Messianic Passover/Seder

We had the unique privilege of participating in a Messianic Passover/Seder. 

My sister's church, a few hours away from us, was offering this in preparation for a study they were about to begin. She invited us, and other members of our family, to participate. 

Armed with our Haggadah (a compilation of the rituals and passages used for the Seder service), we were ready to begin!

This was so perfect for us because we are studying Creation to the Greeks in our home school studies this year and the Passover was the next Biblical Feast we were planning to cover in the next few weeks. We have covered several Biblical feasts already (Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Booths) and let me tell you, they are a lot of work! They are also extremely meaningful and I love how God used/uses these feasts to draw His people closer to Him and cause them to remember everything that He has done and continues to do.

To be able to participate in a Biblical Feast that was basically done for us was a HUGE blessing! Not only that, but it was led by an Israeli Messianic Jew by the name of Zohar Gonen. Zohar partners with Chosen People Ministries in order to bring the gospel to Jewish people around the world. Unlike me, trying to glean information from the book Celebrating Biblical Feasts by Martha Zimmerman, this guy knew exactly what he was doing! He has an amazing testimony and the ministry he participates in is awesome. Check out the ministry link for more information. 

My husband and I, along with our children and other members of our family, participated in this 2/2.5 hour memorable event. I wish I could tell you about every single detail of the Passover because it was all so interesting and exciting, but I will just highlight a few things. 

The Seder plate contained:

-salt water

-Karpas (parsley)

-Z'roah (shank bone) - Our individual plates did not each contain this item, but the speakers plate did

-Maror (bitter herbs)

-Cha-gee-gah (boiled egg)

-Charoset (mixture of apples, honey, nuts, and wine)

Each item signifies certain things and has great meaning wrapped up in it. The karpas was nasty. I am not a fan of parsley and the bitter herbs just about brought tears to everyone's eyes. I think boiled eggs dipped in salt water might just be a new breakfast hit with the kids though ;)

As we went through the Passover, Zohar explained each step and item in great detail. It was so neat to hear him recite/sing most things in the Hebrew language. 

Here is my goofy, but beautiful sister lighting the festival candles (Nay-rot shel Pesach). 

Her husband singed off most of his arm hairs later on in the Passover when he was reaching across the table for something....too bad I didn't get THAT on camera ;) 

And here is my husband breaking the middle Matzah (unleavened bread).

It was so much fun participating in this Passover/Seder. We all learned so much. Of course, after 4 glasses of wine each (aka - grape juice), we were all about to bust our britches...LOL!

I wish I could participate in all the Biblical feasts this way!

CtG Weeks 20, 21, & 22

Here are a few highlights from our weeks...

Art

The kiddos finished painting their fish from a few weeks ago. They did a great job!

My son was not terribly thrilled about having to draw more with the History of Art curriculum, but the fact that it was dragons, made it a little easier. 

I asked the kids to focus on the different parts of the dragon and draw a few of the main parts in each little box.

Next, I asked them to put all the parts together and draw the dragon in its entirety.

On this day, the kids had to draw their own renditions of the angel Michael slaying the dragon as noted in Revelation 12:7-8

A little info about the pictures above...Notice the arrows  by the angels? Apparently, my son said they needed a jump start on flying. So, they pooted which gave them a little extra gas power in order to sustain the flight needed for slaying the dragon during the battle. Boys will be boys, right?!?

Bible
We have been learning about Samuel, David, Goliath, Saul, and Jonathan. They were already familiar with most of these stories, but these have been a great in-depth review.


History
The kids enjoyed the Trojan Horse Story, but they are not terribly fond of The Children's Homer. Sometimes, it is hard for them to follow. We'll stick with this book for a little longer, but I'm not really seeing much value in it.


Science
Science has been a little slow again as the experiments have not been all that appealing. We tried the 'designed for living underwater' experiment (twice) and it did not work either time. The kids enjoyed the 'sense sent scents' activity. They had some difficulty in telling between some of the citrus smells, but they figured them all out in the end.

We did not do many of the experiments and activities called for in the Teacher's Manual these past few weeks...especially the 'fruit fly farm'. Nope, ain't happening. We had a fruit fly plague several months back (everyone was struggling with these in our area) and I was not about to intentionally try to get fruit flies to come back for some experiment!


And just for fun during one of these weeks....the kids designed Minecraft masks and acted out their own Minecraft battle.

Well, there you have the last 3 weeks in a nutshell. Hope your last few were memorable as well :)