Now that summertime is here it's Bible School season. Cheerful little faces will shine as churches in Commerce City and throughout the country are filled with young people who come to Bible School so they can learn about God and His great love for the children. They'll spend a week or two listening to interesting Bible stories, making lovely things to take home, playing games, singing and eating treats with their friends. Caring adults put a lot of effort and work into that special time. Over the years I have helped teach Bible School and I love it as much as the kids do.
Bible School brings back memories of happy times of long gone days.
My parents left the Adventist Church when we moved to Colorado. They helped start a small branch of a church called the Lord Our Righteousness that met on Saturday mornings in a rented hall. I liked the church and was happy there. I was in the 7th grade and taking music lessons. It was my first experience at playing the piano for congregational singing and I loved it. My Dad and I sang specials. We went to friends' homes for lunch on Saturdays and we had them come to our house for meals.
In the hot summertime we had evening church picnics in the La Junta City Park. It was a lovely place, with tables and grills, cool, shady trees and a big lake. What fun it was to eat picnic meals with loved ones from the church.
But the little branch crumbled and my parents stopped going to church for a long time. My soul was starved for God and I missed the good times we had so I went to church functions with my pals. In those churches I found the kind of things I was yearning for, young people's meetings, good parties and Bible schools.
One year I went with a friend to Bible School in the Nazarene Church. She had 21 brothers and sisters. It staggered my mind thinking of cooking for that many kids, but what good family times they must have had with so many brothers and sisters. It was amazing that her mother could get all of her family ready for church.
That Bible School stands out in my mind because I got a prize at the closing ceremonies for memorizing the 13th chapter of Corinthians--the love chapter. I don't remember what the prize was but the reward has remained with me for many years and the chapter is still one of my favorites. I've never forgotten it and still have it partly memorized. I learned it in the King James Version but the newer versions of the Bible substitute the word love for charity.
"1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not love I am nothing.
3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profits me nothing.
4. Love suffers long, and is kind, love envies not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.
5. Does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil.
6. Rejoices not in iniquity but rejoices in the truth.
7. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8. Love never fails, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease, whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9. For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."
If people practiced love instead of hate there would be no more shootings, no road rage and wars would finally come to an end. Little children who attend Bible School would have nothing to fear as they grow into adults and could look forward to a happy and peaceful future.