The great benefit of Bible
quizzing, apart from learning the Bible, was always the friends that were made.
Teams looked forward to getting together, spending the night in each other’s
homes and catching up with one another. I also loved that connection.
Someone I had completely forgotten
about going to Montana for meets with two or three Canadian districts and the
Rocky Mountain District. It seems impossible that would happen when so much
happened.
It was an interesting challenge to
get everyone picked up along the way for that trip. I would start out with any
quizzers from Oregon, then we would hook up, usually in a couple of different
place, with Western Washington quizzers then head out for a night on the hard
wooden floor of Garland Avenue Alliance Church in Spokane. The next leg took us
to the Montana camp with everyone would get together for a weekend of fun and
competition.
The concept of this meet came out
of two ideas. First I had a letter from Tim Vincent from the Canadian Midwest
District. Tom was from Outlook, Saskatchewan and a member of one of CMD
International Championship teams. He was directing the quiz program for the CMD
at that time. From that discussion came the idea to reward a larger number of
kids than could go to Internationals with higher level of competition. To that
end, we took the top 15 quizzers.
I forgot who first brought up the
Montana trip, maybe Andy? but that lead to a photo of me in the van on the
trip. Then, of course, there was the Oreo thing. Andy said it happened at a
stop for construction, I think it was at a stop for food and gas. One person in
my van wanted to spray shaving cream on the other van. I didn’t want that to
happen as there is (or was) some chemical in that stuff that could take the
paint off a car. So, I admit, I came up with the idea to pull Oreos apart and
stick them on the windows. You have to understand that it was a compassionate
decision. I CARED. Besides, Oreos come off much easier.
We always introduced the team at
Family Camp before leaving for Internationals. Two reasons: The team was spread
all over the district and we needed to get in another practice and there was
always the hope that another church would join in. Sometimes it worked.
I always loved Bible Quizzing.
When Dan Rinker was the National Youth Director for the C&MA he would call
me “The father of Alliance quizzing.” I would tell him that was impossible; I
was too young to be a father. Now I must be the grandfather.
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