~~~After a slight break to talk about Easter and to respond to our kids' letters in March, I am continuing the monthly faith-themed letter series. The kids who are 14 and under are learning about the names of God, based off of Diane Stortz's book,
I Am: 40 Reasons to Trust God.
Sunday School Zone sometimes has some great activity pages!
✯✶✰☆ El Kanna ☆✰✶✯ ✯✶✰☆ Jealous God ☆✰✶✯ by Diane Stortz ~~ Exodus 34:14 "The Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you." ~~ From 1 Samuel 4-7. "Whenever the Israelites forgot about God and worshiped idols, God allowed trouble to come to them. When the Israelites went out to fight the Philistines, they lost the first battle. "Why did God let us lose the fight?" the leaders of Israel wondered. But they didn't ask God why, and they didn't ask for His help. Instead, they decided to bring the ark of the covenant [...] to be with them in their camp. Everyone shouted so loudly when they saw the ark that the Philistines heard them and wondered what was happening. When the Philistines realized that God's [ark] was in the Israelites' camp, they were afraid. "We know about God's power and how He rescued the Israelites from Egypt," they said. "We must really fight hard now!" So they fought with all their might and defeated the Israelites a second time. Even worse, the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant! They took it to the city of Ashdod in their own land, to the temple of one of their idols, called Dagon. They set the ark next to a statue of Dagon. The next morning, the Philistines went into Dagon's temple again. "Oh no!" they cried, "Dagon fell down!" The statue of Dagon had fallen on its face in front of the ark of the covenant! They stood the statue back up. But the next morning, what did they see? The statue of Dagon had fallen in front of God's [ark] again! This time the idol had lost its hands and its head--they were lying in the doorway of the temple. No idol could stand before the power of the one true God! The people of Ashdod also began to get sick. They were afraid of the ark of the covenant and asked their leaders, "What should we do?" "Send the ark to the city of Gath," the leader said. But the people of Gath got sick too and sent the ark to the city of Ekron. When the people of Ekron saw the ark of the convent, they said, "Send the ark back to where it belongs!" Finally, the leaders agreed. They put God's [ark] on a cart drawn by two cows and sent it off. The cows took the cart with the ark straight back to the Israelites! At that time, God's prophet Samuel was leading the Israelites. "Are you ready to serve the Lord with all your hearts?" Samuel asked the people. "Then stop worshipping idols. Serve God only, and He will deliver you from the fighting Philistines." ~~ God is jealous in the good way--He watches out for us. He wants us to have [...] His love. He doesn't want His people to wonder off and worship anything or anyone else. He knows that isn't good for us... When the Apostle Paul went to Athens, he saw that the people worshipped many idols. He told them about the one true God! You can read about it in Acts 17:16-31"
~~~The kids who are 15 and older are receiving a series of letters on Judges! This month is
Gideon's story. For kids who are 13-16 and attend the same project, one teen is receiving the names of God series and the other teen is receiving the Judges series.
Dear Friend: today I want to share a lesson by Nate Curtis on our next Judge, Gideon, who's story is found in Judges 6-8.
"When you read the story of Gideon in Judges 6-8, you see the miraculous way that God used the weakest man in his family from the weakest clan to lead an extremely small group of men, 300 in total, to defeat the Midianites whose “camels were without number…” Judges 7 tells us how God clearly and systematically narrowed Gideon’s army from 32,000 men to just 300 “’lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” In the end, (spoiler alert) Gideon’s army defeats the Midianites and you see a brave, heroic conqueror in Gideon whose obedience led to forty years of rest in the land in his days. Judges 8:22 says, “Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.’” What a legacy! Gideon finishes our tale as a fearless warrior for God who naturally trusted God in every situation! Well, in the words of the great Lee Corso, “not so fast my friend.” The fact is, Gideon, though in the end was strong and brave, began very weak and fearful. One of my favorite things about the Bible is the beautiful truth it reveals in every story. There is no sugarcoating or embellishment. Just truth. Throughout Gideon’s story, time and time again, you see him question and test God out of fear and uncertainty. One of my favorite stories (where I can completely see myself in Gideon) is the story of the wool fleece. Gideon asks God, as a test to see if God will save Israel by his hand, to leave dew on a fleece of wool overnight, but none on the ground. He wakes up the next morning and the fleece is drenched with not even a drop on the ground. But, not proof enough for our friend Gideon, he asks AGAIN: “please let me test just once more with the fleece.” Except this time, he asked it to be reversed, with dew covering the ground while leaving the fleece completely dry. Gideon awoke, and (you guessed it) God did so that night and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew. God’s patient faithfulness to Gideon strengthened him into the warrior who would boldly obey God and free his people. The Bible shows us very clearly that our faith is strengthened by God’s faithfulness to us and to the generations who came before us. May our obedience continue to increase as our faith is strengthened by studying and clinging to His faithfulness. ~~ Questions for Thought: 1) How has God proved to be faithful in your life within the last year? 2) What act of obedience do you need to step into if you knew with 100 percent confidence it is God’s battle to win?"
Sending much love,
Hannah
~~~
Happy Writing!
