Passion Week

We did a lot of celebrating this week.  I forgot my camera for some of our activities, starting with Palm Sunday.  Last Sunday was so fun in Children's Ministry.  The main hallway was decorated with a big Palm Sunday banner and Palm branches all over.  I made palm branches for our class the night before, as did most teachers for their classes because Pastor Matt brought in a donkey to re-in-act the Triumphal Entry.  All the classrooms came out and the kiddos were saying "Hosanna!  Come save us!"  It was precious!  

Throughout the rest of the week we worked on a few crafts, read the Calvary/Resurrection story,  and had communion on Good Friday.  Friday evening we had some teenagers over for pizza and then took them to our church's Good Friday night service & showing of The Passion of Christ.  


A cool activity that I forgot to take pictures of was our resurrection rolls- an activity where we each had a marshmallow- representing Jesus.  We dipped it in melted butter to represent the oils of embalming.  Then we dipped the mallow in cinnamon sugar which represented the spices used to anoint His body.  Finally, we wrapped the coated marshmallow in a crescent roll- representing the wrapping of Jesus' body after death.  Then we placed in the oven (the grave) for a pretend 3 days.  :)  When we took them out of the oven "Jesus" was gone!  The boys were so funny.  "Where did the marshmallow go?  Is it still in the oven!?"  

The other activity was a spontaneous "experiment" I came up with on the spot and tried to mix Jesus into the message.  I was showing the boys how water and oil don't mix.  I put both oil and water in a sealed jar so we could all watch what happened when I shook the jar.  I explained that just like oil and water can't mix, a Holy God cannot mix with a sinful man.  I put blue food coloring in the jar and we noticed that it affected both the water and oil.  I told the boys the food coloring was like Jesus, being the son of God, He died for our sins so we could be without blemish and be reconciled to God. (I spoke in preschool terminology.)  My analogy wasn't great because the water and oil didn't suddenly mix ... but since they both changed to the same color I said it was like being adopted into God's family when we believe, even though we don't become the same as God, we can be part of His family and more like him because of Jesus. (I think I'll use red next time so its more like the blood of Jesus washing us from sin.)

Finally, today we went to church and praised JESUS for conquering the grave, washing away our sin, and justifying us before God.  Yay!  Our good friends, Joey and Brea, were here too so that was lots and lots and lots of fun.  :)  We ate pretty darn good, too!

Here are some of our pictures from this week:

Boys got sunglasses in their baskets!

We're finding out that the bigger the family, the harder it is to get a descent picture!

Two different empty tomb projects.

The boys would not stop jumping all over Joey!  Ahh!

We also drew little red dots on our palms and wrote our names on them to remind us that "Jesus died for Eli!"