To Live Is Christ (Paul): Week Six

First off, thank you all for your prayers and thoughts concerning my dad. He is home from the hospital and doing well. :)

This was our last week of studying Paul for this semester, and it was super fun. We've been doing Paul since August, studying the chronology of his ministries, from the very beginning as a little Jewish school boy to this Wednesday, when he was shipwrecked on the island. We had a lot of fun doing this lesson, and I had a great time teaching it. A great last week of Paul for the next few weeks while we focus on Christmas Unwrapped and Jesus' birthday.

So, keeping in theme with boats and being shipwrecked, I thought, 'hey, let's act this story out'. So, the kids were divided into two teams. They each had to pick one Paul--who got to wear cool reindeer antlers--and Paul was the only person allowed on their boat. I gave each group a cardboard presentation board, some rope, stickers, markers, tape, and paper. My special helper and I got scissors and the kids directed us on what to do. The basic objective was that they had to build and decorate a boat that could carry Paul on his different missionary journeys. This was really fun and the kids loved it! I gave them a few minutes and we had beautiful boats with wonderful names. Paul sat down in the boat, and the other members of the team got to pick some cargo to take with them. They could pick three out of water, food, a blanket, a pillow, and a bible. One group picked food, water, and a blanket. The other picked food, water, and a bible. And the boat was packed and ready to go... But where?

We broke this video up into a few parts. The kids all gathered round as we watched the first part of the video. I didn't tell them which island to go to (there were a few islands around the room). They had to listen to the video, figure out where to go, and then go do the first thing there. So we went to Cyprus first. Paul got a bandaid, and they were able to switch out one of their items for a piece of an anchor (the bible verse). Then, if they didn't have a blanket, they lost an arm (frostbite's no fun!), if they didn't have food, they had to have another person on their boat (famished!), and if they didn't have water, they couldn't speak (their throats were too scorched). So we had some disabilities going on, and then we watched the second part of the video.

So the kids went off to Crete and we played a quick game while they were there, similar to front of the boat, back of the boat. The person that was left standing got to pick if they wanted to take another piece of cargo on the ship, or take one away from the other team. The kids got the next part of the anchor, and had more disabilities than they could count, and off they went toward the final place, Rome... But then the winds howled, rain poured (from spray bottles, it's a tough world out there!), and their boats were tipped over by the wind (played by Me). They had to "swim" (army crawl) to the nearest island, which happened to be Malta.

So we watched the last part of the video, and we talked about how now, the Maltese people have a huge population of Christians on the island, and it's all because of Paul! Paul probably thought this shipwreck was going to be awful and there was no good from it, but God turned it into good by using it to spread health and Jesus to the people on the island. That was cool!

I showed two That Will Leave A Mark videos, and we talked about what kind of mark we thought this event left on Paul. The kids thought it probably strengthened his faith. Then I asked the kids to think about the event that made the biggest mark on their own lives. We had little brothers and sisters, deaths of grandparents, first days of schools, getting punched... All of these things that happened. We talked about how these marks can be good or bad, and when they're good, it's easy to navigate. But what do we do when it's bad? When we have shipwrecks in our lives, how do we swim to shore. I had the kids close their eyes and go back to that memory and to look around the room, and see if they could find Jesus. When they did, we talked about how when future things make their "mark" on our lives, we should look around and find Jesus, and He'll direct us where to go.

The verse for the week: "We have this hope as an anchor, firm and secure." - Hebrews 6:19

Next semester we'll be talking about the different Pauline epistles. We'll spend two weeks on each of the different Pauline epistles to the churches. What I would like to do is have someone come in that has been to each of the cities those churches are at (Colossus, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica/Salonia/Thessaloniki, Galatia, Rome, Philippi) and bring pictures and memories so the kids can see that each one of these epistles was written to places that actually exist. I think that would really bring home the realness of the bible to them, and I would love to be able to experience that with them. So, if any of you know anyone who has been to any of these cities, please let me know :)