This was our second session of the New Year. In our first session back we looked at the stories of Simeon and Anna, but today our focus was the escape to Egypt.
We began with the story of the Holy Family and the journey of the 3 kings to see the child Jesus and the threat posed by the very jealous power crazed Herod to kill every child 2 years and under in Bethlehem and nearby towns.
We heard about the angel speaking to Joseph in a dream, telling him to “Get up, take the young child and his mother to Egypt, go as fast as you can, stay there until you hear from me. Herod is going to look for him to kill him”. Matthew 2:13–15
We thought about how scary it must have been for Mary and Joseph and Jesus to flee in the dead of night, to escape the danger of Herod’s men.
We learnt about their journey to Egypt and through Egypt, a journey that some say may have been over 3,500km. (Today you can visit the places, that the holy family stopped at enroute. Churches have been built in those places, some 1700 years ago).
All through this the Holy Family are kept safe and are eventually guided back to Nazareth where Jesus grows up.
We wondered about what this story has to teach us about how we respond to refugees?
We discussed some of the reasons why someone would need to leave their home/country today; some may be looking for a better future for themselves or their family hoping for work or education to escape poverty, others may flee from conflicts and wars and need to find safety, others might feel unsafe in their own country because they are targeted just for who they are or what they believe e.g. religion, ethnicity, sexuality or political opinions.
We wondered what that was like for the Holy Family to leave everything behind. We thought about how people can end up feeling alone and isolated because they have lost the support networks that most of us take for granted – our communities, colleagues, family and friends.
We learnt definitions of a refugee and an asylum seeker.
We watched two video the first is here:-
Questions from children to people who are refugees
And Video-Where children sleep by James Mollison
We thought about how we could help … The children had been pre-warned of our activity, which was to make up a “blessing bag “ to be given to a homeless person in the Norwich. The list of items for the bag was suggested by our Children and Youth Development Officer, who had asked a homeless person which items they would have loved to received.
Each child brought in items to fill a drawstring waterproof bag and A lady from our church has kindly offered to find someone in Norwich to deliver this with love, and report back to JAM.
In our prayer time we prayed for children in the world who have to live in difficult circumstances or who have to move to another country because of poverty or a threat to their lives.
We thought about ourselves and the new year ahead thinking about the old year and the things we wanted to leave behind (symbolically written on scraps of paper and thrown away).
We thought about our hopes for the new year (written on cloud shapes and prayed for) we asked for God’s help us to make good choices.
We played a game with the text below – see if you can fill in the correct words..
Matthew 2 v 13 – 15
After the wise women left, an angle of the north came to Mary in a dream. The maid said, “Get up! Take the baby and her brother and escape to Tenerife. Boris will start looking for the child to kiss him. Stay in trouble until I tell you to sleep. So Santa got up and left forgotten during the day with the child and his mother. No one stayed in Egypt until Herod laughed .This was to make clear the full meaning of what the Easter bunny had said through the telephone. The Lord said, “I called my sun out of Egypt.
We ended with a card game which Chris made, similar to “Old Maid” (if anyone knows that game) but called by Chris “Old Herod”. The person who is left holding the Herod Card, is the loser. We didn’t manage to get to the end of the game! A design fault, I think – still, no one lost!