Free Just Because: The Story of Salvation for Children by Steve Copland Page A

down to rest.
    While he was sitting there some pretty girls came
    along with a mob of sheep to give the sheep water.
    They started to get the water out when some other
    guys arrived with their goats. These guys started
    pushing the girls around and told them they were
    going to take the water first.
    Now before he met the Lord, Moses was a man
    who never seemed to walk away from trouble, and
    here was trouble. Moses wasn’t going to put up with
    seeing girls being bullied by these guys, so he stood
    up and wandered over to the well.
    “Hey, you guys,” he said. “These girls were here
    first so leave them alone.”
    “What are you going to do about it, fella?” asked
    one of the shepherds. “There’re five of us and only
    one of you, so you just go and sit down again.”
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    Moses walked over there and looked this guy
    right in the eyes and said in a cool and firm voice,
    “I’m going to start giving these ladies’ sheep some
    water from the well, and if one or all of you dudes try
    to stop me you’ll find out you picked on the wrong
    man.” Moses stared right at this guy and gave him a
    mean look. The shepherds could see he wasn’t joking
    with them, so like all cowards who get around in
    gangs the shepherds went away. Moses then helped
    the girls draw up the water, and they were very happy
    about it. One of them, whose name was Zipporah,
    starting falling in love with Moses because she could
    see he was a very good man, and I reckon she thought
    he was pretty cute as well. She didn’t know he was
    also a prince, because he didn’t tell anyone, but they
    all thought he was an Egyptian because of his hair
    cut and clothes.
    Moses helped the girls take their sheep home,
    and he wanted to make sure the bad shepherd guys
    didn’t come back to make trouble again. After
    talking to their father they invited Moses to stay for
    dinner. Their father’s name was Jethro, and he was
    a godly man. Jethro asked Moses if he would like
    to stay with them, and he decided he would. Moses
    had noticed the way Zipporah was looking at him,
    and he thought she was very beautiful also. Sounds
    like another romance. So Moses became a shep-
    herd himself. After a while he asked Zipporah if she
    wanted to marry him, and she was very excited and
    of course said yes.
    Yep, another romance!
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    So Moses had a chat with Jethro, and he was very
    pleased for Moses and Zipporah to get married. After
    a wedding and a celebration Moses and Zipporah
    started their own family. They had a baby boy later,
    and although they made their own home Moses felt
    like a stranger in a foreign land. For the next forty
    years Moses traveled around in the land between
    Egypt and Canaan taking the sheep to grass and water.
    He knew the country very well after forty years, and
    this too was part of the Lord’s plan for him.
    Down in Egypt the Pharaoh continued to be
    cruel to the Hebrews. It was now four hundred years
    since Israel had gone to live in Egypt. When they
    went there they were treated like kings, but now
    the Hebrews had been slaves for hundreds of years.
    They prayed hard to the Lord and pleaded with Him
    to help them and to set them free from being slaves.
    The Lord heard their prayers, and He loved them.
    He remembered His promise to Abraham, Isaac and
    Jacob, and He decided the time had come to start the
    next part of His plan. He waited until the Pharaoh
    who knew Moses died, and then He called Moses in
    a very strange way, Just Because He’s the Lord and
    He can call any way He likes.
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    Moses was eighty years old when the Lord
    decided it was time to bring His people out
    of Egypt. Although Moses was eighty he was very
    fit from walking through the desert and mountains
    taking care of the sheep. Now God had a new job for
    him to do. One day as Moses was leading the sheep
    across part of Mount Horeb he saw a bush on fire.
    Now it wasn’t unusual to see a tree on fire in the desert
    because