Bible Bowl Competition Update & Wordkeeping

The Bible Bowl Competition this weekend went well. Three of our four teams advanced. The Junior team lost by only 10 points. It's so exciting to watch young children recall what they have been reading or listening to in the Word!

Jasmine played on the Junior Youth Team that represented our church and Christopher got a chance to play in an exhibition game for children ages 6-9. There is no bracket for his age group at the National Level, but they are working on piquing the interest; the younger the better! Just think of it, by the time Jesus was 12 years old, he was able to confound doctors and lawyers. Wow!

I have not studied like I should, but have committed to read as much as possible before our next competition June 21st at Camp Meeting. I made a set of cds that have only the books we are studying to listen to in my car. They are narrated by Alexander Scourby. He's my absolute favorite to listen to reading the Word. I love his voice and the emphasis he puts on particular words. I find myself noticing things I never noticed just because of the way he reads it.

There were several questions that I knew the answer to because of my journey with Wordkeeping, how exciting! If you are interesting in growing spiritually and having a peace that passes all understanding even in the midst of trials, I admonish you to become a Wordkeeper! He will keep you in perfect peace, if you keep your mind on Him! Isaiah 26:3

Bible Bowl Competition This Weekend

My first Bible Bowl Competition for the year will be held this weekend and I am not ready! I originally joined Bible Bowl because I was not studying like I know I should have been and figured that if I had to compete, hen I would at least have to read or be very embarrassed. So in order to not be embarrassed and at least be able to participate in the games, I read. After a little while it became very exciting and I was reading my Bible everyday and learning things I had never known about stories that I thought I knew well. For instance, did you know that Sampson had a wife before he met Delilah? And that Delilah was never his wife? Who knew??

At any rate, once I got started reading my Word, God started showing me other things and then I wanted to study those things so I wasn't studying my books for Bible bowl. The good news is that through my study, I still come across things that happen to be in the same books that we are studying for Bible Bowl, but the best news is I am studying God's Word!

I tell you there is something life changing about the Word. It can be dull and boring at first, but just keep on reading and sooner or later it will become rivers of living water. I'm not sure how I ever made it without it. Maybe that's why I almost lost my mind!

You want peace? Claim the promise of Isaiah 26:3
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

God is good ALL the time!!

National Bible Bowl Competition

This past weekend the BAYDA (Black Adventist Youth Directors Association) National Bible Bowl Competition was held in Boston Massachusetts on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Boston.



The games were lovely and so was the campus. The teams from my church arrived on Thursday afternoon and the games began on Friday evening.. All teams play one game We won our first game on Friday night. The competition is double elimination so no one is eliminated on the first day.



On Sabbath morning we had Sabbath School and then for the 11 am service Pastor Trevor Baker, the founder of this Bible Bowl, was the speaker of the hour. Pastor Baker's sermon was powerful! He spoke of the story in Luke chapter 2 beginning at verse 42 where Joseph and Mary leave Jesus behind in the temple.

The theme of his sermon was that often times, like Joseph and Mary, we travel through life assuming that Jesus is with us when in fact he is not. Joseph and Mary look for Jesus among their family and friends and much to their disappointment, they did have Jesus or know where to find Him.

And where Jesus? In the temple, right where they left Him. Jesus never leaves us, we leave Him. And if we want to find Him all we have to do is figure out where we left Him and return.

Saturday afternoon the games began again and we won our next game. We lost the next two games and so we were then eliminated coming in 4th place overall. We lost our 4th game and 3rd place by 40 points, but we are not disappointed. We are excited to get studying for next year.

Next year's games will be held in home conference in Dallas Texas!

Bible Bowl Update

The Campmeeting competition was this weekend. Teams from the Arklatex, North Texas and Capitol Cities Federations competed for a chance to advance to the National Competition to be held in Boston, MA the last weekend in October. My church has three teams advancing to the National Competition including the team that I play on.

Here are some pictures of the teams from my church:

Bible Bowl Update

Our Federation (local churches) Bible Bowl competition was held this weekend at my church. We had a wonderful time. All of the teams from my church (Junior Youth, Senior Youth, Young Adult and Adult) won and will advance to the next round to be held at Campmeeting in June. My team won by default, because no one in our division showed up.

All of the teams, including the teams from the other churches did well. It is always amazing to me to watch young children so clearly recall information from the material that they have read.

Here are some pictures of the front and back of the medal. If you zoom in, you will see an oil lamp on top of a Bible.

Each participant of the competition received a medal to wear during the games. The children were surprised when we passed them out before the games began. "Did we win already", some of them asked. "Yes", I replied. If you have opened God's Word and read it, you have won already. :-)

If you do not already have a time set aside in which you and your family read the Word of God, I strongly encourage you to do so. You will not be dissapointed.

Bible Bowl Practice

In order to keep myself encouraged to read and study my Bible everyday, I joined the Bible Bowl Team at my church. Every year, BAYDA (Black Adventist Youth Directors Association) hosts a National Bible Bowl Competition.

Yesterday a few of the churches from my federation met for a practice tournament. I did OK on the books that I have already read, but I have yet to get to Lamentations and Micah (The books for this year are listed in the left column). I should have read Leviticus already, but I have procrastinated! Have you seen how long the chapters are in Leviticus?? I did manage to read chapter 12 since it look comparatively short. :-)

At any rate, I wanted to give you an idea of some of the questions that are asked at the National Competition which will be held somewhere in the Northeast this year. I'll post more details as I get them.

So get your Bibles ready...

Q: Who said it and to whom was it said: "Art thou in health, my brother"?