Little Miss Rich and Little Miss Poor

 (154)                                                                                                                                                                           KEY STAGE 2 &3

VISUAL AID: Fake fur coat, cream cake, toy dog, bell, horn, peg, wigs

Idea taken from the Parable of  Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16.19)

Choose two characters to represent LMR and LMP, and one to be the wise old man. The volunteers mime the following drama at the front of assembly with props and wigs if possible.

Come with me to a village not so very far away from here.

Two little ladies live here.

Let’s meet the first one.

Her name is Little Miss Rich.

Here she is.

Can you see her luxurious hair, her fine clothes, all in fashion and very expensive.

Here is her house .

It is big and grand, with huge gardens full of grand lawns, fruit orchards and magnificent shrubs.

Next to the house is her double garage.

Her husband’s car is a Mercedes, hers is a Porsche so she can go shopping till her heart’s content at *Silverlink and the* Metro Centre. (*local upmarket shopping centres)

She has everything she needs and lives a life of luxury.

She loves to go on holiday and top up her tan.

She like to have her nails manicured every week.

She goes to the local Country Club to swim and have a relaxing massage whenever she can.

She likes to spend money more than anything else, and now has large collections of clothes, shoes and ornaments and gold and silver jewellery stuffed into her cupboards, which of course are all antiques.

And she has a dog named Foo-Foo..

She looks very happy doesn’t she?

She gives very little thought to the lady who lives at the other end of the village.

Here she is.

Her name is Little Miss Poor.

You always know when you are near to Little Miss Poor’s house, because a strange smell gets stronger and more foul with each step!

The smell comes from the rubbish dump where she lives in a hut, put together with old bits of wood and corrugated iron.

(Little Miss Rich puts a peg on her nose)

Here there are flies and mosquitoes everywhere. Little Miss Poor ignores them now, but her skin is sore because of them.

(She rubs her skin)

She cleans her little kettle every day to boil water for her family and also to clean it because so many ants climb inside, when she is not using it.

Her five children are outside right now, but they’re not playing. They are scrambling over the rubbish dump, searching carefully for food, left-over food...or even for something that they might be able to sell for money, to buy food. They can do this every day, as there is no school here for them to attend.

Little Miss Poor gives her children a wave from the door of her house, she loves them so, but s he’s afraid they might catch a nasty disease one day from the dump.

She would love to join them and help them, but then...there’s yet another baby to look after.

The Wise Old Man of the village, Father Abraham, knocks at Little Miss Rich’s door and asks her to help Little Miss Poor, but she has no time to listen, she is far too busy playing with Foo-Foo.

Then something awful happens.

Little Miss Rich and her husband lose everything.

They had money in the bank, and now it has all gone. The banks have been very careless with their money.

They cannot afford to keep their house’ it’s now worth half of what they are paying for it, and now they can’t sell it.

Suddenly Little Miss Rich has become very poor indeed.

She is in shock!

She has nothing to eat.

She will soon have to leave her home, and Foo-Foo behind.

She goes to see the Wise Old Man, Father Abraham.

“Father Abraham!” she cries,

“Tell Little Miss Poor, to give me something to eat, I am so hungry. I have nothing!

PAUSE...

Can you guess what Father Abraham is about to say....

Can you finish our story?

 (use bell and horn for right and wrong answers)

What does he say to her?

Is it...

a) Go knock at her door and ask her yourself? (Horn ~wrong)

b) She is going to send help immediately? (Horn ~ wrong)

c) You had everything and didn’t care for anyone but yourself, now you are able to feel the agony of it all (Bell ~ correct)

Jesus himself told a very similar story in the Bible in St Luke’s gospel Chapter 16 beginning at verse 19, if you want to look it up.

He told it to shock people who have so much, into seeing that they have a real responsibility to look after those in the world who really are poor.

In this parable he seems to be asking us...

“If all this poverty were your lot in life, what would you want others to do for you?”

Pause for thought.

                               Then go do it for others!