Family Faithbox Night...

Last night we did our first “faithbox” night with our kids.  ‘Faithbox’ is a weekly family Bible learning tool, that is meant to be wonderful for ages 5-12.  (Maybe that was the first hint that it might not quite go down how we expected with our 3 and 5 year old!) It consists of a pretty metal box, a 'lesson' handbook and some resources for each week that you put in the box and pull out when needed.  We were very excited about this after being challenged about the importance of practicing our faith at home (not just on Sunday mornings or at meal times) at the Baptist Assembly

I had visions of this wonderful family night of the kids eyes widening in wonder at the Bible story, of family prayer where we all prayed for each other, of fun and smiles and good behaviour.  Hmmm….I think my hopes were just a little bit unrealistic …Reality was a bit different!

Marty and I worked hard to get the kids fed and ready for bed at a decent time so that we could all sit down together for 20 minutes on a weeknight….Perhaps not the best build up to our family time as we yelled at the kids to hurry up and get their PJs on!  I shut the kids out of the lounge to hide stars (for a treasure hunt) while Kate (3) stood outside grizzling that she wanted to come in.  As soon as I let the kids into the lounge, Jaimee (5) spotted stars everywhere and started asking about them.  Hmmm…I guess she is old enough to hide things for properly now.  I told her to stop talking about them, they were for later. 

 In my best teacher voice, I told the kids it was “faithbox time” and to come and sit down and wait for daddy (who was supposed to be entering in an unusual way to lead into discussion that Jesus came in an unusual way). So I am sitting there talking to my excited girls about how we had to be patient and wait for daddy while Jaimee jumps up and down on the couch asking over and over “what are the stars for mummy?” and Kate is sitting beside me sucking her thumb looking totally ready for bed.  Sigh.  I tell Jaimee if she asks about the stars one more time she won’t be doing anything with them.  I wonder (quite loudly) “When is daddy coming…we are waiting A LONG time”…to which Jaimee helpfully answers “I know where he is mummy, in the bedroom”.  Hey, that’s not what was meant to happen!  I tell her that we need to wait for daddy to come to US.  Finally, daddy walks in from the bedroom.  Totally in an expected way.  Apparently daddy didn’t realise he was meant to enter another way.    Marty thought that he was meant to hide and we would come find him.  Fail.

Moving on, I try and explain the tricky concept of how Jesus was promised in the old testament and that people were expecting a king, not a tiny baby, as their Saviour.  More bouncing up and down and asking about the stars.  We ask them questions, to which they yell out the answers to happily “God”…”Jesus loves us”.  These are not the answers we were looking for, but apparently when we talk about God, these are fail proof answers for every question!  Moving on.

The star hunt goes well, although Jaimee decides to point out all the stars for Kate to find instead of stopping when she had found her stash.  When we said that wasn’t fair, let Kate find them, she tried sneakily saying “I will just leave that one on the bookcase for Kate”.  Moving on.

The ‘charades’ game was their favourite.  Mummy and Kate paired up against Daddy and Jaimee and we had to act out different characters in the Christmas story.  Kate loved riding on my back as I was a donkey, and Jaimee stroked daddy’s head as she shepherded her “sheep”.  We played that game twice. 

Next we lit the first Christmas advent candle, the candle for Hope.  We were meant to all share a hope that we had.  Daddy looked a bit blank so I said I had HOPE that Jesus will come back again.  Daddy said he HOPED he would go to heaven.  The kids didn’t really get this…but I think that one of them said they HOPED they had a nice day.  Fair enough. 

Prayer time.  We sat around the table, and my little Jaimee (who normally does such long prayers at dinner time that our food is cold by the time we get to eat it) decided this was far too foreign for her and she went all shy.  "I'm scared" she whispered.  Kate followed big sisters lead. So mummy and daddy prayed, and then after lots of coaxing, daddy led the girls in a “repeat after me” prayer.  How sad that our kids think this is so strange to pray together…must work on that one!! 

All in all, it was a crazy evening that didn’t quite go as I expected.  But the first thing Jaimee said to me this morning when she got up was “Faithbox?” as she ran over to the box which holds the resources.  Several times before school the girls have asked “Is it faithbox night? Can we do it again?” For all the fails, I guess there were many pluses – we spent an evening with our girls, talking about God, praying together, having lots of giggles and fun.  So yes, I guess we will do it again next week.  May this grow into a new family tradition…and maybe the girls will learn family prayer is not so strange after all.