In February, one of our Reentry Coordinators came up with the idea of hosting Bible Trivia nights on Wednesday evenings for the men at our Golden Valley Campus. The idea behind this was to create a space and time for our residents to come together after dinner to increase the sense of fellowship, learning and fun! Every other week, one of our Reentry Coordinator’s, Jonathan Dumas, picks several chapters from the Bible for the resident’s to focus and read up on. Then on Wednesday of that week Jonathan writes up a quiz on the biblical themes, characters and events in those passages, while also throwing in some random general trivia questions about various things in God’s creation. The men are incentivized to participate because we also have prizes from donations we’ve received once trivia time is over. However, we’ve already found that the bonding, laughter and connection that ensues from these game nights is what really draws the men to engage with the content. We’ve also noticed how attentive the men are to the parts of the Bible that we focus on each week and how well they’ve done in answering the trivia questions!

It is exciting to see our residents opening up God’s Word. During the first week, one resident got all twenty questions correct! And on our most recent Bible Trivia night, some great conversation between residents and staff continued on afterwards about some of the interesting features of the Biblical texts. Last week, Jason was our champion, we will see what happens tonight!

The charisma and creativity of Jonathan Dumas has led to the success of this new facet of life at Damascus Way. He has played a major role in encouraging many of our residents to attend this weekly event, followed by the wonderful meals that our Food Services Coordinator, Rosalyn Charles, prepares for the men!

We look forward to the continued benefit of these sorts of events and more going forward!