Last week Aaron and I had the privilege of going with our Bible Quiz team to Nationals in Spring Arbor, Michigan. We stayed on the campus of Spring Arbor University which is a Free Methodist college. It was pretty much a paid vacation for us! We left Monday morning. The van ride was interesting as all 4 of the guys were studying so they were all quoting scripture as fast as they could at the same time! Tuesday and Wednesday's quizzing was round robin to determine the seeding for the tournament. At the end of those two days Vincennes was the #1 seed.
I should probably explain a little bit about the quizzing. They quizzed over Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Phileman. Everyone on our team had all 5 books memorized and they could quote it all the way through without stopping. It's pretty amazing to hear, although they are talking so fast you can hardly understand what they're saying! In the quizzes they are asked questions regarding the text. Here are some sample questions: Who should see to it that what happens? Paul pleads with whom to do what? What depends on what, rather than what? They must answer by quoting the scripture where the answer is found. They are allowed to prejump, which means jumping before the whole question is read. They must finish the question and then answer. Some of those questions may seem really vague but they study "unique words" which are words that can only be found in certain verses. So when the quiz master says, "Paul pleads" they jump up because they know where the word plead is located and can finish the question and then quote the verses. It is just amazing how well they know the scripture!
Thursday was the double elimination tournament. Our team quizzed well all day. We hadn't lost when we reached the final round. We competed against a team from Iowa. We lost to them in that final round but since it was double elimination we had to play them again, which they called the Super Final. I'm not kidding you, that last quiz was the most exciting championship I have ever experienced! For those of you who aren't quite sure that Bible Quiz could be exciting...that's ridiculous! I'll try to explain it in detail so you can feel the excitement too! The lead kept going back and forth between the teams and then on the 14th question (there are 15 in a quiz) one of our quizzers prejumped and had to finish the question. The quiz masters talked for a really long time to determine whether or not the completion was correct. They finally said that he could continue and answer the question. He rattled off something really fast that we couldn't understand and then they discussed for awhile again about whether his answer was correct. We had to get the last two questions correct to win so it was extremely tense waiting for them to do decide. Finally, they said that he answered correctly. That quizzer answered his fifth question so he quizzed out and we brought the sub in. One more question to go... On the last question the other team prejumped but the boy completed the question wrong so we got a chance to answer it. Our sub answered the question and he got it right!! We just went wild! I was so tense and nervous but they pulled it out and we were so excited! The last time Vincennes won the National Championship was 2002. We are so proud of them.
In the individual competition we had a quizzer from our team get first in the Young Teen division and in the Senior Teen division one got 2nd and one got 4th. 5 out of the 6 quizzers that made it to the Individual Finals were from our conference so that was neat. Our guys were quizzing against people they knew. Friday before we left there was a banquet to pass out the awards. They saved ours for last because it's the highest level award at Nationals. When they called our team, the 4 guys walked up the aisle together to get the award and they were given a standing ovation. I just had goosebumps! The trophy they won is it's own unique design. It is called the Alpha and Omega. It is a traveling trophy but it has an insert shaped like a Bible that we get to keep.
The Alpha and Omega trophy!
1 comment:
That is so exciting! I loved Bible Bowl but I never really missed it until I read this. Congratulations guys! That is alot of chapters to memorize! I still remember alot of John and 1 & 2 Corinthians from my last 2 years. I remember our team of 4 girls went camping one year before a tournament and we were up pretty late in the tent with flashlights and flash-cards and we just studied but it was alot of fun!
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