A Faithful Friend

 

 

Material

• Trailer of the movie Hatchi

Steps

 

1. If you have a dog, talk to the children about the ways you can say that your dog is faithful: he waits for your return home, he monitors your arrival, he follows you around the house or the yard and he stays close to you while you work or you play.
2. If you don’t have a dog, take the time to visit someone (or invite someone into your class) who has a dog and ask the owner how his dog demonstrates his loyalty.
3. Show the trailer for the movie Hatchi
   • This is the story of a man in Japan who found a dog and called it Hatchiko. He took Hatchiko and went home and they became good friends. In fact, Hatchiko would come and wait for him outside the station every day for him to come home. One day, the man died. Yet the dog continued to come to the station for 10 years to wait for the man even after he had died.
4. Tell the children that Ruth’s story is about faithfulness. It’s about staying with someone even when the person is difficult or going through difficult times. It’s not always easy! Naomi was probably not a great woman to have fun: she was bitter and the things she said were not always good. She was angry with God and thought God was against her because her husband and sons died. Ruth, one of Naomi’s daughters-in-law, decided to stay with Naomi, even though Naomi had told her to go home. Imagine if you had just married someone and they died. Would you stay with your mother-in-law or would you rather go back to your home? None of us would want to stay with Naomi. But Ruth was a good, faithful friend, she stayed with Naomi and decided not to go home. Instead, she followed Naomi and took Naomi’s people as her own people and Naomi’s God as her own.

 

Questions to discuss with children

 

• If you were a dog, what kind would you like to be?
• How can we say that our dog is faithful?
• Do we have to be faithful even when others are not?
• Have you ever said, “I’m not your friend anymore” because you were angry?
• How can we be faithful to God?