100

On April 27th, 2010, I wrote a short story that was actually short. Since then, I have made sets of stories, ten at a time. Last night, I finished the tenth set.
I wrote 100 short stories in one year! Sorry, I'm kind of excited.
Hmmm.... Maybe I should post one on here. Let's see....

Being Brave
by Elora


People always tell me I'm brave, but I'm not always brave. No one's always brave. Mama's not always brave either, especially since Papa got arrested. Sometimes she needs to go into her room to cry and pray. I help her make meals and watch my brothers and sisters a lot now.
They still get scared too. Miki has a lot of nightmares about when they took Papa. I was scared then too. We were just having church, like we do every week. I was sitting with some friends who go to my school and Papa was preaching when the police came in. They ordered us all to come out. Then they burned the church and ripped our Bibles. Miki was crying and holding onto Mama when a big man yelled at him to be quiet. Finally, they left anyone go. Everyone but Papa.
Yesterday, we were walking to school. I saw a man like the ones who took Papa away. I wanted to run up to him and scream, “What did you do with him?! Where did you take my papa?!” But I didn't.
As soon as I got home, I saw Mama cooking. She was crying. I was crying too, because kids were making fun of me about Papa being in prison. My friends were sometimes afraid to talk to me. Mama and I hugged each other hard,and cried for a long time.
When we stopped, I said, “I want to do something to help Papa, but there's nothing I can do.”
“That's not true, Sasha,” Mama replied, “There's one thing we can always do.”
So we prayed.

Keep on glowing in the dark,
Elora

Bible Be

I want to tell you about a great opportunity to be in the word of God this summer! Last year, I was part of the Shelby Kennedy National Bible Bee. It is going on again this year. The Bible Bee is kind of like a spelling bee, but with Bible verses instead of spelling words. It was an amazing experience for me in the word of God. I learned so much and grew closer to God through it. For the verse memorization, the Shelby Kennedy foundation sends you Bible verses to memorize. If you are ages 7-10, they will send you 250 verses. Ages 11-14 memorize 500 verses (that's the group I was in last year). If you are High School age, 15-18, they will send you 800 verses(that's what I'm doing this year). If you only want to compete in the local Bible Bee, then you can memorize less verses. However many verses you memorize, though, you are still getting the word of God into your heart. The local competitions take place in local churches on August 27th. The highest scorers go on to the National Bible Bee in November. Also , with the verses, you will get a Bible Study on a certain book of the Bible, you study this by yourself and as a family. On the day of the Bible Bee, you will have a written quiz on this book. Every week or month you will meet with your local Bible Bee church to practice verses with other kids. I you are interested, check it out on : http://www.biblebee.org/ This is a tremendous undertaking, and it takes a lot of hard wok and commitment, but I think the rewards of learning to love God's word are worth it. Keep on glowing in the dark, Elora