Noah’s Ark

Imagine if your family was the only one left in the world! Noah was a good man. In fact, he was the only good man left in the whole world! God was angry with everyone else. The people who lived in the world were cruel to each other. They stole and lied and hurt each other, and forgot about the way God wanted them to live. Noah trusted God. So when God asked Noah to do something strange, he did it!

It’s sometimes difficult to do the right thing. It’s even harder when everyone else around you is doing something different and laugh at you. God told him to build an ark. God planned to send a flood to wash the Earth clean. Only Noah and his family would survive. They would be safe in the ark. God told Noah exactly what shape and size to build the large wooden ark in which his family would escape the floods. Noah was to coat it inside and out with tar to make it waterproof.

Can you think why God told Noah to bring the animals into the ark? Noah did as God asked and built the ark. People watched and wondered. They even laughed at him! What was he doing building a boat so far from the sea? When God made the world, he had put all kinds of animals there to live. So God told Noah to take into the ark two of every living creature, male and female.

God told Noah to store up food to bring on board to feed them all. God wanted there to be animals on the Earth after the flood too. “I will send rain for forty days and nights,” said God, “and a great flood will cover every living thing in the world! Only Noah, his family and the animals Would be safe inside the ark. One week after the people and animals were safely aboard the ark, the first drop of rain splashed down. Then it rained and rained. It rained for forty days and nights, until the rivers, seas rose and flooded the land.

What do you think was the worst thing about being on the ark for so long? The ark started to float on the water. It bobbed about as the water got deeper. Noah and his family heard the sound of the rain drumming on the roof. First the water covered the land, then it covered the trees. Soon even The mountain peaks were hidden by water! Then suddenly after many weeks it was quiet. The rain had stopped. God sent a strong wind to blow and gradually the waters began to go down.

150 days later, the water level had sunk so much that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah opened a window. He chose a raven to fly out but it just flew around in circles waiting for the tree tops to appear. Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to settle, so it returned to the ark.

Noah had to wait many weeks before he found dry land. Can you think of a time when you had to wait patiently for something to happen? A week later, Noah once again let the dove fly away. This time she flew back with an olive leaf in her beak. Now Noah knew that there was something alive and growing in the world. After another week had gone by, the dove went on her third flight. She did not return, so Noah knew she had found somewhere to live.

Now that Noah knew that the Earth must be dry, he made a hole in the roof of the ark and peered out. God called to Noah: “Come out of the ark. Your family is safe. Bring the animals out and let them go free to roam the Earth.” Noah and his family were very happy to be out of the huge boat and back on dry land again. They built an altar to God to say thank you for keeping them all safe.

If you were Noah, what would you do first after the flood? “As long as the Earth remains,” said God, “there will be planting and harvesting, cold and warm weather, winter and summer, day and night. I will bless you,” said God to Noah. “ I promise every living creature on the Earth that I will never again flood the Earth and destroy it. I have put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of my promise.”

Noah’s Ark So, after that time people knew that if it rained they should not be afraid. Whenever the sun shone through the clouds a rainbow appeared, and then everyone remembered God’s promise to Noah.