NBBC 2025 - A Dad’s Perspective

NBBC 2025 has come and gone and I’m sure that dads out there can relate to having to pass through the event and then having to jump back into full-time work and life without a break. There have been many recaps written already, so my goal is to provide my perspective of the event from a dad’s perspective with the hopes that in its blandness, it may or may not be encouraging to other dads (and the rest of the family unit, obviously), and even if it’s verbose and rambly.

Firstly, Sandusky, Ohio. The Kalahari resort proved to be well-equipped for the event and for the families attending ‘Nationals’. The Lord provided a 3-bedroom suite with a full kitchen (albeit, small kitchen. Full for some, small for us, but then again most kitchens and other rooms of the sort end up feeling small for us). This was a game-changer for us being able to manage space for study, review, sleeping spaces and of course, food preparation. At previous ‘Nationals,’ we had subsisted on meals that required no cooking and/or reconstituting freeze dried meals (which is quite pricey per meal) so this was a very welcome change. 

Secondly, Sandusky, Ohio. This is far away (all you Ohio people don’t count here, we all know that Texas is the promised land). Google Maps shows us how painful the drive is:

I know some of you drive to and from further away, but honestly it gets old, traveling this kind of distance for 11 years (at least I think we’ve been attending ‘Nationals’ for 11 years) in a row. Yes, the Lord’s grace is sufficient for us, but it would be really nice if it was closer. Mr Mullins, I propose that it be within a day’s drive (~12-14hrs), or in San Antonio so that all who travel to ‘Nationals’ can be blessed by visiting Texas in November with pleasant, balmy temperatures and sunshine.

Traveling has changed since we started 11 years ago. We now have a good spread of ages and no longer have very little children so we can usually drive for longer periods of time without the dreaded ‘potty stop’ (unless of course the driver has consumed exorbitant amounts of coffee to stay awake and needs to take a ‘potty stop’ or two or fifty). We now have a routine where we generally eat on the move and take very short stops so this year’s trip proceeded swimmingly by the Lord’s grace. The only hiccup we had was trying to leave the day after Senior Finals, where our van battery had been not charging itself like it should and thanks to the valiant efforts of Mr Rice giving us a jump start, and Timothy Reed having a backup battery jumper on hand, we were able make the trip back to the promised land (this is obviously tongue-in-cheek as indicated by the lower case “p” and “l”. We do earnestly look forward to when Israel indeed occupies the fullness of the land that they were promised in the Old Testament in the coming Millennial Kingdom).

It was great to see some of the usual suspects at ‘Nationals’. I’m sure many of you can relate to the fact that it is very difficult to find like-minded believers in your own churches that really care about God’s Word so it is always nice to connect with those who really value God’s Word at each ‘Nationals’. We did not make use of the waterpark, with the hopes of returning home sickness-free but thanks to the social nature of ‘Nationals’, we ended up being on the receiving end of a winter “blessing,” with a few of us coming down with something the day that we returned home.

Jeremiah, Daniel and I were able to grab some cheap fishing poles from Walmart and go fish in Lake Erie for a bit. That was fun, standing in 40 degree weather being accosted by the ubiquitous ‘sea-breeze’ (yes, I know it’s a lake, but honestly, we couldn’t see the other side, so it might as well be a sea), and being taunted by whatever was below the surface. Unfortunately, we didn’t actually catch anything (otherwise it would be called, “catching” and not, “fishing”) but there were some promising moments where we may have had something pulling back against us with varying amounts of gusto.

And I guess that’s it, nothing else significant really happened at Nationals…

There was the fact that Hannah won the Senior division. You could call that significant. Obviously, we praise the Lord for enabling her this year and all the years she has participated. Some facts about Hannah:

• She has advanced to semi-finals 9 times
• She has advanced to finals 4 times
• She has grown tremendously in the last year, and has understood the meaning of God’s grace and power not only in preparation for ‘Nationals’ but also in the rest of life.
• She is an all-round stellar daughter and big-sister to her younger siblings

There was also the fact that Susanna advanced to semi-finals at the age of 7, her first year of participating in NBBC. That was quite stellar.

I’m not sure there’s much more that can be said about that or about ‘Nationals’. We are always thankful to the Lord for His grace and provision and enabling this opportunity. We don’t take it lightly and want to make the most of the opportunity while it exists, because who knows, ‘Nationals’ may cease to exist some day and whatever would we do with ourselves? NBBC proves to be the most effective means that we know of, that allows us to study God’s Word to a depth and thoroughness that very few people have or want nowadays, so we wish to walk circumspectly, making the most of this opportunity for the days are evil.