Giving

 At a recent meeting, the discussion leader asked us each to share the most memorable gift we'd given or received in the past 6-12 months. The responses ranged from touching to humorous. What made each memorable was not the cost of the gift but the personal relationship connected to the gift. 

Our friend Zoltan recently led a children's Bible lesson about a very special gift. He used CEF material + the 4 Word approach. The 4 concrete words from the story help remember the story. They also offer a chance to do an (educational) activity connected to the story. In fact, the 4 Words can be used in a "little preschool" for older children who still need to learn and practice pre-reading, pre-writing, pre-math skills. Interested in learning more or seeing more examples? Contact us!

Acts 3:1-16 Peter & John meet a lame man by the Temple

Four words

1. Gate
2. Carried
3. Look at us
4. Walking/leaping

Gate: 

 Make up a game where two children face each other & make a closed gate by holding hands or wrists. The other children stand in a line and come, one-by-one, up to the gate. The "gate" raises their hands to become a doorway.

 

Carried:

1.  Math Game 17 Caterpillar multiplication.
2. Needed:  strong cloth or blanket. 4 children take hold of each corner and carry a 5th child from here to there. Then the 5^th child jumps and walks back.
3. Piggy-back relay race (might be dangerous).

 

Look at us

1. Start Game B4 See the difference.
2. Discussion:  what is polite (in your culture)? Is it polite to look at someone when they talk to you?

• Is it hard to look at someone when they talk to you?
  (people on the autism spectrum find this difficult)
• What might you do if someone wants you to look at them?
  (look at their forehead or their neck instead of their eyes)

 Walking & Leaping

1. Simon says. Simon says "walk", "leap/jump", "sit on the ground", "stand"; all the things the lame man did.
2. Red light/green light, but just with walking and leaping (jumping) instead of stop and go.
3.  Discussion:  pretend you are really happy. Act like you are really happy. What does that look like? What do you do? Do you ever "jump for joy"?

Prayer time:

Have the children act out the story as you (or one of them) retells it.

Actors:  Peter & John; man & friends who carry him; 2 people as "gate" or "door"; everyone else as amazed people who come running once Peter, John, & the other man walk through the gate. Point out that now the man can walk through the gate into the temple, like everyone else. Jesus heals us. He wants us close to Him.

Teach the children a song about the lame man walking and leaping and praising God.

Moldovan Pancakes

Whenever we visit Moldova, people invite us to eat with them. This is a flexible recipe that can be sweet or hearty. I've eaten these in old, wood-heated houses and in bright, modern homes.

 Thank you to all our Moldovan brothers and sisters, Roma and non-Roma, Romanian-speaking and Russian-speaking, who have extended warm hospitality to us!

Mix together:

• 2 eggs
• 200 ml milk (1 cup)
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar (more or less, to taste)
• 2 teaspoons butter (melted)

Heat skillet or griddle. 

Put in spoonful of butter.

Pour a soup ladle of batter in the pan--enough to cover the bottom.

Brown on both sides.

Roll up with filling inside: 

• dry curd cottage cheese with salt or sugar to taste (might beat egg into the cheese)
• jam
• mushrooms, sautéed

Can pour sweet cream over the stack of pancakes or garnish with powdered sugar, depending on the filling and your own taste.

 

A New View

For a different view of the so-familiar-Gospels, consider viewing the LUMO project videos. 

https://live.bible.is/bible/ENGESV/mat/1

https://live.bible.is/bible/ENGESV/LUK/1?audio_type=audio_drama

These videos are word-for-word from Scripture. They are available in a wide range of languages. 

Languages Keith has recorded include: Portuguese, Polish, Latvian, Papiamentu, East Slovak Romani, and Sinti Romani.  

Consider sharing one of these stories with your friends or neighbors in their heart language, whatever that language might be.

Recording the New Testament in East Slovak Romani 
Pierre van Vuuren, translator, in foreground

As part of my work, I serve on the board of the Dom Research Center. The Dom are a minority group in the Middle East/North Africa with strong ties to the Rom (Romany) in Europe. For the past 19 years the Dom Research Center (DRC) has been involved with Dom Christians to establish churches in Dom communities in the Middle East. Churches have been established on the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza, and in Jerusalem, as well as in other neighboring countries. These churches operate under their own leadership and direction. (Photo: Mary with Dom leader during her 2023 visit to the Netherlands)

In recent months, the DRC has partnered with these churches to deliver and distribute food, water, tents for shelter, and many other life-giving supplies to the Dom in Gaza. Our brothers and sisters in Gaza have had to move many times to escape the armed conflict there. Tents provide movable shelter. The Dom have used two to set up their own (mobile) school. 

These gifts have been of immense encouragement to the Dom. They know that their brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world are praying for and caring for them. 

If you feel led to contribute financially, any amount would be appreciated. Concretely:  $250 will purchase a tent; $100 will purchase a box of food and water (see sample, left). 

Financial gifts can be sent to:

Dom Research Center

23100 CR 428

Rising Star, TX 76801

Every cent received will be used to provide relief. 

Gifts of prayer are needed even more. Please consider strengthening our fellow believers with a prayer for safety, perseverance, and most of all peace.

New Friends, New Images

Marina & Vasilita exchange insights

This past month our friend Marina drove with me up to North Holland to visit our friend Vasilita and her daughters. Marina is originally from Romania. Vasilita and her daughters are from Moldova. They and many others from the Roma village of Vulcanesti are working in the green houses in the northern tip of the province of North Holland.

On the way up, she talked about some of the attitudes many Romanians have towards Romany. When we arrived and met Vasilita's daughters, both in their early 20s and both working in greenhouses picking tomatoes, Marina privately wondered what kind of a future that was. Didn't those two want more out of life? 

Mary & Marina share a snack on the way home

On the way back, Marina talked about what a big heart Vasilita had and how concerned she was for other people. Marina noted how Vasilita and her two daughters were working for their entire family and also, in a way, to benefit their entire village. 

New friends, new perspectives, new points of reference. 

What Does the Angel Say?

"That doesn't sound right," the priest said. We had come to Belgium to record his voice. He was going to be the voice talent for the angel Gabriel in the Flemish-language version of the Magdalena Project.

"No, that isn't right," Ria agreed. Ria is a native Flemish-speaker. She was being the native-language "proof-listener" or checker for the recording. 

The two looked over the lines again. They consulted a modern translation of Luke into Dutch (approved by both the Flemish Bible Society and the Bible Society of the Netherlands). 

"This is it!" they agreed after reading Luke out loud. "That's the way it is in the Christmas liturgy, too." 

And so they rewrote those few lines. After trying this and that intonation and phrasing, everyone was satisfied with the recording. Soon you can hear it for yourself here:
www.jesusfilm.org/watch/magdalena.html. 

Original:  De Heer is met u, u die de gunst van de Heer geniet!

Changed to:  Wees gegroet, gij beganadigde, de Heer is met u.

Original:  Wees niet bang, Maria. God heeft het goed met u

Changed to:  Wees niet bevreesd, Maria, want gij hebt genade gevonden bij God.

Romeo & Juliet . . . the sensible version

 We're all familiar with the story. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl's family objects. Conflict ensues. In this case, the girl & boy are both part of a Romany church in a village somewhere east of here. Also in this case (as often happens in small villages) they are technically too closely related to marry by law. (Unlike this couple, who had been together for years.)

Note that this did not used to be such a point. Louisa May Alcott had the heroine of Eight Cousins marry one of those first cousins in Rose in Bloom. And Keith, who is a genealogy buff, has found several sets of married first cousins back down the family tree. The boy & girl in this story were far more distantly related than that. Maybe kissing cousins?

Be that as it may, conflict ensued. The families drug the local pastor into the thick of it. He suffered sleepless nights. Many people prayed. Boy and girl decided it wasn't worth all the commotion and split up. 

A sensible Romeo & Juliet make for a calm, wise conclusion rather than a tumultuously tragic one. Now if only the rest of the girl's family would go ahead and choose to wisely conclude their end of the conflict . . . 

More prayer is needed!