4 Young People Compete for Trip to San Antonio

By Libna Stevens, IAD

Four young people from the Caribbean and South America will face off in a Bible contest in hope of winning a trip to the General Conference session in San Antonio, Texas, in July.

The winners of annual Bible Boom contests across the Adventist Church’s Inter-American Division since 2011 will gather in Florida for the final Super Bible Boom on May 9.

The four finalists will be asked 50 questions from 22 books of the Bible in front of an audience of more than 150 senior leaders during the division’s business meetings at its Miami headquarters. The program will also be streamed over the Internet.

Each finalist specialized in certain books of the Bible for their previous contest victories and has branched out into other books for the final showdown.

“I am overwhelmingly excited and simply praying that I depend solely on God’s divine providence as I read His Word,” said Waylon Johnson, 30, of the Bahamas, who won the 2011 title by reading the biblical books Luke and Acts dozens of times.

The 2012 winner, Victor M. Jaimes, 27, of Colombia, said studying the Bible was not complicated.

“There is really no secret or special technique to study the Bible,” said Jaimes, who studied Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians in 2012. “It’s just reading it every day, coupled with prayer and respect.”

Myriam Orozco, 21, of Mexico, won the 2014 title with her knowledge of the books of the minor prophets Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah. She said she is devoting a lot of time studying and praying the remaining 16 books she will be tested on during the final competition.

The winner will get a chance to grab the top prize of becoming a youth delegate representing the Inter-American Division during the Adventist world church’s General Conference session, which is held every five years. An inaugural Super Bible Boom was held before the 2010 session in Atlanta, Georgia.

The competition, organized by the division’s youth ministries department, saw the biggest turnout these past four years since starting a related Bible reading initiative in 2004, said Louise Nocandy, an associate youth ministries director and the organizer of the Super Bible Boom.

“We praise the Lord because the interest for the Bible Boom across the territory has been growing among our more than 1.5 million young people,” Nocandy said.

The competition has expanded to include children from Adventurer Clubs at local churches, he said.

This is the first time that the four finalists represent the three major languages of the division’s territory, Nocandy said.

“We are so excited because this is a perfect representation of young people sending the powerful and motivating message that no matter what language you speak — Spanish, English, or French — you can be a winner,” he said.

Youth leaders across the division not only rejoice for the accomplishments of the four finalists but for the hundreds of thousands of young people who continue to study the Bible week by week, month by month, and year by year, Nocandy said.

“Our young people matter to God, and we pray they continue being connected to Jesus claiming the promises found in the precious Sacred Book,” he said.

Inter-America’s Super Bible Boom competition will be held May 9 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m (Miami time) in Spanish, English, and French at webcast.interamerica.org.