The Grand Prize

The Grand Prize

Each fall for the past six years the youth ministry has run a Scripture Memorization Program where youth memorize Scripture verses and receive an entry for each verse. Then we have a drawing at Christmas time for a grand prize. Every year we have run this program, the grand prize has improved. The first year the it was an iPod. The next two years an iPad. Then the group voted that it should be a free mission trip. Needless to say, participation has grown each year and the students have learned hundreds of Scripture verses.

This fall the group decided that the grand prize would be either a free mission trip or an electronic device up to a value of $750. This really inspired everyone! We had 21 different students participate and they memorized over 380 verses. However, in the last month two students really separated themselves from the rest. August Bodin and Claire Bodin pushed themselves and each other to learn more verses.

 
Now, let me fill you in on some more of the back story. Claire won the free mission trip last year with 64 entries and set a new Scripture Memorization Program record. The old record was shared by Christina Aspinwall and Abbie Wagner at 63 entries. Claire also lost her cell phone during a youth room clean-up last summer, so she was determined to win and buy herself a new phone.

August Bodin had his own reasons for learning so many verses, but sibling competition was definitely part of the deal. I think he also realized just how good his memory was and keeping up with Claire was easy in the beginning.

I always post the official entries in November to encourage the students to learn more in the last month leading up to the drawing. Here is the official entry list (top six students only) from November 5, 2015:

Scripture Memorization Program Entries to Date

Claire Bodin                            60
August Bodin                           46
Sydney Wright                         24
Franco Urra-Morffiz               22
Matthew Wagner                   16
Joshua Bartley                         12

In December, things intesified. The drawing is always at the Youth Christmas Party and this year’s party was scheduled for Friday, December 18. Students can only recite verses during youth bible study meetings on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Claire and August started telling me verses in my office with the door shut so that the other one wouldn’t know what verse they had memorized. Claire even recited verses to me during a Gaga Ball game one Wednesday night. August plays Gaga ball with a passion, so he wasn’t paying attention. On the other hand, August liked to whisper his verses to me even with the office door shut. Both of them made me promise not to reveal which verses they were memorizing or how many they recited on a given day.

By the week of the Christmas party, August and Claire had separated themselves from the rest of the students. This is the final official entry list (top six students) from December 15, 2015:

Official Scripture Memorization Program Entries 2015

Claire Bodin                            109
August Bodin                           90
Sydney Wright                         28
Franco Urra-Morffiz                28
Matthew Wagner                   22
Joshua Bartley                         12

Both August and Claire had blown the old record of 64 entries away! Now, remember, it is just a drawing. Anyone can win. Ask Cameron Gray. He won the Grand Prize in 2012 with three entries. By the way, do not bring this up around Abbie Wagner. With their record breaking efforts, there was still a chance August and Claire might not win the Grand Prize, but the odds were clearly in their favor.

At the Christmas party, Zebastian Alzamora was visiting as a youth alumnus. Zebastian is now in college in Texas. As a visiting dignitary, I asked him to do the drawing. I recuse myself from the official drawing and always have a neutral party draw the winners from the giant bubble gum container used to mix all the official entries.

Zebastian drew out three winners. I carefully placed them in order on the table next to the mini Christmas tree where our gift exchange presents had previously been piled up.

The drawing is always the last part of our Christmas party. Students must be present to win any prize in the drawing. You can Skype in, under the Cameron Gray rule, if you are out of town or sick or have an excuse acceptable to the group. By the way, do not bring up the Cameron Gray skype rule around Abbie Wagner. This year Marco Trillo was in Argentina and the skype program on our old Mac computer wouldn’t work. The group voted to allow Marco to win if his name was drawn given that he had tried to skype several times and his poor mother, Cari Gardner, was texting me madly all day from South America. I reminded everyone of the rules and we began to turn over the winning entry cards.

August Bodin won the Grand Prize! And everyone was a good sport for the most part, but it was intense. Claire received the prize for having the most entries without winning, incidentally a prize which began the year Cameron Gray won. Sydney Wright won second place and Franco Urra-Morffiz won third place.

The next day during Mission Miami, when the youth visit the elderly of the church for Christmas, August asked to speak to me in private. He asked me to buy an iPhone 6 for his sister, Claire, as his Grand Prize. He also wanted to know if I could get it to him before Christmas so that he could wrap it for her. Luckily, I have a friend who owns a phone store and he had one iPhone 6 left. The Holy Spirit just works that way. It was a special Christmas in the Bodin house.

August and Claire and all of the students memorized a lot of verses this year. The real lesson, though, is that you cannot intake that much of God’s Word without His Spirit having a profound effect on you. That is the real Grand Prize.
 

Winners: Sydney Wright, August Bodin, Franco Urra-Morffiz, and Claire Bodin

 

August & Claire on Christmas morning.