Brick Making 101

Trying to get our minds around life in Egypt back in 1500BC can be tough and imagining the nation of Israel at 2,ooo,ooo strong as slaves to that nation can be a bit mind-boggling, to say the least. Pharoah was relentless in treatment of the Israelites, even with all those plagues that fell upon Egypt. He just made the Jewish slaves work harder, especially in the area of brick making. We studied the process of making bricks in that period in history and decided to try it ourselves.

We gathered some good old Oklahoma clay, mixed in some water, added some straw, and toiled away.

We decided this task was not for the faint of heart. Just lifting the bucket full of moist clay was

quite the workout!
We know that the Israelites had to endure so much as slaves in Egypt. Did God know how hard it was? Certainly! Did God care? Absolutely. God was there working and revealing Himself time after time.
We completed our bricks and left them to dry in the sun. We can appreciate a bit more now about the art of brick making and we definitely were reminded that God is with us and has a plan and purpose for us ----even when our situation seems hopeless! We can trust Him ALWAYS!

Making Philippians 2:9-11 Our Own

Discussing our ideas for our illustrations.

Illustrations coming together.

Our final product

At the beginning of each new school year, we introduce a theme verse in the elementary school. Our chapels revolve around this theme too. This year we are focusing on the names of Jesus and using Philippians 2:9-11 :

"Therefore God exalted him the the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven an on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

To personalize this verse, our class divided into groups and had the assignment of illustrating the theme verse in any way that they felt communicated Jesus as supreme over all. Did I mention this had to be completed in 20 minutes? The end result was a beautiful cross with some extremely moving perspectives. I look forward to seeing how God will make this verse more meaningful to us in the coming months. Stop by and see our finished product displayed in hallway outside of our classroom.

Here We Are !!!

Let me introduce you to our fabulous group! We are "even" this year which means an equal number of boys and girls totaling 18 in all. This is the smallest class I have ever had at OCS and I am VERY excited to see what God has in store for this amazing group. Sixteen are returning OCS'ers and two are new to our school family. I love watching a new group bond together! The "old timers" are doing a great job of including our newbies.

We recognize that our sovereign God has appointed this time in each of our lives to be together for fourth grade. What could be better than that!!