Joy! Kids Bible Stories about God's miracles - English by Christian Media Publishing

This colourfully illustrated Bible Story series has been created especially for Joy! Kids. Each story is accompanied by a prayer to help children connect with God. There is also a Christian value that reinforces the story.This book helps children be Joy! Kids. A Joy! Kid celebrates the joy of Jesus by living a joy-filled life.

Guidelines for Parents: Joy! Kids has been compiled with your child’s developmental phases and unique temperament in mind. It helps with faith building, vocabulary, as well as reading skills and emotional development. Turn to page 24 for a full explanation of the icons.

Developmental phases

Unique temperament

Faith building

Vocabulary

Speech

Reading skills

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Listening skills

Suggestions for enjoying this book with your child: • read the Bible Story, • and then talk about the story and Christian value with your child, • finally say the prayer together.

The closer you and your child grow to God; the closer you will grow to each other. ISBN: 978-1-92059-343-8

www.christianmediapublishing.com

Written by Ewald van Rensburg Illustrations by Lilani Brits

Kids celebrate our mighty God!

To my Joy! Kid: _________________ With love from: _________________

Contents: 1. The ten plagues

2. The walls of Jericho

3. Jesus calms the storm

4. Bartimaeus

5. Jesus walks on water!

Publishing Project Manager: Noeline N Neumann Reg No 2010/008573/07 No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means – electronically or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher. Text: Maranatha Publishing: Used by kind agreement. Printed in Malaysia First edition, first printing 2013 ISBN 978-1-920593-43-8 CMP-kids books have been developed with your child’s developmental phases and

unique temperament in mind.

For a full explanation of the unique temperament and developmental phases icons visit the CMP website www.cmpublishing.co.za

about

s God’s miracle

Written by Ewald van Rensburg Illustrations by Lilani Brits

Kids celebrate our mighty God!

1. The ten plagues (Exodus 6-13)

God sent Moses back to Egypt to ask the cruel Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. If Pharaoh refused, God would make bad things (plagues) happen to the Egyptians, but not to the Israelites. Pharaoh said “No!” to Moses, so bad things started happening to the Egyptians.

Jumping frogs and stinging flies were all over the place, there was darkness for three days, and lots of other things. Nothing bad happened to Moses and the other Israelites though! Wow!

After ten bad things had happened, Pharaoh said to Moses, “I’ve had enough. You can all go!”

Come, let’s pray together: Lord, thank You for keeping me safe. Amen

You can depend on the Lord because He always protects His children.

2. The walls of Jericho (Joshua 6)

The city of Jericho had a high, thick wall around it so that enemies couldn’t get in. God promised Joshua that the Israelites would take over Jericho. He explained His plan to Joshua. The Israelites did exactly what God told them to do. Every day, for six days, they walked right around Jericho. On the seventh day they walked around the city seven times.

Then the priests blew their rams horns and everyone else shouted as loud as they could! Suddenly the walls of Jericho collapsed. The Israelites won, as God had promised they would. Come, let’s pray together: Lord, no one else is as strong as You are. Amen

There is no one else like our God in the whole wide world.

3. Jesus calms the storm (Mark 4:35-41)

One day, Jesus was sailing in a boat with His disciples. Jesus was very tired so He fell asleep. Suddenly there was a big storm. The sea became very rough. The disciples were very scared because huge waves were hitting their boat. They woke Jesus up. He saw how scared they were.

Jesus told the storm to stop, and it calmed down at once. Then He said to His disciples: “You must not be scared, because I am here to help you.” Come, let’s pray together: Jesus, thank You that You always help me to calm down when I’m feeling scared. Amen

No one is as strong as Jesus; even storms obey Him.

4. Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52)

Life can be very hard for blind people, because they can’t see anything. Bartimaeus was born blind. From the time he was a little boy, all he could do was sit by the roadside and beg. One day he heard Jesus coming towards him. He shouted, “Jesus, please help me!” The people told him to be quiet, but he shouted louder. Jesus came up to him and helped him.

All at once, blind Bartimaeus could see! He was very happy! From that day on he travelled everywhere with Jesus.

Come, let’s pray together: Jesus, I want to help blind people know how much You love them. Amen

Today Jesus helps blind people by giving them guide dogs and a special Bible that they can read.

5. Jesus walks on water! (Mark 6:45-51)

After Jesus had fed the big crowd with the fish and the bread that the little boy gave Him, He wanted to go and pray alone. So His disciples rowed off in their boat across the lake. The wind started to blow very hard. The disciples were struggling to keep the boat from sinking. Suddenly they saw Jesus walking across the rough sea towards them! He had come to help them.

They got a big fright because they thought He was a ghost! Jesus said to them, “Don’t be scared. It’s Me, Jesus!” As He climbed into the boat, the wind stopped blowing.

Come, let’s pray together: Jesus, You are always with me. You help me to stop feeling scared. Amen

Jesus will always help you because He loves you.

Guidelines for parents Faith Icon

The formation of faith is indeed unique to each child; there are however general characteristics that apply to all children. There are three main ways in which children develop faith: • Parents regularly reading the Bible, telling Bible and other faith based stories, praying together and doing faith building activities with their children (such as the ones found in this book). • Children ask questions – parents need to take these questions seriously and answer them according to the child’s level of understanding. • Children follow the example of those caring for them.

Emotional Intelligence Icon

We experience emotions long before we learn the language that enables us to express how we are feeling. Therefore it is important for children to be taught how to verbalise what they are feeling. Use the illustrations accompanying the stories and ask your child how they think the people or animals in the picture feel. This helps them become aware of their own emotions as well as those of others. It provides a learning opportunity where the child can learn appropriate words to express how they are feeling.

Reading Icon

A wonderful world opens up for your child when they start learning to read. Enjoy every moment of this exciting adventure with your child. Let them sit on your lap where they can be comfortable and feel safe and secure. Open the book holding it so that you can both see the pages. Read clearly and with enthusiasm. As you know you can read the same story over and over. Point out where you are reading with your finger as you go along. This will help your child to begin to see the relationship between letters, sounds, words and their meaning. Encourage your child’s attempts at reading – even if it sounds like gibberish.

Listening Skills Icon

Listening is an important learning and developmental skill. You can help develop this skill in your child by encouraging them to listen attentively, and understand what they are hearing. Let them look at the illustrations and then use their imagination to tell the story back to you in their own words. You can also encourage them to do this by asking questions relating to the story. Yet another way is to leave out words from a story the child knows well and let them fill in the missing words.

Vocabulary Icon

Use every opportunity to build your child’s vocabulary – this is a lifelong gift that you are giving to them. Start with everyday objects and people in the illustrations in books. Point at the picture, say the word, form a short sentence using the word. Repeat it again and then let your child say the word. Try to use the word in another context – if there is a tent in the picture you are looking at then say: we sleep in a tent when we go camping.

Numeracy Skills Icon

It is important for your child to develop numeracy skills. Play simple games such as: “How many ducks are there in the picture? If we add two more ducks how many are there now? Then if three fly away? (use your fingers to illustrate this) How many are left?” They also need to recognise the shape of numbers – cut large numbers from cardboard – let your child play with these – place the numbers in order forming a line from one to ten.

Developmental phases

Unique temperament

Faith building

Vocabulary

Speech

Reading skills

abo ut

e God’s miracl

Listening skills

Suggestions for enjoying this book with your child: • read the Bible Story, • and then talk about the story and Christian value with your child, • finally say the prayer together.

The closer you and your child grow to God; the closer you will grow to each other. ISBN: 978-1-92059-343-8

www.christianmediapublishing.com

Written by Ewald van Rensburg Illustrations by Lilani Brits

Kids celebrate our mighty God!