MAST

On the 8th of October 2024 Hannah Wills from MAST came to deliver our worship. Hannah began by recapping the story of Daniel and the Lions, from her previous visit, and that this is a story from the Old Testament. Today’s story from the Old Testament was Ezra and Nehemiah. The children learnt that these names had meanings. Ezra means ‘help is here’ and Nehemiah means ‘God wipes away our tears’. Through role play and PowerPoint presentations the children were able to learn this story. When the people returned to Jerusalem, Ezra was helping people to pray in the temple and Nehemiah was helping to rebuild the city. However, the people of the city were being unkind to one another and not following the values that God had taught them. Ezra and Nehemiah used the stories of the first five books of the Old Testament (the Torah) to give readings to the Jewish people and this was like showing them a mirror in which they saw how unkind they had been. Ezra could see how sad they were and so he decided that they would have a party and he told the people ‘God wants us to be happy!’ Ezra and Nehemiah continued to read the people of Jerusalem stories about God and his people and the wonderful things God had done for them, so that they could continue to live in the way God had planned.