Moses, Manna and Quails

Lucy Moore

On your marks:

The story of God's provision for Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16) is a classic. Here we think about the good things God gives us every day, but the children's ideas might take you even deeper than that.
This story ties into The Barnabas Children’s Bible series through the Big Story of Famine and Feast.

Get set:

You'll need a map of Moses' journeys, some cooked cold chicken nuggets, wrapped in foil, and some pieces of ricepaper or rice cake, also wrapped up for hygiene purposes. If you can bear to, it would be really good to have some maggots (from an angling shop) in a piece of foil, but keep this separate from the edible food. Please.
You might need some craft equipment, if you're doing step 6.

Go!

1. Find on a map where the Desert of Sin is and point out how far Moses and the people of God had come from Egypt. Either read the story from the Barnabas Bible (52) or a similar child-friendly version of the Bible, or let the group act it out together with edible props as below.

2. Say they'd been on their travels for a month and a half now, and there was nothing around them but wilderness. Sit down as the Israelites and look about you: what can you see? Dry grass? Tumbleweed (or its Middle Eastern equivalent)? Rocks, caves, scorpions, snakes, sand…? What can you hear? What's the temperature like? How does this place make you feel? Let the children conjure up a barren, bleak exposed place.

Remember the good food we had in Egypt! Great pots of stew! Fruit! Watermelons! Bread! Garlic! Let's see you rubbing your tummies as you remember those good meals. Because here in the wilderness, there's… nothing. And you’re very hungry. And when you get hungry you get cross. And the people got cross with Moses. Shake your fists! Grumble! Tell him what you think of him!

(Choose a child to be Moses and sit him in front of the others and let them grumble at him.)

But God said to Moses: ‘I will give you bread in the morning and meat in the evening. Then you will know I am the Lord your God.'

(Scatter some cold wrapped chicken nuggets around.)

And that evening, lots of little birds called quails came and covered the camp, so the people had meat to eat.

(Scatter some wrapped pieces of rice paper or rice cake around.)

And when they got up the next day and looked outside their tents, there on the ground was a strange white wafery stuff. They didn't know what it was, so they called it 'manna', which means 'wotsit' in their language. Moses told them to collect enough for one day. But some people grabbed lots of it, more than they could eat. And by the next day it was smelly and full of maggots. (Bring out your maggots. Sensitively.)

And every day this happened. In the morning came the manna and in the evening came the quail. Every day, they collected enough for each day. Except the day before the sabbath when they could collect two days' worth so that they didn't have to work on the sabbath. And they trusted that God would give them more on the next day. And for forty years, he did!

3. Set out a basic set for this story with a desert box or sandtray, some Playmobil tents or similar, some little figures of people (Playmobil, Lego or wooden figures), some torn paper for manna and some bird shapes for quail. Ask the children to retell the story moving around the set of objects. If they are not very forthcoming, try telling it yourself with lots of mistakes in for them to correct. Younger children might want to continue playing with this equipment.

4. As you look at the visuals, ask why do you think God gave them fresh food every day and didn't let them store it up for the next day?
What things does God give you every day that can't be stored until the next day?

5. Say that Jesus taught his friends a prayer many years after this story, but perhaps he had it in mind when he taught them one of the lines of the prayer. I wonder which line you think goes best with this story? (Discuss the Lord's Prayer briefly.) Let's say this prayer together as we look at the story.

6. Although the manna only lasted one day, the Israelites never forgot how God looked after them every day. This week, keep an eye open for the good things God provides for you. Together you could either decorate the border of a 'Give us today our daily bread' sheet to take home and fill in as a family with the good things God gives you every day; or you could all decorate boxes or baskets and make little torn sheets of paper (manna) to put inside, and on each one, write down a good thing God gives you during the week.

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