My Little Theologian

Mat and I have been serving in Awana at our church, Harvest Bible Chapel. We help with the first grade class by leading them from worship time to group time, to the classroom where we listen to them recite scripture they have memorized, and finally lead them to game time. It's really quite simple, and oh, so rewarding! Often, it's loud and noise, the kids can get out of control, and we wonder what the kids are really getting out of this. We're tired by the end of a long Wednesday too so they loud resonates in my fatigued mind.

Andrew has really gone all out with the memory work. He's flew through 2 books and now he is going through them again as "review" to see what he's retained. Much to my surprise, he has retained all (I don't know 30?) verses he's learned, and he can say the scripture and reference without refreshing his mind by looking back at the verse. The books also come with a CD which includes Bible stories along with the verses they are to memorize in Awana.

Just one week ago, Andrew asked if he could take the school CD player into his room so he could listen to CD's in his room. He's taken to listening to the Awana CD each night before he goes to sleep.

Last night, we went to eat dinner with our friends, and on the way there Mat asked Andrew if he knew who Saul was. Andrew replied that he had his name changed to Paul etc. Mat told him that was one Paul, but the other Saul was the king when David fought Goliath. Andrew said he didn't remember the story of that Saul, but he did know how David became king. Andrew continued to recount the entire story of David becoming king with all the details in the Bible. About a minute into the story Andrew was giving us about King David, Mat and I both realized that he was reciting pages and pages of his Awana book as he had memorized it from listening to it on his Awana CD. We were speechless and allowed Andrew to continue for about 10 minutes (all of which he had memorized in less than 1 week all on his own).

Andrew has a passion for learning God's word like I've never seen in a young child before. He has been taking the King James Version of the Bible in the car for a few days, and he's been looking up all the scripture he learned in Awana (in the NIV) so he can see how it differs. We finished our Bible curriculum on Friday, and today, we dove into 1 Samuel so we could learn all about the life of David from beginning to end, and my little Theologian is soaking it all in and asking questions that I'm going to need to contact a Bible scholar to answer!

I am very proud of him, and I'm am ever so grateful for his hunger of God's word! The video I've posted is Andrew with some other Awana students reciting scripture they memorized in front of our church. Aren't these children adorable, and doesn't this encourage you to hide God's word in your heard?!