Resisting gang culture with God’s word

Catherine Pepinster is an author and former trustee of Bible Society. This is what she saw when she visited Guatemala to learn more about the impact of her support, which includes remembering Bible Society in her will.

I would not have thought of turning to the Bible were it not for my school.

My parents were not religious. We did not have a Bible in our home until I asked my godfather for one as a birthday present. Why did I want a Bible? Because of the stories I’d heard at primary school.

Moses in the bullrushes, Daniel in the lions’ den, the miracle of the loaves and fishes – all these were vividly told to us at school. They captured my imagination and made me want to learn about God. 

Since then, Scripture has sustained me in good times and bad, especially when I was being treated for cancer. It was the comfort and the hope I needed as I faced 18 months of medical treatment. 

What is Open the Book?

You may have heard about Bible Society’s Open the Book project. It involves taking the Bible into schools, and sharing the story of salvation with children through dramatised Bible stories. The children learn through re-enactments, singing and dancing, games and reading. It is a serious project, but it’s enormous fun too. 

Open the Book has been so successful in connecting children with the word of God in this country that Bible Society now wants to use it around the globe. Guatemala is one of the first places to take it on and, similar to here, the project relies on dedicated volunteers to retell the Bible stories in schools. 

I will never forget our first visit to a school. With widespread poverty and violent crime involving dangerous, gun-toting gangs, you can imagine the challenges in Guatemala. 

But as we pulled up in our minibus, outside the Mixco public school in the Terra Nueva neighbourhood of Guatemala City, all you could hear was the sound of excited children, eager for an experience they knew would be fun, captivating and memorable. 

As we walked into school with the Open the Book helpers, the noise of little children squealing with delight and talking animatedly gave way to applause. 

It was a Bible story familiar from my own childhood – the account from Exodus of the Israelites leaving Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea was ingeniously but simply depicted with a large blue cloth, decorated with fishes, which closed over the Egyptians as they chased the Israelites. 

Sensing God’s love

At another school – in a neighbourhood so tough that a gang member was gunned down right outside the school gate – I saw how Open the Book develops children’s Christian values. I saw a message of peace being given to children. And they loved it.

Little Eliceo, aged four, told me: ‘I like singing. I like worship. And I like the Bible.’

Then there was 11-year-old Justin, who played an Israelite in the session. ‘I like that God freed me,’ he said. ‘Bible stories help me to be smarter and to learn about God.’

Perhaps most inspiring of all was the school for children with Down’s syndrome. Its founder, Irene de Salazar, told me parents are often scared by the diagnosis and receive little help from the state. 

But Irene, herself the mother of a child who has Down’s syndrome, decided something must be done – so she founded the school. Now Open the Book comes once a week to share Bible stories, stimulate the children, further their education and give them a powerful sense of God’s love.  

Before I visited Guatemala, I knew the importance of Bible Society’s work. But since seeing the work for myself, I don’t just know this with my mind, I embrace it with my heart. 

That is why I support the work not only with prayer but also with a gift in my will. And you can do the same. 

Gifts in wills are a great way to ensure more people to have access to a Bible and opportunities to learn about Scripture. It can mean other children, like those I met in Guatemala, will be inspired by God’s word.

Find out how you can ensure more children will experience Jesus through a gift in your will.

Catherine Pepinster is a journalist, broadcaster and author, as well as a former trustee of Bible Society. In 2003, she became the first female editor of The Tablet. She covers religion and politics for national newspapers. She’s often heard on BBC Radio 4’s religion slot, Thought for the Day.