Sunday afternoon instead ...

We did not have our usual over-nighter Friday night and into Saturday this last weekend! Instead, we opted for Sunday afternoon. I am glad we had at least these few hours together. I picked the children up after church, took them to my house and stuffed them full of spaghetti, meatballs, salad and other goodies.

Our Bible story this week was about the tower of Babel (gate of God), how the people decided to stay all together instead of spreading out and populating the earth (as they had been commanded to do), came up with the idea to "build a tower up to heaven" and "to make a name for ourselves," and how God put an end to their plan by confusing their language. We had a real nice study time--comfortable and full of questions, while the children colored.

Why did God want people to "fill the earth and subdue it?" We had to ask that question! We talked about most of the wars since time began mostly being about land and resources. If they all had stayed together from the very beginning, wouldn't there have been lots of arguments about land and ownership? We were just guessing about this, but it did make sense. 

So God "came down" and confused their language so that nobody understood each other. THEN they scattered around the earth like God had intended. We had read this story many times in our Jesus Storybook Bible (she does a very humorous job of describing the misunderstanding the morning no one could understand each other any more). I wanted to go a little deeper this time and talk a bit more about obedience and what happens when we … don't! 

We also did a bunch of Origami hearts since Valentine's day is this week. Matthew loves folding paper--me too! And Emma does as well. We made SO MANY paper hearts! 

While we were folding our hearts, we listened to some great songs like "Whom Shall I Fear?" (Chris Tomlin) and "Me Without You" (TobyMac) and sang along together. Christopher was with us too, except he was in the playroom building LEGOS and didn't get his face in these pictures! 

Oh! And we are memorizing Scripture together because … these kiddos are old enough to do it and they have very good memories. We've decided to keep these verses simple and to choose ones that are real encouragement or good reminders of God's love for us. We decided that since everyone has TEN fingers, TEN-word verses would be a good place to start: one word for each finger. We began this week with Psalm 118:6, "The Lord is with me, I will not be afraid." I love this verse so much. It comforts, brings JOY, and gives me courage and strength to continue this journey of faith. The kiddos seemed excited about this 10-word memorizing project … YAY!