The voice of God was loud and clear in Invercargill where about 100 pupils from Catholic schools in Otago and Southland gathered for the Annual Bishop's Shield public speaking competition.
Over the weekend of April 8-10, 20 pupils from St Peter's College headed to Verdon College in Invercargill to compete in the competition, which involved debating, dramas, prepared speech, impromptu speech, and scripture sections.
The weekend kicked off with a powhiri, and then it was straight into the first event - the senior prepared speech section.
Our St Peter's competitor, Alice Wilkins, won first place with an engaging speech on her favourite saint, Brigid of Ireland.
Junior debating was on Saturday and once again resulted in a first place for our team.
The senior debate in the afternoon also went extremely well, and our all-boys team wound up with a second placing overall.
After Mass at St Patrick's Church, it was straight into the last event of the night - the dramas.
This involved each team performing a short skit based around their interpretation of an excerpt from the Bible.
Although we didn't receive any places in this section, both of our dramas were well-received by the audience.
Sunday morning saw another St Peter's College pupil, Veronica MacKenzie, win first place in the impromptu speech section, delivering a fantastic four-minute speech on the topic earthquakes, for which she had been given only four minutes to prepare.
Alice Perniskie gained a notable second place in the junior scripture section, with the judge commenting on how close the marks for first and second place were.
Then it was time for the finale, the event which I had been nervously awaiting all weekend - the senior scripture section, in which I had never competed before.
The first section involved reciting a Psalm, reading an unfamiliar passage of scripture, and the second involved answering four questions related to a chapter of the Bible.
But despite the nervousness I had felt beforehand, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, and learnt a lot from it.
At the end of the day, I was pleased with my third place result in both sections.
At the end of the event, it was a tie between us and St Kevin's College (Oamaru) for first place.
We were extremely pleased, especially as this was the third year in a row we took home the shield!
