Pippa received her report card after completing a pretty successful year of 3rd grade. She went to a Christian school here in Lisbon and she had daily Bible class. She would come home occasionally with homework and try to make her dad do it for her. Her argument was he needed to be reminded of this stuff, so he should do it. He didn’t fall for her persuasive speeches, but he would help her. Sometimes, she would have to read Bible passages and she would convince her dad to just summarize the story. She would lie (she would later tell me) and say she needed a little help remembering because she read it awhile ago…this my priest usually fell for.

It was the tests that killed her. Weekly memory verses from the Bible that she had to recite or write out entirely. These tests didn’t always go so well. When we received Pippa’s report card, she got all A’s with one exception…a B- (82.7) in Bible. How embarrassing that they only class she struggled in was religion. We all blame the priest.