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1997 2000 2001 2002-2004

Injunction Released Camp Victory 2002 Trailer ac-
against Time is internship program quired and set up
Released reinstated begins as classroom for
Time use in Released
Time
2004 A second
trailer acquired
for
Released Time

Laura Smith teaching Released Time

Classes: Teaching the Bible in Alabama

Top: Jonathan Compton
rain up a child in the way he sharing the Gospel with a
should go, and when he is old camper
T he will not depart from it. Left: Bill Richoux teaching
a Released Time in rolling
Proverbs 22:6 Verses like this and the chapel
admonitions in Deuteronomy chapters
four and eleven, to teach children of the
love, provision, justness, mercy, and Called Released Time, a federal
salvation of God are the backbone of provision was found that al-
the work of CBM. In 1942, it was rela- lowed for students to be
tively easy to enter classrooms with the ―released‖ from class, with pa-
objective of teaching the Bible. Teachers and principals gladly worked rental permission, for ―off-
with missionaries in allowing school time for Bible instruction as well campus religious instruc-
as helping children learn memory verses so they would be able to attend “...a window of tion.‖ So, the missionar-
summer camp. Jonas Miller tells about when he began visiting schools ies in south Alabama
in Covington county, Alabama in the 1950s, ―...and some of the teach- opportunity took an old school bus
ers were really cooperative, they had the kids learn the verses and tell and parked it next to the
them to them and thought it was good for them.‖ opened up…” school, sent permission
The missionaries visited approximately eighty schools , so in between forms home with the
their visits, the teachers would listen to the students recite their verses students, and began
and keep track of them. The missionaries were welcomed and gained teaching the Bible stories once again. At that time, they went into five
the nicknames like ―The Bible Ladies.‖ schools each month.
As time progressed, however, the doors began closing. In the 1960s, federal There was one hiccup in 1997 when an injunction was filed against Released
court cases involving prayer and Bible reading, such as Murray vs. Curlett and Time by the Alabama State Department of Education, but the actual program
Abington School District vs. Schempp, began to encroach on Bible instruction did not fall under the laws being carried out with the injunction. In 2000, after
in the classrooms. Finally, in 1988 the missionaries backed out of the Alabama, much prayer and negotiations, the injunction was lifted and missionaries were
northwest Florida, and Georgia classrooms at the recommendation of the CBM allowed to do Released Time again. In 2002, the staff acquired a trailer set up as
National Board. Lawsuits in other states and changing laws threatened any pos- a classroom—with benches for the children to sit on, posters, light, and heat/air
sibility of continuing to visit the school children. However, God was still work- conditioning run by generator—to park next to the schools. A second trailer was
ing. A mere two years later, in 1990, a window of opportunity opened up. acquired in 2004. Currently, in 2010, the south Alabama missionaries reach
approximately 3,000 public school students at eight elementary schools in four

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