Well...I'm now one third of the way through language school. Finally starting to feel like I'm making some progress and I can talk in the past tenses without tying my brain into knots. We also had the opportunity to go to a children's daycare last Tuesday and do a Bible story and craft. I told the creation story in Spanish and then the kids colored each day of creation on a coffee filter. We're gonna do a new story, craft, and game each week so now comes the task of planning out exactly which stories to cover. This is actually quite important...because I want to give them a good overview of the whole Bible...but it's crucial that the stories target some of the Catholic tradition they're already being taught. We have an awesome opportunity to show them how the Bible directly contradicts some things they will be taught...things they're already being taught. For example...stories that show Mary as just another person used by God and not holy...stories that show the power of faith for salvation and not works...stories that emphasize our direct relationship to Jesus. I've never set out to do this before so it'll be interesting to say the least.
Sounds great David. I never quite got to past tenses in my Spanish classes, so you've got me beat there. ;-) Glad you're picking it up well though. That's really cool about telling about Creation in Spanish to the kids- sounds like a lot of fun. (and work to remember all the right Espanol.) Working in the culture you're in, there's a good side and bad side to it.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing is that they do have some exposure to The Bible and Christianity- the bad thing is that there's some bad theology mixed in with Catholicism that you will have to counter.
But I think you might like to use Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine as a possibility- as you can point out that Mary turned to Jesus for help and told the servants to do whatever He told them.
One of the best examples I can think of for the issue of faith vs. works is Matthew 7:15-23 where Jesus tells us that many will say to Him "Lord, Lord" on that final day but He will send them away because the things they did were unauthorized and He doesn't know them. (I don't know if you want to use that with a daycare though- but it does make the point clear.) Maybe the parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25?
Acts 19:11-20 might be a possibility, and this definitely depends on the culture here as to whether kids would get freaked out or not- but it definitely gets the point across.
Well, those are just some ideas. Hope that helps. Take care- I'm praying for ya.