Proud Parents...

Yesterday, our oldest son Jorden went to the ACEA (Alabama Christian Education Association) Academic State Competition representing our school in the Bible Sword Drill category. He, along with a 5th grade girl from our school competed against a total of 21 students from other Christian Schools from around our state. Each school may send 2 students each. This was Jorden's second year to go. Our school only sends students from 5th and 6th grade (although as young as 4th grade may enter the competition but no older than 6th). We held an "in-school" competition to decide which two students will represent our school. Jorden's teacher, Jessica Sickler does a wonderful job of preparing her students. Our school is small and we have joint classes-so she works with both the 5th and the 6th grade students for several months. They have the material that they will be "tested" over to study by. Now this sword drill is nothing like it was when you and I were in school or Sunday School. It is not simply seeing who is the fastest at finding John 5:13 ect. That is one of the categories, but they also must learn topical drills (they give you a word such as "burden" and you have to find that word-not a form of- in the Bible), character drills (they give you a name such as "Lydia" and you have to find her name in the Bible), unfinished quotation...(they give you part of a verse for you to find, not very many are "easy, well known verses"), book drills (you have to find the book they call out then, when one of the judges comes up to you, you whisper in her ear the book before and the book after), and doctrinal drill (they give you a doctrine like "the Lord Jesus died for all" and you have to find a verse that tells that). So as you can see this is very hard!! At the competition, they divide the students into two groups, with one student from each school in each group. The ask the 2nd group to leave the room and go to a different area where they can't hear or see what is going on. The first group (Jorden was in this one) then competes each other. They put tape across the platform and do the "attention, salute, draw your swords (Bibles)". They then must hold their Bibles with one hand on top, and one on the bottom with their thumbs facing the spine of the Bible. Then the person that calls out all this stuff tells they what category they will do that time. He then tells them what it is and repeats it then says "Charge!" Then all the kids race to find it then they step across the tape. They all have 15 seconds to find it. The first one across gets 10 points, the second one gets 5 and the rest get 1 point each. If you stepped across and didn't have it right you get a -10 points. They asked about 18 questions in a round. They picked the top 3 scores from that round, then go to the second round and repeat the same thing, and pick the top 3 scores from that group. Then those 6 children compete again in the same manner, just different questions. Let me tell you, it is very exciting, but EXTREMELY nerve wracking for the parents (and grandparents) that are watching. Ha! Jorden did very well, in fact he came in first place!! From what we could tell (a friend was keeping score for me) he won by 1 point! The other student from our school came in 3rd so we were thrilled with our school's representation!! (By the way, Jorden won 1st place last year also!)

Below are pictures I took yesterday. They are not all that great, but at least you will have some idea what it was like. We also had some Jr. High and Sr. High students from our school to win in other categories. I listed them with the pictures.

The biggest prize of all is how much of God's Word Jorden has hidden in his heart. I just get goose bumps thinking about how God will use that in his life for the rest of his life. God promises us that His Word will always be with us to give us wisdom and comfort and keep us on His path if we will hide it in our hearts. No matter what happened yesterday, I knew Jorden had already won the greatest prize of all! I again want to say how much I appreciate his teacher working with him and his classmates on this. Not all of his classmates come from Christian homes, but they all had to study and learn this material. Think how God can use that in their lives from here on!! I also want to say how proud Jeff and I are of Jorden for working so hard to learn this material. He is an awesome kid! We are so blessed!

This is a picture of part of the group Jorden competed against. He is right in the middle. The girl on the left (Candace) is the 5th grade student also from our school. They are being numbered and divided into their groups at this point.

We had a Jr. High and Sr. High team enter the Bible Quiz Competition. The Jr. High team came in 2nd place! There were only 3 students on our team-Whitney, Skyler, and Dakota. I forgot to take a picture of the Sr. High team.

This is Candace receiving her ribbon. I was trying to take a picture of Jorden receiving his, but they crossed paths. He is directly behind her, but you can't see him at all. ha! Sorry about the ladies hand in part of the picture. My camera has a delay and this was the best I could do in a hurry.

This is Alissa-she is in Jorden's class-she won 3rd place for Music Theory testing.

I barely caught this student, Andrew (high school) who won 2nd place in History/Geography testing. He also got a superior rating in Color Digital Photograpy.

My mom got to go with me to watch Jorden compete. My dad also got to pop in for the first round, before he had to go back to work. Jeff was in the middle of a crisis at his work and unfortunately did not get to come. He was so disappointed!

Some of the winners left before we could catch them for this group shot. The guy on the end, Jac, is in 12th grade and won first place in both Black/White photography and color photography. He will be reresenting our school at National Comptetion at Bob Jones University in South Carolina in a few months.

Jorden with his teacher, Miss Sickler. She is an awsome teacher!

We really love and appreciate her!

Getting ready to take the group shot. On the way home, Jorden said

his face hurt from smiling so much! ha!

One more group shot...

We had a 3rd place winner in the Jr. High Spelling Bee-John and we had an excellent rating for a Sr. High School student, Amanda (I forget what grade she is in)for her water color painting. They had already left when we took pictures.

Next month we go to Fine Arts Competition. Both Jorden and Taylor are going this year. I hope to have lots of happy news from that one also! There is lots of work to be done between now and then.