Jesus heals ‘Big Ted’

This week was Adam's turn for 'Super family Bible Night' and we decided to do it on Tuesday this week as we had a day off (love having a public holiday for a horse race – thank you horseys). The kids were thrilled when Adam asked them for all their stuffed toys to be able to use in the bible story, that was an easy task for Toby as he sleeps with more than 20 stuffed toys – Lily is the opposite and only sleeps with her 'Sheepy', so she had to go searching for her stuffed toys (and was very disappointed that 'Sheepy' couldn't be involved).

So with arms full of stuffed toys we headed outside to our pergola, where there was a ladder and a box tied up to the roof with a pulley system. As soon as Toby saw it, it yelled in delight "I know what the story is, it's 'Through the Roof', it's 'Through the Roof'" and sure enough when Adam opened the bible the title in the kid's bible was 'Through the Roof'. Before we started we needed to decide on who was going to be the sick person – Big Ted from Play School was chosen. The next choice was which stuffed animal was going to play Jesus – and 'Flames' the flying Dragon was chosen because he's the most powerful and he can beat & kill anyone (mmm interesting choice but let's go with Flames).

And so the story began, all the stuffed toys were gathered around Jesus (Flames) listening to him teach, when 4 friends brought their sick friend (Big Ted) to the house in a box to be healed by Jesus, but they couldn't get near Jesus, so the friends carried Big Ted up a ladder in the box, and lowered him into the roof (well when I say lowered – I really mean – Big Ted had a carnival ride into the house – similar to the 'Giant Drop' at DreamWorld, you know the one... where you are slowly taken up very high and then when you least expect it are dropped at a ridiculous speed and stopped just before you hit the floor. Poor Big Ted, I think he was injured more from being lowered into the house than he was beforehand). So when we got Big Ted in front of Jesus, it was met with cries of 'let's do it again, let's do it again – I want Beanie Teddy to have a go'. After letting Toby & Lily know that all the stuffed toys can have a go after the story – we got some focus back.

Thankfully, we eventually got to the part of the story where Jesus healed the sick man and Big Ted was all better. We were able to chat to the kids about the importance of caring for our friends, how these people cared for their sick friend – enough to dig through the roof of a house to get to Jesus and after he was healed they were very thankful & praised Jesus for healing the man.

After some time sharing and praying, the kids got back up the ladder and gave each one of their stuffed toys a carnival ride, some stayed in the box – most fell out – which they thought was hilarious!!

Summary, the kids loved being able to involve their favourite stuffed animals in the bible story. Whether they got the point - not so sure - but they'll forever remember taking their toys for a ride on the Giant Drop.