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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Children's Bible Quizzing--in Ukraine

Many years ago, one of the missionary families told Iryna from Kyiv First Church about Children's Bible Quizzing.  One of the men from the church made quiz boxes, but the program never got off the ground.

The most recent Children's World Bible Quiz was held in June 2009 at the General Assembly in Florida.  Here, Iryna saw Bible quizzing -- and had the dream of starting Bible quizzing in Ukraine.

A few weeks ago, I met with Iryna and Andriy (another pastor in the city) to begin with logistics and general information about quizzing.  We discussed some general rules and ideas about quizzing.  Later, Tanya arrived and we divided the book of Matthew into sections for individual lessons that will be taught at weekly Kids' Clubs throughout the district.  We parted ways that night, with tasks to complete -- I was to read through the rules posted online and consolidate them for easy translating.  Not only this, but I was to find some sample questions and materials to give Iryna ideas.

Thanks to my friends Patsy and her son Billy @ the Wolly church, I was able to get a few sample pages from the student and leader books from this year's study (1 and 2 Samuel).  These proved very helpful, as I was reminded that questions could have "All of the above" as an answer option.

Just a week later, about twelve of us gathered at church to discuss the philosophy and begin writing questions.  Because quizzing material does not yet exist in Russian, we have to make our own questions We agreed that the material would be written in Russian, based on the Russian Synodal Version of the Bible, rather than Ukrainian, to make it more available across the CIS Field.

Imagine:  Children's Bible quizzing starts in Kyiv and the rest of the Ukraine district, then radiates throughout the rest of the former Soviet Union into central Asia as more and more children dig deeply into the study of God's Word.  Through this, they learn that God cares for them and that they can have a relationship with Him.

Pastor Vova translated for me while I listened at first, and then after a while he stopped.  This was fine with me, except for when I needed the occasional word translated, because I understood about half of what was said because I knew the context.  The leaders listened and asked questions, and occasionally I chimed in -- sometimes clarifying the differences between children's and teen quizzing, and sometimes just explaining some of the rules/procedures.  One time I even answered one of Phillip's questions--he asked in Russian (to the whole group) and I answered in English!

I'm glad that God can use even my experience as a quizzer to help Ukrainians start new ministries for their churches.  I'm excited to see what happens!

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