Sunday, November 22, 2009

Dylan's LEGO's help us worship ...

Our Sunday preschool worship class begins at 8:10 in the morning. The workers arrive about a half hour earlier so that they can set up their rooms and get ready for the children. Last week I met a young Calvin college student who was born in Taiwan ~ she was my "helper" for the morning. Her name is Joy and she is just wonderful with children. However, her grandma died last week and so she flew to Taiwan to be with her family. So this week my "helper" was Amy, who also is great with kids. It's so much fun meeting all of these new people while volunteering ~ just one of the very many blessings I've received along the way!
We have our very own separate classroom that has been stocked with toys and art supplies ... just for us! The first half hour of our time is ... playing! How fun!The kids made stencil pictures today and did such a great job! The little boy in the picture above brings his grandma to class with him ... he absolutely refuses to come without her! And one of the other little boys in class consistently refers to me as "Grandma" ... so much for hoping perhaps I didn't look OLD enough to actually BE a grandma!
I don't have a picture to show you of how we clean-up and get ready for songs and story ... but we do eventually line up chairs to make a pretend train, while Mrs. Carol (me) puts on her train hat, gets out her train whistle, hands out tickets for the train, punches the tickets, and then we all chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo together over hills and valleys, across rivers and streams, to the land of the Bible! I know. It's corny ... but these are 3 and 4-year-old children and they really love it!
Our story today was about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the book of Daniel. I had studied this beautiful story and taught it to the MOPS kids two weeks ago. I had wanted to use a book that our family had when I was a kid called "I See 4" but in my searching for it, I discovered it has been out of print for years and years. I could get a copy of it from Amazon but the cheapest one I found was somewhere in the range of $68! I loved this book as a kid. It told the entire story in rhyme with great illustrations. But I'm kind of glad I couldn't get a copy of the book, because then I was forced to study and do the story in my own words. God used this story so much in my life over the past few weeks. I even dreamed about it!
In my search to find a visual for the children, I decided to just build an idol using the DUPLO blocks at my house ~ and then I remembered that Dylan had left all of his LEGO's! So I found a bunch of LEGO people and lined them up in front of the idol to show how King Nebuchadnezzar ordered everyone to bow down and worship his golden statue ... but I left three guys standing brave and strong ... Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego! The children this morning listened for 20 solid minutes (quietly!) to this wonderful story of God's amazing greatness ... and we even sang a song that told the entire story! You can't believe HOW MUCH FUN I am having being a teacher of preschool children ... and how thankful that God can use me. It's almost like I've never felt this ALIVE before in my whole life. Thank-you, God.

3 comments:

loisgroat said...

Isn't teaching wonderful? I am always happiest when I am teaching children about our amazing God.

Ruthanne said...

Carol, didn't you tell me last summer on our trip that you just couldn't be a teacher? I am so happy that you learned that you could be! When you were telling me about just being a helper, I thought to myself that you would make a great teacher because you love little kids so much and go to so much trouble to have fun with them! I am happy for you!

Mom Jones said...

I really and truly thought I couldn't possibly teach ... for one thing because I hate telling people what to do ... and I get too nervous in front of people. But I find that little children are very forgiving of my poor memory and just love hearing a good story. And what better stories than God's story! I'm surprised by all of this very much. It has been what some of my friends call "a God thing" to get me to a place where I am doing this little class ~ but I can barely contain my joy about it sometimes! :)