Scavenger Hunt in Bible Class

This week in Bible class we continued our study of the parables of Jesus.  Today we talked about the Parables of a Hidden Treasure and a Lost Pearl from Matthew 13.  I've been using a website called Mission Bible Study that has been really helpful.  There are some good ideas, though of course I also add in my own for some lessons. 

Since we were talking about treasure, of course I had to organize a treasure hunt!  I had some chocolate coins I found in Kenya that I had been waiting for the right opportunity to use, so I put some in a wooden box with brass trimming that I bought in Zanzibar (which made a perfect little treasure chest) and hid it.  Then I taped various Bible verses around campus.  Each Bible verse mentioned a place in it, which was a hint to where to go next.  One mentioned a gate, one mentioned a banner being flown (which led us to this picture, at the flagpole), one mentioned a store (the school shop), etc. 

The clues led us to the teacher's lounge where we found...oh wait.  We found nothing.  The box was not where I had left it.  I had thought it a safe place; it was up on top of the school nurse's cabinet and it wasn't an area students should be in on a Sunday without teachers there anyhow.  But it was definitely not there now. 

It was a bit of an anticlimactic scavenger hunt, but we went back to class and shared the rest of the chocolate coins which were still in my purse. 

Later, it came out that Shuaka, one of the form 2 students who is the Health Prefect (and therefore the holder of the keys to the nurse's cabinet when she is not on duty), had come in to get something out of the cabinet.  He saw the pretty box and assumed someone would try to steal it.  So he took it and locked it in the cabinet. 

I was pretty annoyed with him, as I had even announced at the end of the church service that I was doing something with the kids so if the students saw strange things (like the taped up Bible verses) around not to bother them, but he never seemed to grasp that he had been anything but helpful in protecting my property.  Lewis says it's a cultural thing; in this culture he did the right thing, but as an American I felt not touching something that had nothing to do with you would have been better.  Oh well; it was found in the end and the kids enjoyed the chocolate and had fun running around campus looking for clues.