Team play ...

Today was the last Tuesday morning for women's Bible study at Calvary Church. Mr. Jones and I volunteer as helpers with the children each Tuesday morning, and today was the very last Tuesday until Fall! Since Mr. Jones is incredibly comfortable and helpful with tiny babies, he helps out in the infant nursery. Infants just are not my favorite age group! I am much more comfortable with 3's, 4's, 5's etc. Last Fall when the new term began, I was partnered with two other ladies to form a team of helpers for the 3's. Miss Heidi was the leader, and Miss Char and I helped out wherever needed. We also were fortunate enough to have Steffanie (high school age) to help us every week too. Together, the four of us played with and taught about 13-15 three-year-olds each week. We have come to love these children dearly ... and my "grandmother heart" was happy.
The first hour each Tuesday morning is playtime. We have a great selection of toys at church for the children. Here is Grace and Jessy building Duplo towers. They were very excited to have their pictures taken.

And Shaelyn, Peyton, Sophia, Lauren and Jessy helped Miss Heidi build a little playroom out of our ABC foam puzzles this morning.

Our story was about Jonah today and we had such a fun time telling it and acting it all out for the children. They got to be part of the story. Miss Char and Steff constructed this pretend boat on the floor with 13 little seats, one for each child. We assigned Steff to be Jonah, even though she is a girl, and the kids got to row the boat out in the middle of the huge ocean. Miss Heidi flashed the overhead lights for lightning and made a terrible storm with the boat going up and down enormous waves! We had the children yelling, "Help us! Help us!" I'm explaining how sick everyone got on the boat ...

And then Jonah (Steff) told people that the storm was his fault because he was running away from God! So everyone (all the children) helped to pitch Jonah overboard! And the storm immediately stopped!

Here is Jonah sinking in the water with the big fish (the tunnel) coming to swallow her/him up! We talked about what it was like to be in the belly of that fish (cold and dark and wet and stinky ~ with no food or toys or mom or dad or anything!) and I asked the children if they knew how long Jonah stayed inside the fish? Grace raised her hand and said with confidence: "Jonah was inside that fish for 33 days AND 33 nights!" Well, she had the 3 correct anyway! There was much else we taught with this little story about how much God loves us and how impossible it is to run away from Him. We had a great time together this morning!

This is Lilly. She is usually the first one to class each Tuesday morning and she helps me set up our room. She and her mom baked little gifts of banana bread (delicious!) to thank us for taking care of the children. I think I'm going to have to get busy and make a special card to send to Lilly's house this week to tell her how yummy that bread was!

"See how very much our heavenly Father loves us,
for He allows us to be called His children,
and we really are!" I John 3:1