyed God. They sacrificed a lamb (just the kind God said to) and they wiped the blood on their doors. That night, the first boy in every family died, even the Pharaoh’s son…but not the Israelites who obeyed God.

Before, the Egyptians had been so scared of the Israelites being so strong that they had killed all their baby boys. And now God took the Egyptians’ first born boys.

(Later, God would give His OWN son, Jesus, to save all of us!)

It was the middle of the night when Pharaoh found his son dead and he called Moses and Aaron and said “GET OUT!” The Egyptians were so scared of Moses and his God, that they gave the Israelites food and money and sent them away. They were finally leaving Egypt and heading to the land God had promised them.

For our craft today, we cut some cardboard and drew doors on it. Then we painted (with paint, not blood…but hey…knock yourself out if you want) the “blood” on the doorframe.

Our text reads: Passover Exodus 12

 

 

THIS is an EXCELLENT overview of the story and of Passover posted by Crossroad’s Kids Club.

 

Another craft we have done at church is to take this sheet and add cotton balls to the lamb. It has a simple explanation of Passover on it for the kids.

 

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(If it won’t load for you, it is a coloring page of a lamb and the description says:

When the Pharaoh would not let God’s people go, He sent plagues. The Israelites gave God their best lambs, and put the blood on the door just like He said. He saw that they obeyed Him and passed over their houses. God is all-powerful. He is omnipotent. The blood from the lambs saved the Israelites just like Jesus’ blood on the cross saves us. Exodus 7-12, John 1:29)

Thanks for joining us again. Love to you all!

God speaks to Moses

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Hello again! Today’s story is from Exodus 2 and 3.

Last year’s story and craft can be found HERE.

So Moses and God’s people, the Israelites, were living in Egypt. There was a new king (Pharaoh) who didn’t like the Israelites and was very very mean to them. We learned last time that Moses had been adopted by the king’s daughter (she was going to keep him and he would grow up in the king’s house.)

Moses always knew he was an Israelite, even though he grew up in the fancy king’s house. One day he saw one of the Egyptians being mean to one of his family–another Israelite. And do you know what he did? He KILLED him! (Not a good choice…but even “heroes” of the Bible like Moses made bad choices sometimes. Jesus is the ONLY perfect person.)

But everyone saw and everyone knew what Moses had done. The king tried to kill Moses (because he defended an Israelite instead of acting like an Egyptian Prince and being mean to him too) so Moses was scared and ran away.

He ran FAR away and he stayed away a loooong time. He stayed away so long, he got married, he had a family, he had a new job…he had a whole new life.

One day Moses was taking care of the family sheep and he saw something funny. He saw a bush that was on fire…but it wasn’t burning up. Have you ever seen a campfire? If you burn the wood, it burns down and turns to ashes. But this wasn’t turning to ashes. (Like the Israelites…they were “burning” in Egypt having to work so so hard…they should have been destroyed…but they weren’t…God kept them going because He had good plans for them…just like He kept the bush burning even though it should have burnt down.)

Moses went to have a close look and then God spoke to him from the bush!

God said “I AM the God of your father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I have an important job for you. I have seen how the Egyptians treat my people and I don’t like it. It’s time to bring them back to the land I promised them. YOU will go to the king (the Pharaoh) and say “LET MY PEOPLE GO!”

The old king had died by now and there was a new Pharaoh. Moses was SCARED to go back. He had killed someone!? Did everyone still remember that? Were people still mad at him? Would this new king want to kill him too?

Moses asked if he could take his brother, Aaron with him to help him talk to the king. So Moses and Aaron set off and we will see next time what happens when they talk to the Pharaoh.

For our craft today, we painted a bush and branches and then added fiery tissue paper.

Our text reads: God spoke to Moses in a burning bush. Exodus 2-3

 

Thanks for joining us. Come again tomorrow to see what happens next in our story!

Love to you all!

Baby Moses

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Hello all!

Today’s story is from Exodus 1 and 2.

Last year’s lesson and craft can be found HERE.

If you remember from before, Jacob had 12 sons, and one of them was Joseph. God had promised Jacob that he and his family would always live in that special land, but they moved to Egypt to be with Joseph. (But God would bring them back).

Joseph and his brothers were all living in Egypt and had lots of kids and those kids had kids, and they had kids…and the people of Jacob/Israel (that was the new name God had given Jacob)  lived in Egypt for 400 years.

These were the people God had chosen, the people of Jacob…and He blessed them. There were SO many of them and they were strong and healthy and good workers. BUT, there was a new king in Egypt (the Pharaoh) and the people of Egypt began to be afraid of the Israelites because there were so many of them. “Maybe they’ll try to take over and be King instead of me!” said the Pharaoh.

The king said “We will kill all the baby boys of the Israelites. That way none of them can be king and then they won’t be able to grow up and make any MORE babies!”

But one of the Israelite mommies had a baby and she just couldn’t let them kill her baby boy, so she hid him in a basket. She covered him up and put him in the Nile River (a really big and important river through Egypt).

Then she said to her girl, the baby’s big sister…”Go sneak along the river and make sure he’s ok.”

The basket with the baby inside floated down the river until it came to a group of women and one of them was the princess! The Pharaoh’s daughter!

“Look! It’s a baby! He’s soooo cute! I must keep him! I will name him Moses,” said the princess.

Just then the sister came out from where she was hiding and watching baby Moses and said, “Would you like me to find someone to help take care of the baby for you?”

“Yes! He’s so little! He needs mommy milk…and I don’t know how to take care of a baby. I’ll need someone to take care of him!” said the princess.

“I know somebody who can take care of him!” said the sister, and she went and got Moses’ mommy. The mommy was able to keep her boy and take care of him, until he was old enough, then he lived with the princess. He got to be with his mommy AND grow up with the princess!

God took care of baby Moses and He had big plans for him too. We will see what happens in Moses’ story more tomorrow.

For our craft today we drew some water on a blue piece of paper and then cut out basket shapes and some baby boys from a magazine. Lastly, we practiced our writing and wrote Moses’ name. We talked about how Moses means “I pulled him out of the water.”

 

This video is a summary cartoon posted by Mei Yee Wong.

And this video is from Saddleback Kids.

Thanks for joining us. Looking forward to more tomorrow! Love to you all.

Job

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Hello again! Before we delve into Exodus, we’re going to add in Job. (Looks like j-ah-b, pronounced like j-oh-b)

There’s an entire book of the Bible for Job, today will just be an overview. Job is about trusting God even through hardships and about God’s sovereignty and faithfulness despite our feelings.

**There is a book called “The Gospel According to Job” by Mike Mason which is a WONDERFUL commentary/devotional which really helps break down the book of Job and I personally found it especially helpful during our years battling infertility.**

Ok, onto the story…

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Job was a man a long long time ago that loved God. He prayed to God, he served God. God had given Job many nice things…a loving wife, 10 children, lots of servants, a big big house, lots of money  and sooooooo many animals.

One day Satan (who used to be one God’s angels but instead became God’s enemy) said to God, “You know…the only reason Job loves you is because you give him so much stuff. If you took all those great things away…I bet he wouldn’t love you anymore.”

“Fine,” God said. “You can take away any of his things…but don’t hurt Job.”

So Satan took away Job’s servants, all his camels and sheep and donkeys and even his children.

Did Job stop loving God? No. Job said, “God gives me things and God can take them away. But I will always praise Him.”

This made Satan angry and again he went to God and said, “Well…if you let me hurt HIM, THEN he won’t love you anymore!”

“Try it, ” answered God.

So Job became sick and his skin was all yucky and very ouchy. But did he stop loving God? No. He STILL worshipped God. Even his wife said, “You should just die! This is too much!” But Job never stopped trusting God. (And even though it seemed like God didn’t care…He still loved Job very VERY much.)

Job had lost EVERYTHING…can you imagine losing all your toys and your house? And even being sick too?

Then Job’s friends came to help him feel better. But they didn’t really help. Instead they said “WOW! You must have been REALLY bad for God to do this to you! What did you do?!”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Job said.

“Well God MUST be mad at you. Or maybe you don’t really understand God!” said the friends. ( But THEY didn’t understand what God was doing.)

Job started to wonder if his friends were right…WAS God just mad at him? DOES God care about me?

Then God answered Job from a whirlwind (like a tornado). God said, “Who questions Me? I am God. I have made everything! Every star, every wave in the sea…I am the giver of life…I know where all the stars are…can YOU make lightning? Can YOU  know the farthest parts of space or the deepest parts of the ocean?? I AM God.”

Job stopped. He answered God…”I am nothing. How can I answer you? I will not say anything else.” Job remembered that God is in charge and that it’s ok if we don’t understand God’s plan. God knows. And if we know how much He loves us, then it is easy to trust Him. We know God has good plans for us (Jer 29:11) and that He acts in love towards us. So even if we don’t understand what God does, we can trust in WHO HE IS.

Then God yelled at the 3 friends and made them say sorry. They realized they did NOT know God well.

After that, God gave Job back everything he had lost AND MORE! Job didn’t know God would reward him and give him everything back, but he trusted God anyway. So because of his faithfulness, God gave Job even MORE sheep and camels and cows and donkeys. He had even more money and 10 more children. He lived  a long happy life after that.

 

Sometimes confusing or sad things happen and we think God has forgotten about us. Or maybe we even think God is being mean to us. Maybe we think God is being mean because we have done something bad. Maybe we did do something bad…and we can ask God to forgive us. But sometimes…we won’t know why a sad or scary thing is happening. But we can know that God loves us, wants good things for us, wants to help us be more like Him and that we can always trust Him. And sometimes what we think is good for us is NOT what God knows is good for us. We have to trust HIM. Remember, He made all things and knows all things…we can trust Him.

This song  is from the “what’s in the Bible” series.

This is the story of Job from “The Brick Testament” –a cute website that tells Bible stories using Legos.

 

Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!

Abraham’s Children

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Hello again! As we wrap up the book of Genesis, I decided to add this related (but not chronological) lesson. We did do the story of Ephraim and Manasseh yesterday but didn’t change it from LAST YEAR’S LESSON.

abrahamfaith

Today’s lesson is based on what I heard at church today and I thought it summed up Genesis so well it needed to be added here. This is from Romans 4. See also HERE.

So this month we read about God creating the heavens and the earth. We read about Adam, the first man, and Noah and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. We read about how much God loved His creation….but the people did not always love God. A lot of people disobeyed and didn’t trust God.

But not everyone felt that way. Abraham DID trust God and God made a special promise to Abraham…that he would be the father of many many people. As many as the stars in the sky, as many as the sand on the beach. That’s a lot of people! And Abraham BELIEVED God. He had faith. And not only did he BELIEVE God, he OBEYED God too. When God told Abraham to move, he moved. When He told him to give back his son Isaac, he did. Abraham showed that he had faith in God. God loved Abraham and made a special promise to him…not because he was a great person, or because he always did the right thing…but because he TRUSTED God and when God told him to do something…he did it. He had faith.  (Rom 4:9-13)

Abraham did have children, and those children had children and we know Jacob had a LOT of children and those guys had a LOT LOT LOT of children…and all those people would become Israel. The people of Israel thought THEY were God’s special people because they came from Abraham. BUT…in the book of Romans, God tells us that ANYONE who BELIEVES and OBEYS God is a son of Abraham, a part of Abraham’s family. (Rom 4:16-17, 24-25)

If YOU love AND obey God, then YOU are one of Abraham’s children too. Abraham’s family did get pretty big…but that also includes all the people who choose God and love and obey Him.

When we love and obey God, we get adopted into God’s family. He adds us into the family. We don’t have to be born in Israel to be one of Abraham’s children…to be one of God’s children. We just need to trust God, love Him and obey Him. And some of the people IN Israel choose not to love and obey God…the Bible says they are NOT Abraham’s children. They are NOT God’s children. The real children of Abraham and the real children of God are those that have faith in Him. (Galatians 3:7)

So when we read the Bible, we aren’t just reading about THOSE people a long time ago…it’s about God’s story. His plan for ALL of us. God would send His son Jesus through Abraham’s family…but anyone and everyone who believes in God becomes His child and becomes part of Abraham’s family too. One of the stars in the sky.

We will start the next part of God’s story tomorrow, in the book of Exodus. And as we read through Exodus, let’s remember that WE are also God’s children…like the Israelites…their story is our story.

Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!

Joseph and the famine

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Hello again all!

The next part of Joseph’s story can be found in Genesis 41-46. For last year’s lesson see HERE.

Recap: Joseph had been sold by his brothers (because they were jealous of him, not because he had been bad) and he was living far away in a place called Egypt. He worked for the king’s helper but got thrown in jail (again…he hadn’t done anything wrong). But he was eventually released from jail. He was now in charge of  Egypt… only the king was higher up than he was.

His job now was to collect food. They were going to have 7 years of lots of rain and good food and then 7 years of not much rain and no food (called a famine.) Joseph was very organized and he did a really good job collecting and saving up the food.

Sure enough, the rain stopped and the famine came. And the people were HUUUUNNNGRRRYYY! But the people in Egypt had enough food because of Joseph’s hard work.

All the other countries did not have much food and people came from very far away to buy some of the food Joseph had. Do you know some of the people who came? Some of Joseph’s brothers!

When the brothers met with Joseph, they didn’t even recognize him!

He pretended not to know them either. He tested them to see if their hearts were still yucky. He tried to trick them and said he would keep the youngest, Benjamin for a servant. But the brothers said, “Oh please no! Our father has already lost one son…he can’t lose another one! We are so sad about our brother who is gone and our father Jacob is so sad. Please please don’t let us lose another brother!”

Then Joseph knew they were sorry and that their hearts were no longer so yucky. He told them who he really was and they all stood…mouths wide open….and said, “HUBBA WHAAAAAAAAT?” (not really…but they WERE VERY surprised!)

He told them everything that had happened…and he told them he forgave them. He was not going to stay mad…he was going to love them and asked them to go get Jacob, the daddy. They all hugged and cried happy tears and then the brothers, their families and Jacob all moved to Egypt. Joseph was in charge of them now, just like his dream had showed. And even though his brothers had meant to do bad things to him, God had used it for good!

God had good plans for Joseph all along. It didn’t always seem like it…but even in the sad and hard things, God was putting Joseph just where He wanted him.

For our craft today we made paper dolls. We started by cutting out a man shape. Then we traced him on three smaller pieces of paper. From that, we cut out a coat (with some tabs on top and on the sides), a jumpsuit shape (with tabs) and a skirt and necklace (with tabs). You could edit these to look anyway you want..but below are the shapes we cut out.

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We drew a face on Joseph,  then we started with his coat. We made it a colorful coat as in the story.

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Next, we took the jumpsuit and added stripes to be his jail outfit.

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Lastly, we colored the skirt blue and added glitter to the necklace (to be his “in charge of Egypt” outfit)

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Our finished products:

 

Now they can retell the story–one outfit for each part of the story.

Thanks for joining us again. Love to you all!

Joseph in Egypt

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Hey all! Today’s story can be found in Genesis 39-41. Our story from last year can be found HERE.

joseph-in-prison-ws

At this point Joseph had been sold by his brothers and was living and working in a new place called Egypt. It was far away from his home and his family. But Joseph started working for one of the king’s helpers named Potiphar. And he was a very good worker. Everyone liked him. Even, the worker’s wife. She wanted Joseph to love her and kiss her but he said, “No way! You are married to Potiphar, the king’s helper that I work for! I could never love you or kiss you. That would be wrong. You are supposed to only love HIM!”

That made her MAD so she LIED and told her husband that Joseph had tried to kiss her (when really SHE had tried to get him to kiss her). But Potiphar had Joseph put in jail anyway.

Joseph hadn’t done anything wrong when his brothers got rid of him…and he hadn’t done anything wrong when he got put in jail. This story doesn’t seem fair, does it?!

But Joseph started working in the jail and because he was such a good worker he was soon in charge of the jail! While he was in jail, God gave him a special talent. That’s something you’re really good at like singing or drawing or playing sports. (My kids understand talents because of the Tinkerbell movies–so if you’re familiar with that you can use the fairies’ talents to explain.)

Joseph’s talent was that he could understand dreams. A dream is like a story you think about when you’re asleep. But sometimes dreams can be silly or not make any sense. But Joseph could help people understand their dreams.

While he was in jail, two of the king’s helpers were also put in jail and they each had dreams. Joseph told the helpers what their dreams meant and they both came true! Joseph asked one of the men to remember him and how he had helped him when he got out of jail. He asked the man to tell the king good things about him so he could get out too, but the man forgot to say anything for TWO YEARS!

For two.more.years. Joseph sat in jail. Until one day, the king himself had two tricky dreams. All of his usual helpers didn’t know what they meant…but Joseph did.

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.”

The king liked this idea very much, so he put Joseph in charge of saving up the food…in fact he put Joseph in charge of all Egypt!

Isn’t that amazing?

Joseph has had a pretty rough road….he hadn’t done anything wrong but bad thing just kept happening?! God had a good plan all along. And now Joseph was the 2nd biggest leader of all of Egypt!

But God is still not done with Joseph. Tomorrow we will see what else happens!

(For media see yesterday’s post.)

 

Thanks for joining us! Love to you all!

Joseph’s Coat, God’s Plan

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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.

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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!

Jacob’s Children

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Hello again! Today’s story is from Genesis 29, 30, and 35.

Have you ever wanted something that your friend has? Maybe he has a cool bike, or maybe she has the BEST doll. God wants us to be thankful for the things we have…and not be jealous of what other people have.

If you remember, Jacob was running away. He had been tricky and taken his brother’s stuff AND his special blessing.

He traveled a long time and finally came to his uncle’s house. They were happy to see him and told him he could stay with them. Jacob started helping and working for his uncle. One day, his uncle said, “I should pay you! How much money do you want for all this work you’ve been doing?”

Jacob didn’t want money. He wanted to marry his cousin Rachel. She was BEAUTIFUL and he loved her! Rachel had a big sister named Leah…but Jacob loved Rachel. Jacob promised to work for SEVEN years for his uncle if he could marry Rachel when he was done.

His uncle agreed…and Jacob worked for 7 years. Then it was time to get married. After the wedding, the uncle brought LEAH in a disguise and gave her to Jacob. When he woke up the next day he knew he had been tricked. Just like he tricked his brother, he had been tricked too and had married Leah instead of Rachel. He was NOT happy.

His uncle said the oldest girl had to get married first, but if he would wait one week, he could have Rachel too…but he would have to work ANOTHER 7 years. Jacob agreed.

Now this part is a little crazy. You are only supposed to get married one time and love and take care of that person your whole life. But because everyone kept being tricky, Jacob now had two wives. He loved Rachel…but not so much Leah.

This made Leah sad and so God gave her lots of babies. Then Rachel got jealous that Leah had a baby and she didn’t! She was so upset she made a bad choice. She said “Jacob, here is my servant, you can have a baby with her!” And Jacob did…also not a good choice.

Rachel said, “Haha! Now I am winning! I will have more babies than HER!”

Well…all of this fighting over who had more babies led to more bad choices. Leah told Jacob to have a baby with HER servant…and SHE had a baby! Leah and Rachel each had more babies after that and altogether Jacob had 12 boys and 1 girl.

These boys would grow up to be the leaders of the 12 tribes (families) of Israel. Their names are:

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Isaachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. These boys would fulfill the promise God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…and even Jesus would be come from Judah’s family!

 

Leah and Rachel spent most of their lives being jealous of each other (wanting what the other one had.) Leah wanted to be loved by Jacob and Rachel wanted children like Leah had. When we want what other people have, we can sometimes forget to be thankful for what we DO have. Leah and Rachel’s jealousy led them to make bad choices. When we worry about what other people have, it only makes our hearts sad and can sometimes lead us to make bad choices–choices that might hurt more than they help. Let’s be thankful today for what God has given us and not worry about what our friends have.

 

For our craft today, we made a picture of Jacob’s 12 sons…and talked about how they would be the 12 tribes (families) of Israel. They would fulfill the promise God made to Abraham and Jacob about their grandchildren being as many as the stars in the sky.

For this project, we used some orange paint (you could also use brown or any color you’d like) and we used the lid of the paint to be a stamp and made 12 circles. After that dried, we drew two eyes on each one and some decorations (hair, beards etc). Then we practiced writing letters by writing the initial of each boy. Our text says “Jacob’s Sons, Genesis 29/30/35)

 

THIS VIDEO is posted by CityLifeMedia and is based on the Jesus Storybook Bible.

Thanks for joining us. Love to you all.

God gives Jacob a dream

~ hebidsthemcome ~ Leave a comment

Hi all! Welcome back! Today’s story is from Genesis 28 and last year’s lesson can be found HERE.

If you remember from last time, Jacob tricked his older brother Esau into giving him all his stuff AND his father’s special blessing. And his brother was MAAAADDDD! So mad he wanted to KILL Jacob. So Jacob ran away.

One night he laid down outside on a rock, fell sleep, and had a dream.

In his dream he saw some stairs. The bottom of the stairs was earth and the top of the stairs was in heaven. Angels were going up and down the stairs, going back and forth up and down the stairs to and from heaven.

Jacob saw stairs going to up to heaven to connect us to God, but now we have Jesus who we can talk to all the time. HE connects us to God. Jesus is like the stairs between heaven and earth. We can trust in Him and know that He is caring for us and that He loves us.

Jacob was still dreaming and he heard God from the top of the stairs say, “I am God. I promised your grandpa Abraham, and your dad Isaac and now YOU, that you will get to keep this land where you are sleeping. This is your promised land. You will have SO MANY children and grandchildren and great grandchildren…more than all the sand by the ocean. And everyone on earth will be blessed by you” (because Jesus would come from their family later on.) I will watch over you and take care of you. I will bring you back here. I will keep my promises.”

When Jacob woke up, he yelled “AH! I found God’s house! He lives HERE!” He gave God an offering (like a special present) and promised to always give back to God part of everything God had given him. Today, we give part of our money, time and things back to God by giving to others and supporting our church, our pastors and missionaries (people who go all over the world to tell people about Jesus.)

We know God ALWAYS keeps His promises. He kept His promises to Noah, Abraham, all the way down to Jesus and to US!

 

For our craft today we took black construction paper and some wavy brown paper. We glued the wavy brown to the bottom of the black and then used oil pastels (you could crayons or markers too) to draw a sleeping Jacob. Then we cut out a blue cloud shape–his dreaming bubble. (My kids recognized this from Daniel Tiger when he does his make believe.) In the dream cloud we drew some steps and angels going up and down. Our text reads: Jacob’s dream Genesis 28

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Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!