Joshua and the Battle of Jericho

We started doing family devotions each evening in February.  I wanted to do the same story for a month to help my son, then 19 months, catch on to what we were doing.  I also wanted to pick a story that would be easy to act out.  I got some Bible story books at the Dollar Store a few months ago, and Joshua and the Battle of Jericho seemed to fit with my sons current interest in building blocks.

So,  devotional time began.

We started each night by taking out our "Bible Box" which contained the little book and my son's set of alphabet blocks.  Then we would build a tower to represent Jericho.  The book talked about Joshua being strong, so we'd show our muscles.  When the story mentioned Jericho, we pointed to the tower we had built.  For six days the Israelites marched around Jericho, so we blew on our imaginary trumpets six times.  For the seventh day we blew our trumpets one final time, pseudo-shouted "Yeah God!" and my son knocked over the tower.  We ended each night with a simple prayer asking God to help us be strong and follow his commands like Joshua and then we'd clean up the blocks and start our bedtime routine.

To begin with, my son didn't really understand what we were doing, and more than a few times Jericho was knocked down a little early.  But he really liked blowing his imaginary trumpet and by the end of the month, he was "reading" the story to us, complete with trumpet blasts, "Yeah!" and knocking down Jericho at the end,  each action on the appropriate page of the book.  It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

We did keep reading the story through the start of March rather than switching to another story for just a week before starting our lenten devotion - the Lenten Cross.

Lenten Cross

We have started trying to do a short family devotion time each evening. Somehow it is easier to be consistent for our son's sake; we have never managed to follow through regularly on our plans for regular couples devotions.

For Lent, our evening devotions are centered around our Lenten Cross. I made the cross and symbols last year, using the Domestic Church post. I made the cross from a piece of foam board and bought a package of craft foam at the Dollar Store. Then I drew the symbols on the foam, cut them out, and added hook and loop tape with hot glue. I put corresponding tape on the cross. Our son was less than a year old then, so we didn't get too far with the cross.

This year, we have kept up with the cross. It is helpful that Sundays aren't included in the cross, so we have used Sundays to "catch up" as necessary. With a toddler, it has been hard to do the nightly Bible readings for each symbol. Some of them are too lengthy and the Bible itself is too attractive a distraction for my little one's curiosity.

So, my craft this year is making books for each week. I bought these darling blank books through Bare Books. I looked at the stories for each week to find a theme. The second week of Lent, for example, is Forgiveness as the week includes the Israelites wandering in the desert and Jonah. I wrote a brief description of forgiveness, how are called to live, and a challenge for the week.  We read these, but I'm hoping our family will grow into these ideas in the coming years.

 The main part of the book is a summary of the bible story for each symbol, a simple illustration, and a piece of hook and loop to hold the symbol until we are ready to add it to the cross.

 The last page is a simple prayer incorporating the week's theme to close our devotional time.



My son loves re-arranging the symbols on the cross each night, taking the new symbol out of the book, and saying "Amen!" repeatedly when we are done. I've had to add a lot more glue and repair Noah's Ark since toddlers don't do much of anything gently!