Winning Bibles

Do you remember your first Bible?  Or are you like so many of us who recieved children's Bibles and children's Bible story books from so early on that you don't even remember the thrill of holding your very first Bible in your hands?

The families in our programs live below the poverty level.  Owning much of anything is a luxury.  A family Bible is a treasure.  A child's own personal children's Bible is a far off dream.

Thanks to a local ministry in Guatemala, we have been able to furnish most of the children in our Little Giants Bible Club with Bibles.  This local ministry donates all the Bibles we need, but there is a catch.  In order to obtain the Bible, each child must memorize 20 Bible verses.  This ministry provides a lively print out of the required verses for the children to take home and study.  On a set date the children show up, recite the verses, and leave happily with their own Bible.

Memorizing 20 verses is no easy task.  So the ABA staff takes it upon themselves to set aside 4 weeks of class prior to the "test" to help the children study and memorize the verses.  Through a series of games and memorization activities our goal is to review nearly all of the verses.  We choose 5 verses per week.  Then we brainstorm to come up with unique, interesting games and activities that will help the children remember the verse.  Some verses were put to song, others to chants and cheers.  Each verse was presented in a way that would promote memorization.

This year we found that class time did not permit us teach all 5 verses in one session.  So we challenged the children.  The challenge consisted of each child taking it upon him or herself to memorize the verses we studied in class plus the ones we didn't get to.  The following week the children who had successfully memorized the 5 verses from the previous week won a candy bar.

It was great fun to teach the verses and even more fun to watch the children as they put forth a valient effort to memorize the verses each week, then proudly choose a candy bar as a reward for a job well done.

Despite our best attempts to teach all the verses, we were faced this year with back to back tropical storms right in the middle of our Bible verse learning.  On one occasion we were forced to cancel classes due to the danger involved for the children and our staff to venture out in the weather.  However, even in the face of all the odds, 3 children were able to memorize the 20 verses and carry home Bibles this year.

In years past we have had as many as 15 children win the Bibles.  The discrepency in this year's number is easy to explain.  Each child may only win a Bible once.  While we allowed all of them to participate in the candy bar prizes, only those children who had not previously won a Bible were eligible for the Bible on test day.While only 3 children successfully learned 20 verses, several others came very close- memorizing 15 or so verses.  They were praised and encouraged to try again next year. 

Our goal is to see a Bible in the hands of every child.  And not only a Bible in every hand, but the verses in every heart and the principles lived out in every life.