Fishers of Men.

A few weeks ago, I took on the role of being one of the Scripture teachers at school. I still remember when I first signed up to be a Scripture teacher at our previous school...

I was 37 weeks pregnant.

But now, with the baby I'd had soon after beginning that initial Scripture teaching adventure grown up and at school, I'm back into it, teaching one lesson a week.

I am really enjoying it, and I admit that I get excited about studying the Bible again myself, and preparing (hopefully) fun things for the kids to do.

This term, we've been working our way through the book of Luke. This week (today), the lesson was on Jesus' first disciples - the fishermen (Luke 5:1-11).

At the start of the week, I honestly was not planning on making presents for the students. But, as I was tidying my kitchen drawers and cupboards a few days ago, I found a silicone mould that I haven't used in years (if ever!). And just so happened that it was perfect for the theme of this week's lesson.

It was an IKEA fish-shaped ice cube tray. And mixing this newly found item with my small addiction to Pinterest, I know that you can melt crayons into shapes using a device much like what I'd found! Beauty!

So I did. I melted crayons into the shape of fish, and put them into little 'nets' (cellophane bags) for the students, with this quote from Jesus:

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

N.B. There was a LOT of crayon wrapper peeling to make this craft/gift possible! ... It was tedious, and next time I may involve my kids to do that part for me! But it was worth it to see the excitement on the students' faces when they received them :)

As I only had one ice cube tray, I could only make 12 crayons at a time, but that was okay.

It was kinda cool (but perhaps I just did something wrong) that the fish crayons turned out to have this two-toned effect once they'd set:

There was enough for each student to have 4 different coloured crayons in a cellophane 'net' with the quote from Jesus. Just before the end of the lesson, they all had a turn in 'fishing' their arm into the bag full of these bags of fish crayons. Sadly, I had totally forgotten to photograph them all together! But here is the one that was leftover because a student was away.

This was part of my lesson:

Have you ever been to the fish markets? It smells! Our family doesn't eat fish, probably because Husband and Ben are both allergic to seafood. But, basically, a fish market smells. It's quite over-powering actually. This didn't stop Jesus from getting onto the boat with the soon-to-be disciples after they'd been working all night.

Jesus doesn't wait until we've had a good night's sleep and a refreshing shower if he wants to tell us something. He comes to us just as we are: Smelly, tired, overworked, and cranky. He might ask us to do something, and though we may not understand why he's asked us to do particular things, we must trust that it's because he has a great and wonderful plan that involves us - and what a privilege to be a part of that :)

I hope the kids enjoyed 'fishing' for these little presents today, and are reminded that we are to use the tools that he gives us to be Fishers of Men - the Holy Spirit, the Bible, our words, and our actions.

And now that I think further about it... Crayons can be messy, and life can be messy; but Jesus loves us regardless.