By Jackie Boyer, Assistant Director
This past weekend I had the privilege of serving as a counselor for the December Bible Adventure Weekend retreat. Bible Adventure is a released time program where public school students in grades 3-5 are released from school for an hour during the school day for religious instruction. My junior counselor and I stayed in a cabin with 13 girls and out of the 13, 10 currently participate in Bible Adventure programs through Joy El.
In our first small group session, we were discussing ways to actively live out your faith. I was so inspired by the response from these girls. They told story after story of times that they have told friends about Christ, invited them to church, and prayed with friends to begin a new relationship with Christ. They also talked about how they have mentored younger children when they were scared, telling them “you’re never alone, God is with you.” One girl even teaches a preschool Sunday School class at her church!
I noticed that 11 out of the 13 girls regularly participated in conversation and had active examples and 2 never really spoke. And the 2 were both girls who were not Bible Adventure students. It was evident that participating in Bible Adventure has helped the 11 girls to have a more solid faith foundation and they are already actively sharing their faith with confidence amongst their peers.
I’m grateful that I had this opportunity to get to know these girls personally and I thank our God that we have programs for students available all throughout the year allowing them to deepen their faith in God.
If you’re interested in enrolling your child in Bible Adventure, check out the list of schools where the program is available here. Enrollment can easily be done online here: Enroll.
Learn more about released time religious education at these links:
https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/religion-in-public-schools/release-time
https://www.releasedtime.org/released-time-programs
