Quizzing March Madness

Wins. Losses. Groups. Brackets. It must be March Madness. No, not NCAA Men's Basketball. It's the tournaments of Bible Quizzing. There are two of them: the ACC Tournament (once again, not the basketball one) and the Invitational with the Ohio leagues. No more does your standings revolve around points. You either win or you lose. Ya got to be careful, though. One too many losses, and you'll wind up out!

The first of the two tournaments is the ACC Tournament. It is also known by many other names, like the PA tournament and the Clean Slate Tournament. A team is placed in one of eight groups. Three groups have eight teams, five groups have seven teams. A team will quiz against every team in the group once. Record of win and loss is recorded. The top two teams from each group (totalling 16 teams) will go to a single elimination playoff bracket. The team that wins 4 matches in a row is the ACC Tournament champions! It starts at 1 PM at Lancaster Bible College.

Spring City is in Group F. The other six teams in our group are E-Town 3, Petra 7, Neffsville 1, Strasburg 2, Maple Grove 1, Bowmansville 2. We were surely blessed by God through the teams we have been chosen with. We were told every group was going to have a top 8 team. We got the 8th place team. We also got the easiest of the Petras. We've already quizzed against Bowmansville 2, so we know what coming up. We're praying really hard we can get in the playoffs. If we practice hard and trust in the Lord, we should have no problem. Here's are schedule if you'd like to come.

1:00 Strasburg 2 111-S
1:25 Maple Grove 1 104-S
2:35 Petra 7 204-GSC
2:55 Neffsville 1 201-GSC
3:35 E-Town 3 101-S
4:15 Bowmansville 2 111-S

There is the top quizzers award (which I'm going to get) and the quizzing video at 6:15 PM. I hope everyone can come to support the team. It is an all-day event, so come when you can, leave when you have to. We love to hear your cheering! We promise we'll do good!

Now, I like to make my own predictions, just like people like to fill out their brackets for the NCAA March Madness. This is what I think this year will be like:

A REMINDER THAT THESE ARE ONLY PREDICTIONS!!

Group A: Slate Hill 1, Goods 1
Group B: Good Shep 1, Reading
Group C: Petra 1, Zion 1
Group D: Petra 2, Zion 2
Group E: Rockville, Petra 4
Group F: Spring City, Maple Grove 1
Group G: Hope Comm 1, Strausburg 1
Group H: Paradise 4, Weaverland 2

And the brackets would look a little something like this:




If you can't read that, I wouldn't blame you. I had to shrink it so much so that I could upload it, only to make it barely interpretable. It had Spring City in first place, Petra 2 in 2nd place and the semifinalists as Maple Grove 1 and Slate Hill 1. I'm not having it that way to be cocky, but we do have a good chance at that. As long as we stay united as a team under God.

Quizzing Question with a Joke Hint:
What was fixed?
(Hint: It wasn't the Ethiopian eunuch)

It was different to close at LBC

Usually, the season begins at LMH, the halfway or 2nd half beginning at LMH, and the season end at LMH. From what I heard, LMH was already rented out for the day. So we'd have the season closer at Lancaster Bible College. It felt kind of weird. Every time we quizzed there was for the ACC Tourament and once the Invitational. So I had tournament fever when I got there. I was ready for tournaments, but I had to focus on this week and trying to get in 4th. To do so, we needed to score 130 points, averaging 100 for the year. We also needed a little help. Petra 5 could score no more than 75 points. Good Shepherd 1 couldn't scored past 95 points. It seemed possible. The hardest part would be scoring 130 points. But with the way our rookie Chelsea did in practice, it gave even more hope.

We got there early because the coaches had to go to meeting. Spring City went into practice. We used keyword questions. Mike hadn't received the keywords because he was down in Florida. It showed in practice. He wasn't help to do as well. Tim focused on getting Michael to par. I worked with Christine and the rookies. It was spotless, but it would have to do. We had to get out their and do our best. We worshiped, heard announcements, heard Merv's joke (which I predicted the right punch line as the one in the previous post). Then we were off.

I watched in the first round Zion 1 vs. Bowmansville 2. It was closer than I thought it would be. In the end Zion 1 lost. I felt bad for Jeremiah beecause he couldn't quiz out for that last time. Hannah did. Jason got pulled one question, and then put back in because he had to sub. The next match I watched was Petra 5 vs. Rivercorner 1. I wanted to scout out the competition and at the same time root for my next competition to help prevent Petra 5 from reaching more than 75 points. It started out closer. Their number 1 quizzer, Josh Lehmen, quizzed out. But then Petra 5 took off. They got team bonus. Even after losing 5 points because of 5 errors, they were unstoppable. Petra 5 won with 90 points.

Our match was the last round before the playoffs. We sat Tim, Mike, Christine, me. I quizzed out by question 9, giving me 14 quizouts for the year. Tim got 1 buzz in right, but errored out. Michael wasn't too hot either. He did get a correct buzz in, but errored twice. We lost 5 points because of errors. Typical Spring City. Christine could only pick up a bonus situation question. It was up to Chelsea, our rookie who was on fire. At the end of question 14, we had 80 points. Question 15 started and Chelsea buzzed in. She didn't know it, but knowing what we taught her, went with default answer and said "Jesus's". It was right! She got us team bonus in the last moment possible, giving us a win with 110 points.

Then the playoffs began. It was officially announced. It didn't change from what it was the last week. The two semifinal rounds were Slate Hill 1 vs. Rockville and Petra 1 vs. Paradise 4. I had previously promised my friends on Slate Hill I would go watch them and root for them.

My team was split. Christine and I were rooting for Slate Hill 1 and Mike (Schwager) and Tim were for Rockville. It was hard to be louder than Mike and Tim. But apparently my cheering was the best in the end since Slate Hill 1 won. They got a team bonus and two quiz outs. Mike Good was the one dependant for team bonus. They only had 4, and he still had to give his. It was kind of funny watching him go around the material for the answer, but he was very good in the answer, not missing a spot, allowing no room for a bad ruling or a contest. It started out a close match, but then Slate Hill 1 took their lead, and held it. They won 110 to 65.

I left the room quickly because I wanted to see the end of the previous match. I then caught the tale end of the semifinal match with Petra 1. I saw the score was only a win of 75 to 70! I was quickly rethinking my prediction. If a team averaging 138 only got 75 in a semifinal, what would they do in a final match? But I had been right so far, so I went with Petra 1. But I had friends on Slate Hill 1. So my cheering becaming flip-flopping. I would cheer for the team who got the last question right. For example, one question Petra errored and Slate Hill 1 picked up the bonus and got it right. My cheer sounded something like this: "It's okay Petra. Nice try. Don't give up. Good job, Slate Hill 1. Way to pick up the bonus. Keep at it." Petra 1's quizzer for team bonus errored twice and was unable to give them team bonus. Andrew Weiler quizzed out, of course, and that was the highlight of Petra 1. Slate Hill 1 was the victorious team, winning 85 to 65. Therefore, Slate Hill 1 became the 2007 ACC Bible Quizzing Champions.

Yes, I was caught by suprise when Petra 1, averaging 138, lost to Slate Hill 1, who averaged 113. It was ironic to me that last year Slate Hill 1 had the highest point average, and lost in the final to a team that could have finished 3rd. This year, the team with the highest average (probably the highest finishing average in a long time), who also was no lower than 2nd (which was for the first two weeks, and we were first ) lost to a team that dropped as low as 4th at one time. But I was glad in the sense that I would have hated to see Slate Hill 1 lose two finals consecutively. But that did happen to Petra 2 in 2004 and 2005, both times to Maple Grove 1. Well, that's the way it can go. When playoffs come, unpredictable things can happen. That's perfect timing for the upcoming tournaments.

So let's go back to us. Spring City scored 110 points in the last match. We finish the year with a total of 1680, averaging 98.82, rounding up to 99. It is kind of upsetting we couldn't finish at 100 point average. There are so many times where we could look back and point out where we could have gotten the points. Two less erors, two less missed bonuses, 1 more team bonus. But those who choose to linger in the house of failure will never leave it. We got to look ahead to the future, by which I mean tounraments. As for the team's final placing, the final standings haven't been posted, so we don't know. I'm hoping that even though Petra 4 did fine, maybe Good Shepherd 1 didn't, allowing us to sneak into 5th place, the top 5. It would be the highest I ever finished with a team. But's 6th is cool also, a tie.

As for the team individually, we did good. Not awesome, but good. For every quizzer on last year's Spring City who is on this year: last year was their best, this year was second best. Mike finished top 60 last year, but this will only be top 100, which he couldn't get before 2006. Christine got 110 points. She scored 155 points last year, but the years before that Christine never scored more than 40. Last year I got 585 points. This year, I only got 530. Even though we had less matches, I could have still gotten up there to 585. I am also measuring this on the fact I was 12th last year. There is no way I can get 12th again. I'm thinking somewhere between 15th and 20th. But it is still better than 34th place with 515 points, which I got two years ago in 2005. The most impressive was the quiz outs. I couldn't beat my record of 15. I came up one short of tying it. Why I am so happy with 14 quizouts? I may have 14 quizouts, but Tim only got 12 quizouts. Therefore, in the occurance that Tim and I are the same team:

In the "Graham vs. Moss quizzers":
Graham vs. Tim Moss
Graham leads series 1-0

Yes, another Moss down! Since we are on the same team, this was determined by the one to quiz out the most by the end of the year, which was me. If we meet again on the same team, it will pick up from where we left off: me winning 14-12. If we are on opposite teams, this series will be null-and-void if we oppose each other. So don't worry Tim, you still have time to redeem yourself. But I don't think he cares too much that I am better than him, or that I finish the best quizzer on the team. Tim finished the best year he did in his quizzing career. With his score, he will finish probably somewhere between 20th and 30th.

So after 8 weeks of a weekly breakdown, we have now arrived at a point where all 17 chapters of quizzing merge as 1 giant lump. It is called the Tournaments. The tournaments are the last 2 weeks of quizzing. So what is the fate of Spring City? Tune in to find out! I will give you the schedule of the ACC Tourament once I get it.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
Who are the 11 who were present in the upstairs room?

Fun names, fun games, fun but lame joke

So our team had two practices this week. We decided to have a pre-practice as well. It was on Wednesday night, and it was fun because Tim and I got to have a chance to be the coach. Dave said he saw really maturity in us for doing that. This pre-practice did help. I saw how much it helped the next day at practice. Rookies were buzzing in like mad. They were beating in both Tim and I. It was scary and good at the same time. Now all we need to do is make sure they get them right when they buzz in. But with them buzzing the way they are buzzing, it'll be easy to get team bonus, which we need.

Our team also decided to get shirts for the tournaments. They are cerulean blue (sorry Mike, not pink). We also chose to be cool like the Ohio teams and have a phrase, sentance or verse from the material on the back of our shirts, kind of like a team name. It was up to the team to decide a good verse to put on our shirts. While all the team was thinking of good ones, I was thinking up things that were goofy or crazy. Here's what I decided were the top ten not to name your team:

1. Breathing out muderous threats (Acts 9:1)
2. Giving approval to death (Acts 8:1)
3. Knew nothing (Acts 7:18)
4. Looked Straight (Acts 3:4)
5. Alkeldama / "Field of Blood" (Acts 1:19)
6. Pregnant women and nursing mothers (Luke 21:23)
7. Two women grinding together (Luke 17:35)
8. Vehemently accusing (Luke 23:20)
9. Faces downcast (Luke 24:17)
10. The exalted humble (Luke 18:14)

Yeah, none of those made it. Wonder why? What we did decide on was one I actually thought up. It's Luke 19:40- "If they keep quiet, then the stones will cry out!" It's so good because that does describe Spring City. I can imagine us cheering wildly and someone thinking, "I wish Spring City would be quiet" and then we stand up and they read the rest of the shirt and goes "Oh." But it doesn't matter what we are wearing, but rather how we do

Quizzing Question of the Post:
Who are the 3 Saul will carry Jesus's name before?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: How did Saul react to the idea of sneaking out of Damascus at night?
A: He was a basket case (har har har)

Akron Mikeless

These quizzes were tests to Spring City. We only have 5 quizzers. We were one Mike Schwager short of a quiz team. Mike has given us team bonus and the occasional quiz out. Now we didn't have Mike. Could we perform up to average?

Obviously, to get near average we needed team bonus. So we drilled our quizzers as much as possible. We made sure they got the most questions in matches. They missed some, they got some (a lot of them they didn't know they knew). I was throwing Chelsea questions during break time. We still had fun during fun time. Christine and I raided Tim's car. We took out his hockey stuff and passed a ball around with the sticks. It became eventually a game of catch...and answering questions. We had ziti for dinner and was off to Akron.

Akron felt a little lonely. No Reading, no Zion. There really wasn't anyone we knew. The closest was the Hopewell teams. So we had to create our own fun. At least Brandon was there to have some fun with us. Not having Michael didn't stop us from wild cheering. We did the normal stuff, and Brandon gladly joined in.

Our first match was against the home team, Akron 3. So of course we were in the Sanctuary. Wesley Lapp was the quizmaster. He looks different without the facial hair. The match seem to begin still under the stress from doing bad last week. We sometimes became unsure of our answers. We got passed that. I quizzed out first, Tim quizzed out second. Since we only had 5 quizzers, we decided it was best for the second quizzer to quiz out would stay up. So Tim sat in his seat for the duration of the quizmatch, waiting for a bonus. It was up to the rest of the team. Christine got two, one was a buzz in. Christine was one away from quiz out. We were one rookie buzz in away from a team bonus. We had oppurtunities to get both, but alas, neither were successful. In the meantime, Akron was making a comeback with some quizouts. It was too late for Akron when they began the comeback. We won 90 to 80.

We had back to back matches in the middle of the quizmeet. So right away we had the match against Maple Grove 3. I'm pretty sure Maple Grove has never had 3 teams. So it was a new team, in a way. I think I recognized 1 or 2 of them from last year's Maple Grove 2. Tim quizzed out first, I quizzed out second and I sat up there and waited for the match to be over. Christine got one in. Then, with no notice, Bryan buzzed in and got it right! Bryan got us team bonus!! He also got 3 bonuses, 1 of which he got right. So it was pretty cool that Bryan got team bonus, and he was one away from a quizout. He tripled his score in one day. We did win with 110 points.

It was good for all of us. We were able to maintain point average. Tim and I were able to get back in the swing of quizzing out each quizmatch that we have. That also means we clinched the top 50 quizzers list. Bryan moved up to scoring 30 points in the year. Christine got 30 points in the day, moving herself to another year with triple digits in the score. The standings came out Monday. I didn't believe it, until I realized that the standings were only team standings. So once again, they've stopped the individual standings for the element of surprise. I don't like it. At least we can see where our team is. Still in 6th, still with 98 average. I've figured out that Petra 1 has clinched 1st place in the League. They have an average of 138, and even if they scored nothing in their last remaining match, their average would drop no lower than 131, far out of the reach for anyone in the League to get to. Slate Hill 1 is in second. They clinch it if they can score 140 points in the two regular season matches they have. With the opponenets they are facing, I think they will have no problem taking 2nd place. So it is Spring City's goal to get in 4th, so we can be the top team in our group in the ACC Tournament. This is how we do it: we need to score 130 points, averaging us for the year 100 points. Petra 5 must not score more than 75 points, and Good Shepherd 1 no more than 95 points. That will keep them below our average, thus getting us in 4th.

So we did good in Akron, even without Mike. We called him up and told him the result. We jokingly said that we didn't need him any longer. Truthfully, it is easier and less nervous to do it with Michael, but we now know we can do it without him, or if he or someone else screws up. That's reassuring for the future.

I hate double weeks

This week we had a double week. Unable to have practice on Saturday, we had a practice for the Sunday School hour. It was fast so we could get in as much as possible. It was all on the missed week material, and none from the new material. We did fairly well. I, as well as the rest of the team, felt like we knew the old material better than the new material, but that contradicted how I felt leaving practice on Thursday. So on my own time I studied the old material. We were able to stay for all of church, and left once we had lunch.

We went to Ridgeview so early because we wanted to study more the old material. But we had fun with those matches. We switched name tages and acted like the person's name tag we had. It was fun being Mike, grunting and using big words. Dave even got in on it, and prentended to be Vicki by kneeling to get the height right. We had fun, got some right, got others wrong. It wasn't too bad.

The matches started off without any worship singing, announcements or jokes. The first match I watched was Petra 1 vs. Zion 1 because I was rooting for my friends on Zion 1 and scouting out the opponants on Petra 1. Petra 1 started out slow, but caught up, reaching 135 by the end of the match. Their perfect quizzer quizzed out with 2 errors. It was time for us to go to the 1990 Hall (which Dave kept calling the 190 Room, for a reason I don't know why) for our match.

We were in the 1990 Hall against Petra 3. The match didn't go as well as we would have liked. I quizzed out, and Tim barely quizzed out at question 15. Mike was the only quizzer able to get in, and he scored 10. We finished as last minute winners, with the score 80 to 65. Not as much as we wanted. We vowed that we be our lowest score of the day.

Our next match was Neffsville 2. This was believed to be our grace match because they were only 16th place, compared to playing 4th place Slate Hill 1. Easy, right? No. Tim errored out after getting only 10 points. I quizzed out at question 11. Mike, once again, only got 10. Errors added up between Mike, Tim and I. We got 6 errors, causing us to lose 10 points. We lost for the first time, beaten 55 to 65. If we didn't error as much, we would have tied.

I watched the afternoon matches end with Petra 1 vs. Weaverland 1. Even 1oth place Weaverland 1 couldn't stop Petra 1 from reaching into the triple digits score. They lost 120 to 30. We met together in 1990 Hall to eat. We wanted to study and eat, but there were too many people there to have a good study. The Schwagers brought us pizza from Pizza Hut. Zion kept stealing it. Nice, Zion, very Christ-like. I had 2 pieces of Meat Lovers, what I call "Vegetarian Nightmare." Remember those days when I wouldn't eat because I was so nervous? The opposite became true. I was nervous eating. We had only a short time to practice after eating. They were brand new questions, and we did not know how answer those questions. We went into matches unsure of our fate.

It didn't help when we watched Neffsville 2. After winning against us, they could not do as well against Petra 1. Petra won succeeded in winning once again with points in the hundreds. We saw a perfect quizzer stop being perfect. She made a desperate contest to save her perfection, but it failed. Now it was our turn to take on Petra 1. Petra 1 had the first two matches consecutively, but it didn't seem to bother them. A lot of people were there, wanting to see the 1st vs. 3rd. It didn't shake Petra at all. They were fast, they got only few words, but got it right! They got 3 quizouts, mostly on buzzes, allowing nothing for Spring City. I was only able to get 10 points and 1 error. We lost miserably 135 to 30. And Petra 1 didn't even get team bonus!

Shaken, we tried to walk it off. I tried to study by watching Petra 5 vs. Zion 1. Once again, Zion 1 was taking on a Petra we had to take on. I was too knocked off concentration to focus on the match. So I asked Dave to ask me questions. Mr. Deitrick rounded up everyone for questions again. We were only able to get a little done before our match came up.

It seemed like we were quizzing against Petra 1 again, because the results were the same. Petra 5 was fast, not allowing us in. Out of 3 situation questions, I only got in for one. Those were the only points I scored. But my errors increased to 2. Bad. Our final score had Petra 5 winning and us losing, 135 to 30/35. I thought I saw 35, but no one quizzed out, and I got ten. Maybe we got 40, but 5 errors later, we lost points. I couldn't tell. I was distraught, and so was Mr. Deitrick. We decided it was best to go home once we were done.

Reflections: It's hard to say what went wrong. I guess you can first say it was the fact we had a snow week. They're evil. It can't be pride. The Deitricks and I feel like we've been hearing that the Lord wanted to remind us that He gave us what we have, and we must always thank Him for what he gave us, good or bad. As for studying, it's hard to study in a double week with twice the material, keeping them separate. The rookies were not ready for it. Maybe it would have been better to use both sets of material at practices. As for the top 3 quizzers on Spring City, it's very sad. No one could quiz out for the past two matches, and Tim and Mike haven't quizzed out for the past 3 matches. Technically, Mike has not quizzed out since our match against Bowmansville 2, which was 3 weeks ago (and ironically he was the first to quiz out on the team). On top of that, we're Mike-less for next week. That means we need a rookie to step up to the plate. We'll work at it, and pray the Lord God will help us.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
Where 4 are the Jews members of the Synagogue of the Freeman?

A blessing out of the curse

I hope no one went to LMH last Sunday, because there were no quizzers there. The wintry mix cancelled quizzing. Cancelling quizzing is depressing. We're already limited to so many weeks in quizzing, and now there is less. I think we could have made it, but maybe they got it worse. The worse part about snow...it leads to double weeks. Yes, we got to learn double the material, but we quiz on it separately. It's hard to get down.

There is no schedule up on the quizzing website, but our coaches got one. (Speaking of which, I want to give a shout out to Mrs. Deitrick, who now reads my blog. Now, I got to watch what I say!) We now know we are at Ridgeview, just like the schedule says Spring City will be at for March 5. Double weeks mean afternoon matches and evening matches. The afternoon matches will begin at 3 PM, and the evening matches at the regular 6:30 PM. We still have four matches, too. But it's not the same teams, since Slate Hill and Good Shep 1 are going to Slate Hill. So we got new teams to quiz against in the afternoon. We are still quizzing against Petra 1 and Petra 5 in the evening, but in the afternoon it comes down to Petra 3 and Neffsville 2.

Let's look at this stragetically. We had a tough 4 upcoming matches in two weeks. We were quizzing against 4 of the top 7 teams. When I heard that we were going to be at Ridgeview, I expected the teams to be changed. I was hoping for lower teams (for obvious reasons), but Fred did a good job making sure that the teams quizzing each othere were of like strength. Like I told Tim, the only way it could've got harder is if we quizzed Good Shepherd 1 isntead of Petra 5 or Goods 1. Anything else is an improvement on the strength of the schedule. Since Good Shepherd 1 is at Slate Hill, we can't quiz against them. So our schedule got better. It's now two afternoon quizmatches against Petra 3 and Neffsville 2. So we've gone to four top 7 matches to three top 10 matches. That helps a lot. God has cut us a little mercy in a double week. I plan to go Petra hunting and end the reign of a few perfect quizzers. That will raise my position.

I think we can take it. I can take it. I quizzed out all 4 practice matches. I'm not sure about the team. Tim quizzed out and errored out, but that's Tim. Christine and Bryan performed like normal. Christine do that thing she does, but her performance will all depend on how Christine feels and her mood. As for Bryan's mood, we got to give him a mood that wants to perform well and quiz. Chelsea didn't come to practice, so we just got to make sure she's well caught up on information. Mike screwed up his working schedule, so he wasn't there. I hope he is self practicing and Tim is checking up on him. I don't like double weeks, but I think I can pull through.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
Who are the seven.......

FUN FUN FUN at Hopewell Elverson

Well, I'm not going into great detailed with this. It was a fun match. We had fun. That's all that matters. To me, it was like a confrence-wide practice for the invitational. So I really didn't keep too much track on what went on. But I do know a little.

I arrived in the middle of a wedding reception. It felt awkward because I really wasn't dressed for a wedding. I don't know what I was dressed for. I had decided to dress like one of the jokers on a pack of playing cards: half black half white. So I a black shoe on my left and and a white one on the other. The socks complimented it. The black shoe had a white sock, and the white shoe had a black sock. The black pants complemented the white shirt ("I Survived Quiz Invitational 2004"). The crown I spray painted different prongs black and white. It was cool, but not wedding material.

I ate part in the wedding fellowship meal, but no cake. Then we went into practice. I got to scorekeep a few matches, giving funny team names and funny quizzer names. I seemed to do pretty good, but I was still nervous. Everyone was performing to usual performance. After a while we got free time.

Free time was wild. Mike and Tim got the cart back out. We found out that the snow on Spring City's lot was a nice sheet of ice. The cart went on the ice to see how much we can make it spin. It really didn't have no better action on ice. So then we moved on trying other things. I found two trash cans. We tried to get Bryan in it, but he held up a good fight so that didn't go. Michael found one of those spindals for electric wire. He tried to ride it by running on it the opposite way. Halfway down he fell off. The funny part was trying to get it back up. Every time Michael would try to push it up, and about two-thirds the way up, Michael would lose grip or steeping, or the weight downward became too much, and the spindal would start rolling back. Tim tried to do it, but he failed to. I tried to help Tim, but I almost killed him in process. Finally, with Christine's help, we got it back up. We finished up with body sledding. Fun. We had dinner and left.

At Hopewell Elverson we went around and looked at the room setup. The Jr. High Room was as crammed as ever with 4 team desks and a staff desk. The bar was part of the two tables. Since we had two matches in there, we decided to pray in the room. We then went to worship. After worship, Fred and Merv explained the rules, which I'll explain later. In the rules, Fred recognized Spring City as the leaders in errors. Then the matches began, with us stepping up to the sanctuary.

Before I go any further, let me explain the rules so everything will be understandable. 4 teams were up at a time. There were 18 questions. A quizzer quizzed out with 2 right answers, and errored out with only 2 errors. The third error, instead of the fifth, started losing 5 points. A team bonus was only 10 extra points, but all you needed was 3 quizzers for team bonus. If there was a tie, there would be three overtime questions, but only between those teams. Bonuses were given, but only once, and that was based on what I called "casting the lot."

In our first match, it was Spring City vs. Hope Community 1 vs. Zion 2 vs. Weaverland 1. I got an error, but I was able to quiz out. We still lost. Errors caused us to finish with 5 points. We had a break match, so I watched Reading and Zion 1 take on 2 other teams. There were a lot of contestable things. then in that same room we had a match. Spring City vs. Petra 2 vs. Good Shepherd 1 vs. Petra 1. The buzzing was so crazy fast. We didn't have the time to get in! Quizzers were buzzing in on "Who was", "Against who", "In what book" and "How many". Jesus seemed to work as the answer, as long as it wasn't us. We didn't have the chance to error, but still did. We finished with 10 points, 5 more than before. Not the best. I had to wait 2 rounds for my last match the last round, so I watched the Slate Hill 1 matches I been meaning to watch since the beginning of the year. Slate Hill did pretty good. The last match we only have 3 teams at once since Weaverland 2 had to leave early. We didn't win that one either, but at least we scored 25 points, the most all night. And Tim quizzed out for the first time that night. Mike and I both errored out.

So despite quizzing out and team bonus being easier to achieve, we didn't get team bonus and quizzed out rarely. The easier error out we have no problem. But it was a fun match, and it was fun, and we did have fun. But next week is serious again, and we will get serious again. Do not take us lightly Slate Hill 1 and Goods 1, because that will be a mistake. We will come back stronger.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
List the 15...

Chickentown? Tinkletown? Hinkletown!

It's the fourth week of quizzing, and this was the last week breakdown of Luke. We finished up with the trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The team met on time. We had lunch together and got Secret Sponsor gifts. Everyone had a Valentine theme. Mine was a paper heart, crayons, and dark chocolate again. Sweet. My team got a group gift. It was a basket of bannans, each bannana had a quizzer's name on it. It was our second name badge for us for this week. Practice went as usual. There were quiz outs, errors, stupid answers from Michael. You know, the usual. We got a break halfway through. Mike, Bryan, and Tim took this time to ride a handcart. We had dinner, but I didn't eat too much because I was nervous. I had my Full Throtle Fury Energy Drink and dark chocolate.

The ride up to Hinkletown was full of questions. Dave got a break from asking questions. Tim asked Chelsea and Christine questions, while Mike and Bryan asked me questions. They helped me a lot. They gave me back some lost confidence. I'm not sure whether it was working in small groups or that I was getting more questions, or that Mike was asking them, it worked. We joked around a lot and that helped. We talked about the tomb that no one "was laid" in and that Joseph would rap that the chief priests would "try to catch Jesus teachin' dirty." Lol. You can't buy memories like those.

We had the first match of the night. It was against Paradise 3, at the time placed 13th. This would be the hardest match of the night. Boy, it was. Tim got one right, then errored out. I errored once and then missed a bonus before I quizzed out on question 12. Sadly, I was the only one to do so. At the end of question 14, we were tied at 55 points. Question 15, and Paradise 3 buzzed in. Our perfect win-loss record flased before my eyes. Paradise 3 errored on that, and we got the bonus right. We won 65-55. It was great that we won, but the score was unimpressive. That was the lowest we scored all year. That is also the lowest point margin we won by.

Between that match and our next one, I watched Hopewell 1 take on Akron 3. Tim, Mike and I might have been the only loud ones there. They said they were grateful for it. I'm glad to help in any way I can. In the beginning, it didn't seem to help. Only Bryant was able to quiz out. But then things got better. Hopewell 1 won by the end, but barely.

Now it was our turn to be on again. It was Bowmansville 2, third to last. I wasn't sure that we could get what we usually were able to do. At first, it seemed like we were nervous and uptight. After question 11, we were winning, but only by a score of 60 to 40. I was not ready to go through another match like the last one. But all of a sudden, we kicked in. We got 3 consecutive quizouts: Mike on question 12, Graham on question 13, Tim on question 14. To wrap it all up on the last question, Christine buzzed in, answered "the king of noble birth", went into review, got it right, and got team bonus. We won 135 to 40.

Now of course we were more fired up for our next match against Hinkletown 1. The home team in their sanctuary. No problem. Tim quizzed out as soon as question 4. I answered questions 5 to 7 consectively for a quiz out. Bryan got a bonus thrown of his way, he got it right! Congrats to Bryan Tedor on his first points ever!! Christine pulled through with team bonus again. Sadly, Michael was unable to get another quiz out. We did win, however, with score of 120 - 45.

Afterward, we went to the fellowship hall for cookies and drink. Mike decided he wanted to "make friends" AKA get some girls. He found one that he thought was pleasing to eye, but he was in for a surprise. She was an exchange student from Argentina! Nice try, Mike, but not this time. He wasn't too happy about that. As we were about to leave, the van didn't start up! The battery needed to be jump started. Fred tried to jump us, but his car was too small. Then someone came with 8-cylinder truck and that did the trick. We did get to leave the Hinkletown parking lot, and I got home at 11 PM.

Next week is the fun week! Stay tuned for a schedule on that!

Quizzing Question of the Post:
What 4 would a disciple rather say to his servant?

STOGA STOGA

We had practice last night. It was late, but we stuck with it. Tim wasn't there, but in his place was Mel. I performed the same as in the last practice. I quizzed out 3 of the 4 matches, I errored the one match I didn't quiz out. That was scary. But the team did well. Mike did the same as me. There was one match where there was five quizouts: me, Mike, Christine, Chelsea, and Mel. The practice did help. I returned home to finish some homework.

I met up with the team again today at 9 in the morning for some practice during the Sunday School hour. We read the material and had two practice matches. Some of the questions were from before, some were made up on the spot. I got two quizouts. That was good enough for me. Next we had church. As they had communion, I was reviewing the material on the first communion! As church ended, we grabbed our secret sponser gifts, some warmed up their lunches, and we left. My secret sponser gift was a CD and dark chocolate (sweet). Yes, I was huffing it a lot. Some of my fellow quizzers got some carzy things. Tim got a giant cookie, bigger than the ones at CD! It was like the size of a medium pizza! Bryan's secret sponser spoiled him with a giant bag of M&Ms, over 2 pounds! Mike took a while getting in the van, he had to warm his chili. Lucky for us, he didn't release any gasious side effects while in the van. I had a hoagie with every condiment on it except dirt from the ground. It was very messy, but I kept it pretty clean.

We made it to Conestoga in good time. So we took a rom and began practice. It was the kindergaten room, one step up from the one we were last time, the preschool room. We sat in little seat next to a little table. We tried to make the table "levitate" by all putting our legs under it, but that fun was quickly ended by a certain coach. After prayer, we read through the material once, then split up for rounds of questions. That went well.

As the team rolled into the sanctuary, memories of the last time we were there flooded my head. I remember the last time we were there, we quizzed against Blainsport and lost bad. It made chuckle a bit. I also remember that the sanctuary is where we got the devasting news that West Liberty was no longer hosting the invitational, but rather PA was. When the mentioned the Invitational this time, I held my breath, hoping not to hear bad news again. It wasn't. All they wanted to do was gather registration earlier for the ease of the hosting conference, one that hosts less. They also made some rulings changes. They say now that apostles and disciples are sometimes interchangable. For that quizzer, that translates into, "they really aren't interchangable too often, so you're better off knowing direct text." They also said headings will be allowed to be used. They will not be questions, but a quizzer can use them in answers. That totally changes everything, and in the quizzer's favor. It makes up wonderfully for quizmasters being allowed to use "you" in a question.

Our match didn't start until the 3rd round. It was against Hope Community 1. The last time I recall quizzing against Hope Community 1 was in last year's ACC tournament. The team was different though. It wasn't the Hope Comm 1 I remember. No Ben, No Spazz. Like Christine told me, it was pretty much last year's Hope Community 2 moved up. I saw Ben's brother though, and he looked like a smaller version of Ben. The quizmatch was fast for me. I got a bonus right question 1, and buzzed in on question 2 and 3, and got them right. I quizzed out on question 3! It would have been more impressive on all buzz ins, but I took what I got. Tim quizzed just before review on question 12. Michael got a buzz in right, but Christine, Bryan or Chelsea could not get team bonus. Michael was unable to quiz. But we did win 80 to 55. 80 is the lowest we have scored all year so far. Hope Comm 1 kept us from our average, but we did the same to them, in a more hurtful fashion. Like Dave said, until us, they had a pretty easy schedule. Spring City was a challenge to them. Luckily, their next match of the day was Bowmansville 2 (I didn't watch it, but I think it was in their favor).

We had a round to rest before we were in the sanctuary for our next quizmatch. The quizmaster was Jamie D, favorite quizmaster by all. The opposing team was Hopewell 1. (I didn't know this in the match, but last time we were at Conestoga, we quizzed against Hopewell 1! I don't know what the score is. All I said was we lost.) I sat across from I wasn't able to quiz out as fast, but did quiz out on question 6. Christine delievered again. She gave team bonus. Tim quizzed out on question 10, shortly followed by Mike quizzing out on question 12. Chelsea scored, getting 30 points on the year. Mike picked up another one when a bonus went his way after a quizout. At one point, it looked like Hopewell would lose points on errors and have a negative score, but they managed to get 10 points, and not error more than 4 times. We won 155 to 10. Not as great as when we shut out a team in the first week with the same score, but it was good.

Last match was on the last round. Go figure, last round match during the Super Bowl. It was against Weaverland 1. They were placed in 9th. I predicted this would be the 2nd hardest team we were going against. I nervously sat in seat 1. I......I cant' believe I'm talking about this. I'm really upset with what happen. I think that if I talk this out, I can get over it better. I do feel like I should have done that last time I failed. What happened.......I couldn't quiz out. Mike quizzed out, Tim quizzed out, I couldn't get on board with that. Weaverland 1 was too fast for me. I got two buzz ins, but buzzing in on the 15 question, "How much wheat...", I was too stressed out to remember what it was. I knew this like that back of my hand in week 1, but like I always say, I don't like review. We won 90 to 65, but I feel like I failed my team. I could get the 3rd quizout to get 105 points. It would have been better for both my average and our average. I couldn't beat my perfect weeks record again. I've been trying since 2004 and have failed once again. I am frustrated. It's not easy to avoid being hard on myself. I could have.....should have done better. I was so upset I left right away.

We got home 5 PM, enough time for the Super Bowl. Currently I am watching it now. Indianopolis is winning against Chicago 29 - 17. The Colts on the offense with about 9 minutes left. It isn't looking hopeful for the Bears. I think the Colts are going to win, but I've said that for 3 weeks. I voted for Kicker Adam Viniteri to be the Super Bowl MVP. And I don't feel like waiting for the game to end to tell you. Watch it yourself to find out the winner.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
Who began mocking and beating Jesus?

2 weeks running

This week we got the standings on Wednesday, not as late as Friday. I knew where I was, so the first thing I wanted to see was where my team was. Our average dropped by 14 points, but did we drop in placing, too? What about Paradise 4, the only team ahead of us? I saw the standings, and was pleased. Our 131 average was enough to keep us in first place in League A. It was close though. Petra 1's average is 128, 3 away from ours not much room for error...or should I say not too much room for errors. Not only no. 1 in League A, but my team has the highest average of all quiz teams in the ACC! Paradise 4 dropped to 114 point average. Now the first place team in League B is Rockville, with their average at 125. We are above that. This is the highest I have ever been with a team because that's as high in the standings you can go. The next part I wanted to check out was the individual standings. I got a perfect score, so of course I was in first place, but how many quizzers was I tied with. I knew of one: Tim. On top of Tim and me, there were 18 others. So there are 20 pefect quizzers, I am one of them. Mike, who was only one question away from being perfect is in 24th place, tied with 13 others. Not too bad. They messed up Christine's score. She should have 40 points, not 3o points. They gave the 10 points to Chelsea. But besides all that, it's very good. For 2 weeks running I am a perfect quizzer and for 2 weeks running, our team is in our first place.

This upcoming Sunday I am at Conestoga for quizzing. This is the first time this year we will have 3 matches. The setup is interesting. 2 of the matches will be 2 of the top 4 hardest teams will we quiz this season. The other match is 1 of the 4 easiest. I want to really be able to keep up with our average. If not, the best thing we can do is just win. The win will be able keep our average ahead of the tough team, and prevent them from maintaining their average. I really want to quiz out. By being a perfect quizzer 2 weeks running, I have tied my record. Quizzing out all 3 matches will make me perfect for one more week, breaking my record. I want to do it so bad. I need to keep studying.

Studying and going to quiz practice. We had our normal 4 matches. I quizzed out 3 matches (yay!) and errored out 1 (boo!). Tim quizzed out the 1, but errored out 3. I shouldn't worry, Tim always comes through in the end. Michael as on fire and kept quizzing out first. Christine also got some quizouts. We did good, but there was room for improvement. So we decided to have an extra quiz practice on Saturday night. With what I saw tonight, I think we can do it with some extra practice. We just need a little more work and need to beat the other team in with the questions.

Quizzing Question of the Post:
What 4 will the disciples be betrated by?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: What will happen if you wore a rabbit skin hat in the end of the age?
A: It would come back to life because not a hair/hare on your head will perish!

Weaverland - sounds like an amusement park

After this past Sunday, we are a quarter way through the quizzing season (yes, already, but with only having matching once a week until the end of March, it goes by fast). We entered the week as numero uno in the top of our league, with 3 perfect quizzers. Would we be able to perform up to what we had done the previous Sunday?

I enjoyed being able to return to my church for this Sunday service. Everyone was excited to wonder how I was doing. I was glad to give the good news. I couldn't stay to the end, I had to get to Spring City. I got there at 12:12, and they were already done. We had to still wait for Tim. Chelsea had to stay home and finish a school project. And it was a movie that watched in class that she missed due to sickness! Like I said, teachers are against quizzing and forming a conspiracy to not allow quizzers to quiz. Don't roll your your eyes at me! In the mean time, I got my secret sponsor gift. It was a fast bowl of soup, an orange candle and an inspirational note. Christine also gave me a gift. I got a cool quizzing buddy. It's an orange block that makes sounds when you hit it against something. It is so awesome. Luckily, Tim did arrive soon. He got a whole 2 liters of Mountain Dew! I reminded Tim that any soda over a liter was communal. He did share. I had a wicked mix of his Mountain Dew and my Monster. I called it "Monster Dew." Mrs. Deitrick threatened to kill me if my head blew off, but it didn't.

Practices could have gone better. For me, I was a little slow, but did eventually quiz out. There were a few error outs, too. Our only rookie at the time was buzzing, but he wasn't getting them right. Christine wasn't answering as much as before, but the ones she got in on, she was great. After I went over with her the section she seemed to be struggling in, she did better. When Chelsea rejoined the scene, she performed the same as usual. I thought practice could have gone better, but I have to remember that instead of 3 weeks to study, this was the beginning to have only a week to get it down. So if you think about that, we're pretty good. We had fun, though. Michael was suppose to read 5 verses, but lost count and read 10. He also insisted that he went to a hemp clothing store. What an odd man.

After dinner, and fully loaded of Monster Dew, we headed off to Weaverland. We arrived a few minutes before the worship. I met up with a few people, and I was fortunate to have some from my church (Frederick) to come. Everyone wanted to see the duct tape crow, duct tape tie, and duct tape sculture which didn't come out the way I was hoping). After the worship, to my surprise, they announced all the perfect quizzers. It must be because they had fifty, most likely a record high. So my name, along with Tim's and Mike's, rang throughout the sanctuary of Weaverland. They announced by church, but I wished they would have done it by team, so that others would realize that a team had 3 perfect quizzers. And poor Michael, still can't pronounce his last name right. It's now Swaiger. Then the matches started. First, I watched Blainsport vs Reading. Tim kept score, but had problems spelling the team names. Reading won. Then I watched Emmanuel, to scout them out. But they were playing my friends Zion 1, so it was all good. I kept score for this one. Zion had two quiz outs, but the errors killed them. Emmanuel came back and helped them win. I'm assuming that's their first win, so congratulations Emmanuel!

Our match was up in the room I was in. I was there, and so was Chelsea, Bryan, Christine, and Mr. and Mrs. Deitrick. Even our fans were there. Where was Tim and Mike? No one knew. Mr. Moss called Tim's cell, and Mr. Schwager called Mike's phone. Surpringly, both had their cell phone off. They eventually came. We prayed with the other team, and we were ready for quizzing. I sat across from Kendall Garber, currently the only perfect quizzer. For the first two question, I buzzed in and answered them right. I was one away from quzzing out! I buzzed in...and errored. As the match went on Mike got 2 and Tim got 2. I quizzed out on question 8. The match continued. Chelsea picked up a bonus, scoring for the second time in her quizzing career. Tim errored at question 13. After question 13, Tim was one away from quizzing out, Mike was one away from quizzing out, and either Christine or Chelsea still needed to get in for team bonus. Question 14 went to Byerland. I knew by that time, we only getting only team bonus or a single quiz out. That also meant we were going to have one less perfect quizzer. On question 15, Tim quizzed out. We won 100 to 65. We got 2 errors in the match, a high so far.

Now I watched a few more matches. Now I watched Reading take on Emmanuel, and they won again. Reading is a team to watch out for. Then I watched Zion 2 take on Rockville...and got beaten badly. Glad they're not on our league. Watched Zion 1 vs. Neffsville. This time, errors helped Zion. Neffsville took an early lead, but they got too many errors, giving lots of bonuses to Zion 1. They did win.

Now I hurried off to our second match, the last match of the night. It was against Emmanuel. The match was not easy flowing like I we'd want it to be. I errored twice, once on a situation question that I got in too early and the other on a question I didn't think through enough. Tim also jumped in on getting two errors. The last 5 questions is when we really took off. Mike made up for not quizzing out by being the first one to quiz out on question 10. Tim quizzed out on question 13 and I followed in on the next question. On the last question, Christine got in for team bonus. We won 135 to 40.

So things changed last night and set some things in motion. After 4 matches, Spring City is 4-0, undefeated. Each match we have scored points in the triple digits. Our opponents have scored at the highest 65 points. Our average has dropped slightly, to 131. Hopefully, we're still on top, although the average is 14 points/match less. Spring City has two perfect quizzers, me and Tim. In 4 matches, both of us have scored a total of 140 points, averaging 35 points/match. There are other points where we are near perfect. 3 of the 4 matches, we had 3 quizzers quiz out. 3 of the 4 matches, we got team bonus. So now we wait and pray. I'll update you what happened after practice or once the standings come out, whichever is the last one. I hope it's the first. I don't want to wait another 5 days!

P.S. I noticed something from my last post. Remember how I mentioned the Spring City vs. Blainsport series? I wanted to know the best way figure out the overall best. I didn't want to go by win-loss, since the teams are totally different every year. So I figured to add up the points scored every year for each team, find the total, and the biggest total is the winner. It's a tie! If you add it up, in the past 3 years, Spring City scored 240 and so did Blainsport!

Question of the post:
What was the temple adorned...

Finally standings!

I waited to post again because I wanted to wait for the standings. I had know idea I would be waiting so long. I was so excited when I finally got it Friday afternoon, I started making these squealing noises in the library! It was great to finally get ahold of them. I was reassured of some things I figured, but at the same time I was suprised. As I believed, we did finish in first place in League A with our 145 average. We didn't, however, finish number 1 of all teams in ACC Quizzing. Paradise 4 in League B got a 155 point average. According to Tim, they scored 170 in one match. That'll do it. But still, 1st place in the league, 2nd place in the whole ACC, that's the highest I have been with a team. 3rd in the ACC is Weaverland 2 in League B. The 4th team in the ACC is the 2nd place in League A, Petra 1, with an average of 135. Yes, Spring City is only ahead by 10 points in the average. Not the lead size I wanted, but it'll do. My placing in the individual stats where was I though it was, perfectly in 1st place. Haven't been there since 2004. Tim and Mike also joined me in there. Why Mike's name is ahead of mine, I'll never know. It goes by alphabetical order by team, than last time. It doesn't make sense. Anyway, it does usually feel proud to be a perfect, but I'm not sure that I am too proud. Maybe it's the fact I've been here before, maybe it the fact I am sharing perfection with fifty other quizzers. It doesn't seem that big. Maybe by next week it will. Christine is in 138th, and Chelsea is in 202.

While I was waiting for the standings, I thought about our wins that we got on Sunday, mainly focusing on the ones that happened against Blainsport. If you knew our history, you'd see why it was so big. For the past 3 years, Spring City had quizzed against Blainsport. This is how's gone down for the past 3 years:

2005: Blainsport 110 vs. Spring City 55

2006: Blainsport 130 vs. Spring City 30

2007: Blainsport 0 vs. Spring City 155

That was a special win. I want to say revenge, but it's not really, because there no feelings. It is just amazing how things can be turned around. Both teams were totally different this present year compared to the past years. And because of this, a 2-year streak was disrupted. For the past 3 matches, the winner has always scored in the triple digits, and therefore allowing the loser no more than 55 points. Every year the the winner's score increases, the loser's score descreases, and that means that socre difference grows as the years past as well. It'll be interesting to see where this match will go next year.

Now we begin looking towards the upcoming Sunday. Spring City, along with half of the ACC, will be at Weaverland Mennonite Church. The other half is at Hopewell Elverson. I would have rather been there, since it is closer, but then again, I haven't done too well while there. Oh well, I'll be there for the fun week. We got another two matches. The first one is the 3rd round against Byerland 2. Then we have the last match of the day when we take on Emmanuel. This is looking good. It seems pretty easy. Petra 1 and Slate Hill 1, the next two highest team in our league have two hard matches, including one of them against each other. I'm hoping we can maintain our average. I'm not sure if 2 teams with triple digits will be able to maintain that, and even if one does, the other one will be far from it. We just have to keep doing that thing we do.

It's a possibility. Practice showed the potential. All 4 of us that got team bonus was able to get one buzz in right every practice match. Even Chelsea was getting in on the action. That's good. I continued my quizouts. That's it. Tim errored out twice. He normally does that in practice, but when real matches come around, he's good. Mike too could go either way. Hopefully we can continue learning and practicing the material. It won't be any good to have an easy schedule if we don't know the answers to the questions. To top it off, it wouldn't hurt to have God's blessing and favor!

Quizzing Question of the Post:

Situation question. Who said this and to whom? "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then return."

Quizzing Joke:

Back in the days of Jesus, the Jews sentanced death stoning, and the Romans by crufixion.

Q:What other method of execution was used?

A: The words of Jesus, because the people hung on them

(Talk about the power of the Word of God!)

Quizzing at LMH. Must be the season opener.

After a long countdown for roughly 8 months, the day and the hour finally arrived. The quizzing season was ready to begin. I was sooo excited, I could not fall asleep until 2 in the morning! I was pumped and ready. For the opening quizzing season, I decided to dress up. I dressed up all in black, and to top it off, I had a Burger King crown spray painted black, the goth crown I call it. Low rider, the singing dancing hamster, was my quizzing buddy. I decided not to go with an energy drink because I only had 5 and needed to ration.

Since it was the opening of the quiz season, the church got the quiz team up to pray for them and bless them for the whole year. Our biological families and our church family was behind us. And I know on top of that I got supporters from Frederick church and other places. Since it was the 3rd Sunday of the year, it was fellowship meal. The quizzers got together at one table and studied some while eating. We followed with practice at 2 PM. Practice went extremely well. The full team was there and every time 4 quizzers quizzed out. That's for all 4 matches. We knew the material back and forth. We only had half an hour for free time, where Tim, Bryan and Mike played basketball in 25 degree weather. I stayed inside and listened to text on my mp3 player. We had pizza for dinner, and headed off to LMH for quizzing.

We arrived at LMH around 6 PM. The first people I met were Zion, but Zion was inside and and we were outside. I hugged them through the window. Inside I met up with the rest of them, including Deanna, who I found out was quizzing. I don't think she's quizzed since two years ago. Later I found out she was buzzing in, a good start for someone who hasn't quizzed for a while. Saw other people, went in the auditorium, and worshipped. Heard a lot of new songs, but always do in the new year of quizzing. Heard also Merv's joke, and thought is was poorer than usual. Anyway, it wrapped up with Fred making some announcements, and a room changed.

I didn't have a match yet, so I watched one first. I did some scouting by watching Blainsport vs Paradise 3. Blainsport had changed from last year. This year, there was only 4 quizzers, 3 of which were new. It seemed like Paradise 3 was taking off, but Blainsport caught up and match became close. Blainsport was one away from team bonus, but by end could not get it. The score ended in a tie of 75.

Now it was our turn up. We were in classroom 104 with Jaimie Detweiler, arguably the most favorite quizmaster. The opponent was Good Shepherd 2. We prayed together as a whole. Then the quizmatch started. Tim quizzed out by question 3, 2 on buzzes and 1 a bonus. When the first timeout was taken, I said, "I blinked and Tim quizzed out!" The next question was a situation question, and I got it. We next got team bonus. I followed up by quizzing out on question 10. Mike was the last one to quiz out on question 12. With the questions Good Shepherd could get ahold of, someon quizzed out. by the end of the match, we won 135 to 55, just as predicted.

My next match was fourth round, against the team I scouted Blainsport. We took the exact same seating as our last match. Once again, we prayed with Blainsport. The match began in a fast pace as usual. This time I quizzed out before Tim. Mike still quizzed out third. We got team bonus. After we got team bonus, Chelsea buzzed in and got it right! Pretty impressive for a rookie. She also got a bonus, but didn't get it because she said houses instead of homes, which is nasty but true. Christine, after giving the fourth question for team bonus, got a second question right. She was one question away from a quiz out, and she was given the oppurtunity at the last question, but couldn't get it. We shutout Blainsport with a score of 155. That was wow! As we shook hands, I felt weird. I didn't know what to say to them. I almost wanted to apologize.

My day was over, but not the quizzing day. The next match I saw was a Reading match. Reading had already quizzed before, and it wasn't the best performance. This match was different. Reading's final score was 105 points, 3 quizouts. I didn't see anything out of Morgen, a bit disappointing. They did good. I finished the night with watching Hopewell 1 vs. Paradise 3. I must admit, this was more of scouting for a much future week. It was fun to watch anyway. I saw a quizzer from Dennis's Hopewell 4 team in 2005. Vicki scorekept. It was a good match. The only criticism I had was when the quizmaster got off. "In what books is it written, Do not..." when it became key at "books." The night finished off with having snack and socializing. Met up with the rest of the quizzers I knew. Since Mike's, Tim's and Chelsea's parents were all there, they drived their quizzer home, and it was just the three in the van.

Reflections: It was awesome on Sunday night. Bruce has no idea on the action he missed out on. We thought we did good with 135 points, and then we scored 155, then we thought that was very good. Our coaches were very impressed with us. I was impressed with everyone. Christine really came through for us on team bonus. In the two matches she scored 30 points and almost quizzed out. She is the most dependable quizzer for team bonus. She did get two errors, the only two we earned all night, but it's a sign she's trying hard. It's just so ironic because she is the last one on the team I would suspect to do that. Chelsea got 1o points, and on a buzz in, too. Not many rookies can do that. Tim, Mike, and I are all perfect quizzers. I think this is the first time I have ever seen 3 quizzers on the same team perfect. This is most meaningful for Mike, who has totally turned it around compared to the past two years. But don't forget this is extremely meaningful to me too. I haven't been perfect since 2004! We average 145 points/match. That should put us on the top of the league. If it doesn't, I don't know what will. God was awesome to us, and I pray He will keep blessing us in the same way this whole season.

Quizzing question of the post:
What 5 will the Gentiles do to the Son of Man?

Another year begins

Some of you may have looked at the post title and wondered, "Graham, we're 2o days into the New Year of 2007. Where were you?" Did you notice I didn't say anything for New Year's Day. I said previously in my birthday rant that New Year can be objective. It starts whenever the person thinks it does. The Chinese and Jewish have it on a different day. My new year....is the first week of quizzing. So this Saturday is New Year's Eve for me! Party! Well, no, not really, but it will be tomorrow, in a way. All the fun we have, it's like a giant party. Plus, we learn God's Word and fellowship with other Christians. Can't beat that!

The year will start off with the 6 quizzers of Spring City all at the church service. During it, the quizzers will be prayed for and "initiated" (maybe "sent off with a blessing" is a better term) into the quiz team. Then we will take part in enjoying the fellowship meal. Once the church has cleared out, practice will commence as normal. We'll get a period of free time. Most of them will use it to play outside, I'll most likely use the time to study or get caught up with Christine. Dinner follows, then once we clean up, it's off the quiz match!

Our first match opens up at LMH as usual. We'll have 2 matches. One against Good shep 2, the other against Blainsport. yes, we are starting our season playing Blainsport again. It will be a goal to score more than the last time, which was 30 points. It's good we are not the first match. It will allow the rookies to see a match before they dive in. And comparing last year, Good shep 2 will be an easy match to start.

Alright, every year I make goal. Time for this year's goal. For the past two years, I've made a goal that came in parts. This year is a flat straight out goal. I will finish as one of the top 5 quizzers. I know it sounds like a big goal, but not for me. I finished 12th, and the top 5 is a minimum of 7 places away, so it is challenging, but possibly. I was thinking about tagging some parts onto it, but by finishing in top 5, I will either tie or beat the goal. This year changes everything because there is only 17 matches. That means a perfect score is 595 points. Everything readjusts By finishing in the top 5, I need to quiz out a lot. Last year, I got a high of 15 quizouts, and that's 525 points alone. Even if I scored the max points without quizzing out, I get no higher than 565 points. Not good enough. I'll need to get at least 16 quiz outs to get there.

That's my goal, or in keeping with the New Year's spirit, my resolution. I got little margin of error, but I know I can do it. Our team looks very promising this year. 3 quizzers from last year's top 70, each one equally ready to quiz out. A fourth one is dependable on team bonus. Scoring 135 points no longer a wishful daydream, but a possible reality. Every year I say it's gonna be my year, but this year, I'm saying it's OUR year. Go Spring City!!

And I just realized that I started this on Saturday, and ended Sunday. So if the tense change, I apologize, and fix them to your fit.

Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
17 HOURS, 26 MINUTES

Quizzing Question of the post:
What 5 commandments does the rich young ruler know?

Quizzing Joke:
Q: What spiritual landmark was broken for a time?
A: The great chasm between Heaven and hell, becaused it had to be fixed :-)

A Good Experience...with a bad end

The time I spent in Warrenton, Missouri for my senior experience was fun. It was quite the experience. There are about 8 departments in the CEF International Headquarters, I worked in 6 of them. Monday I worked for International Department. There I updated the 2006 missionary and country files and set up new files for 2007. Tuesday I worked in the Fast Tracks Missions by preparing the new offices for the Fast Track to Missions. I took down cabinet doors, painted them and then put them back up. Wednesday I spent the day in the recruitment office. They had very little for me to do, and I could only work 2 hours. This forced me to work in the kitchen Wednesday and Thursday evening. I spent the Thursday morning working in the Mailbox Club, but due to a slow day in the Mailbox Club, I spent the afternoon in the CEF Press Room. I wrapped up on Friday working in the USA Ministries department.

I could on and on talking about what I learned and what I liked. I did do that, my Senior Experience Journal is 7 pages long. I'll try to make it short. I enjoyed working for them because they were so nice. I was told of how much of a blessing I was to be there. I truly feel like I fulfilled a need. Many times I was told that the job was not hard (or sometimes not even boring), but rather time-consuming. Because I was doing, they weren't doing it and they could get to more important things. I learned how to do new things like painting and taking door and putting up door. I got to meet several new people from department heads to Fast Track Students, and hear their thoughts on the program. They were a joy to work with. I enjoyed staying the VIP suite in the educational wing. It was two rooms big with its own private bathroom. It was a sweet suite :-). There was always a kind atmosphere there. Everyone says hi to you, whethere they work there regularly or volunteer for the week.

I always like how I was introduced there. There are so many ways how Cindy could have introduced me. She could have said, "This is Graham, a student for Christopher Dock on his Seniro Experience" or "This is Graham Holcomb. He did CYIA for two years and is interested in CMI." If she really wanted to get on my good side, she could have said "This is Graham Holcomb, quizzer extrodinaire, 12th place quizzer on the Top 50 Quizzers List." Nope, I get introduced as "This is Graham Holcomb, he's a friend of Bill Elgin." It kind of got old after a while, but it did get me far. Aparrently, everyone knows Bill. It did get me far. Paid VIP suite (which no Fast Track student has got into the first year). 3 paid meals for all five days. It was all good. This was a good experience for me. I would gladly do it again.

This would have been the perfect trip, except the ending wasn't so perfect. As I arrived at the airport at 5 PM for my 6:30 flight, it began to rain, freezing rain. Everything seemed to go well. I checked in my luggage, went through security, and sat at my gate, waiting to board. Well, the time came to board, but the gate wasn't opening. There was heavy freezing rain and the plane wasn't allowed to fly until it was light freezing rain. They were going to delay the flight an hour. If it let up during that delay, they would quickly load passengers and luggage, de-ice, and take off quickly. 50 minutes later it did lighten up. It took them 2o minutes do everything, but it wasn't fast enough. So they sat us on the plane to wait until it let up. We sat and sat and sat. The freezing rain came down harder and harder. Little did we know that every 15 minutes roughly 5 flights were being cancelled. 2 1/2 hours later, they decided to cancel our flight, at around 10:30 PM. I'm not sure what upset me more: my flight being cancelled or having to wait so long for my flight being cancelled. They gave me a replacement flight, it wasn't until 3 PM the next day!Because since all the other flights were cancelled, hotel rooms were sold out nearby. I had to spend the whole night in the airport. There was only one food place open that I could eat, something I hadn't done since noon that day. I had to go reclaim by bags. Since I had much valuables, such as my laptop, camera and phone, I was afraid to fall asleep, in fear I wouldn't have it when I woke up. I stayed up the whole night, randomly wandering about the terminal looking for a signal for my laptop's wireless connection (Found one, but it required being charged). Some of the time I spent calling other air liners, seeing if I can find a better, earlier flight. I found out that American Airlines had two earlier flights: 9:05 AM and 12:15 PM. As soon as the ticket agency opened, I presented them my ticket and asked for a single seat on an earlier flight. Sure enough, there was. I felt so relieved. I got through security and waited oh so impatiently to get on the flight. The flight was slightly delayed because it needed to be de-iced and the door wasn't shut all the way. But finally at 10 AM, after 15 long hours in the airport, I finally escaped! I finally arrived in Philadelphia 12:30, 15 hours after I was suppose to. I never want to go through that again. Most boring thing ever. I had to buy a book to keep me entertained. On a good note, I got a lot of quizzing done.

Speaking of which, not being there was torture! I called in the middle of practice cuz I needed questions! I practiced so much during my free evenings I could predict the questions I was going to ask! I looked at situations and numbers. I memorized lists and Acts 2:1-13. I need match practice and practice buzzing more than ever. I missed you guys in practice! Keep practicing!

Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
7 days, 2o hours, 22 minutes

Question of the Post:
List the 5 that no one has left for the sake... ("sake" is key! That means you should know it by now!)

There for the first practice, not there for the second practice

First practice was Thursday at the Deitrick's house. Got to fill out the secret sponser forms and meet the new quizzers. Everyone was there, even Spring City quizzers of the past: Bethany and Brandon. I don't know how to describe it. Weird things happened (well, weirder than normal). Michael was always the first one to quiz out. Talk about miracles! He usually errors out in practice. Don't get me wrong, I did quiz out every time. I know the material well. I just don't jump in fast enough. My buzzer drills have shown it: my buzzer speed needs to be faster. So how do I feel this? Every year I say, this is going to be MY year. Well, for this year...it's going to be OUR year. I can't gurantee anything, but I can easily see us getting team bonus, if we don't, 3 quiz outs wouldn't sound weird either. This team is going to do great. We need to get someone in the swing of being the fourth one for team bounus. I have high anticipations for this team.

I enjoyed being at practice. I got to see my friends that I haven't seen in a long time. We were crazy and had fun. It upset me that I won't be able to attend our next practice. The next practice is during my senior experience. Senior experience is when the seniors get off a week to pursue 30 hours of service or job shadowing over a span of four to five days. I will not be in the area at all between Sunday and Friday. I will be in Warrenton, Missouri. For my senior experience, I am working for Child Evangelism Fellowship, the same ministry I work for in the summer. This time, though, I will be working with the international scale. In Warrenton is the International Headquarters of CEF. I will be an intern, taking part in both job shadowing and service. I will be doing everything from the Mailbox Club to building and perhaps painting. I have been told pack to dress sloppily and semi-professional. It will be interesting. The temperature change I'm not sure I'm ready for. Today, it got up to 75 (I wore shorts)!, but Missouri has been in the high 40s the past few days, and the highest it will get will be 57 on Friday. I'm also not sure about traveling. It's not the fear of flying. I haven't really taken public transportation alone before, and the instructions for meeting someone to get me from St. Louis to Warrenton is unclear. Well, it doesn't matter because anything I allow the Lord to do through me will always have a positive outcome. I fly home Friday evening, so I'll see everyone Saturday...unless you're from Dock....because I'm skipping Senior Retreat, Senior losers!!!

Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
2 weeks, 21 hours, 12 minutes

Quizzing question of the post:
What 4 were the people doing in the days of Noah?

Countdown to 2007 quizzing

(Official) Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
3 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours, 21 minutes

(Unofficial) Countdown to the first practice of 2007:
1 week


Hope you enjoyed this past Christmas season. And being commericial Christmas, once December 26 rolls around, Christmas is dead. Not the Christmas of Jesus. Jesus is still living, and I hope you can in a way celebrate Christmas every day.

Now while most people are ready for celebrating the beginning of the new year , I'm ready to celebrate the beginning of a new quizzing year. I feel it's going to be great. Not only in the competition, but also with friends. I got my three good friends, plus the best quiz coaches a quizzer could ever have. We have a rookie, making us a team of five (so far). She'll most likely be the sub, but by the time Mike is going to Florida, she should be ready to start. Christine's birthday during the quiz season means she can quiz for us again, although turning 21 in mid-January. She'll be able to complete the team bonus well. I think at the bare minimum, we'll have is two quiz outs. Spring City will be the rockingest this year.

If you don't know, the quizzing material is Luke 16-24, Acts 1-9. Sadly, I was only able to write questions for just Luke 16. Well, it's better than nothing. I started trying to memorize Acts 2. I got through the first 6 verses, but hit dead there. I'm going to continue working on that. I need to do more buzzer drills, too. On the brighter side, I've been working at the material for the first week, which is Luke 16-18:30. I can list the 6 and list the 4. Plus, I know a lot of answers for Luke 16. I also have read the material a few times and listen to it a few others. I feel confident with Luke 16. Now to move on to chapter 17 and the first 30 verses of chapter 18. Nevertheless, I'll be ready by January 21 to quiz out every match.

Practice will begin next week, the first week of the year. It's either Wednesday or Thursday. It'll be based on what's best for the majority of the team needs. Either day is fine, I'll make I can make it to either one. The sad news is I can't make it to the practice the following week since I'll be in Missouri for my senior experience. Very upsetting. Still, I will be practicing hard, harder since I am missing a team practice, what I need most. I will rock with the team score and with the individual score.

Quizzing question of the post:
What 6 were the people doing in the days of Lot?

Joy: The Fourth Week of Advent

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." -Luke 2:10

When we think of joy, we think of a synonym of happiness. Sometimes we may think of joy has an extreme, hyper happiness. The dictionary would probably agree with that. But think joy can be beyond that. You can be joyful without always being estatic.

True joy is contagiuos. Being joyful causes those around you to be joyful. The angels and the shepards in the Christmas story demonstrate this. The angels presented the the birth of Jesus with great joy. The angels were so joyful, the shepherds had to see for themselves what the commotion was for. After seeing the newborn Jesus, they to went out to everyone to tell the news, probably in the same joy. The Messiah who was promised to save the people was finally here!

In today's modern world, we see Christmas not as much as a joyful time, but a happy time. Tis the season to be jolly. Yet it isn't always true for everyone. We call them Grinches or Scrooges. I like to call them Charlie Browns. People are hard on them, but I'm not. They're probably like that because they aren't seeing the true joy or love from the real Christmas. That's the biggest way we can know the difference between the two. While commericial Christmas gives us temporary happiness, the things we get will eventually no longer make us happy, just in enough time for Valentine's Day. The joy will get from the true meaning of Christmas lasts all year round. Happiness is temporary, joy is forever. The Santa Claus we base commericial Christmas on is was temporary. Santa is based on St. Nicholas, who was born, sinned, then died. The true Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, who always was, and always will be. God was never born and we never die. Even when we was born, he wouldn't die, even when killed. He would resurrect and be living again. How joyful we can now be now knowing we can be reconciled with God through the offering of His Son!

When everyone remembers the true meaning of Christmas, we gain a sense of hope, peace, love and joy. It's been a wonderful advent season, and now I am prepared for Christmas more than ever. May Christmas be meaningful for all of you.

Merry Christmas everyone!
"Hark the Harold Angels sing, glory to the newborn king...."

Love: The Third week of advent

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."-1 Corinthians 13:13

It was hard narrowing all 700 verses with love in it down to one. I chose this one, from the most favorite chapter to be read at weddings, 1 Corinthians 13 (which is known as the love chapter). I like this because it mentions 2 of the 4 advent candles. I think perhaps they should replace one of the other 2 with faith, or faith a 5th week of advent. Faith does prepare us for Christmas just as much as the others.

Love prepares our hearts for Christmas. To truly understand Christmas, we must understand love. First, we know God is love (1 John 4:8). Therefore, we can conclude everything God has done for His people is out of love. We know God loved His Son Jesus. He said at His Son's Baptism and Transfiguration. John 3:16 is the most famous Bible verse. The beginning of it tells us why the Lord gave us His Son. "For Go so loved the world..." We learn from the Bible that the greatest show of love is to give up his life for friends (John 15:13). That's why Jesus died on the cross. God the Father loved God the Son, but he also loved His people. That's why the Father and the Son allowed the Son of God to be crucified. As Richard J. Foster said in his book The Celebration of Discipline, "Love, not anger brought Jesus to the cross." The Son of Man died for us out of love.

Comparing the Christmas story to advent themes, I see love in Mary, the mother of Jesus. Just like our parents love us, their children, Mary loved her child, Jesus. She probably cared for it, wanting to make it comfortable, and not in pain or discomfort. She probably wanted to hold it and not let go. As she held it, she could only guess of how this little boy would be the messiah. Oh, if she only knew. I'm reminded of the song "Mary, did you know?" The songs talks about the baby growing up, performing miracles, and becoming Lord over all. But it doesn't mention anything about Christ's death. Did Mary know how He would die on this cruel earth? Did Gabriel tell her something like:

"On the night of the Passover, your son will be betrayed by one of his closest follwers and friends. He will lead a crowd, who just earlier that week was cheering and praising the enterance of your son into the capital. Most of the crowd will be chief priests and the teachers of the law, who are just jealous of his popularity, and his knowledge of how they aren't pure and perfect. Really, they feel threatened by him. He will be put on trial in front of 3 men. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, arguably the worst execution method in all history. Furthermore, he will refuse any pain killers. The worst, you'll be there to witness every minute of the suffering of the child you will bear for the Lord."

Probably Gabriel told her nothing of that sort. If the angel did, Mary will have been an emotional basket case. She would have cried at the annunciation of Jesus's birth, the birth, when she lost him at the age of 12, when he decided to leave to begin his ministry at the age of 30. No mother wants to outlive her child, know how her child will die, nor wants her child to suffer through it. But although Mary would witness her son's violent death, if she only knew what was going to happen next: a victorious resurrection. Jesus knew everything that was going to happen, but still went through with it. Now that is love.

When we understand Christ's love, we reflect why we should love. Jesus told us in John 13:34&35, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." We must love because we can be identified as followers of Jesus because we love. We should love year round, but when Christmas comes, we must really love. How do we do this? During Christmas, we usually show love by giving. But I think we've missed this. We only give to our family and friends. But's God's love is to everyone, not just our family and friends. Sometimes by giving love to others, especially in public, we can rob others of the feeling of the love of Christmas. I realized this as we watched Charlie Brown Christmas yet another year. He wasn't feeling Christmast because of the commericialism of Christmas. The love commericial Christmas tells of is receiving love through the Christmas cards and presents one gets from family friends. If our family and friends love us, they will give us things. Reverse is true, too. We believe if we truly love our friends and family, we must get them presents. We're giving, just like Jesus commanded, but I think we're missing the point. We should be giving for more than just "love" (which isn't even true love, it's the fuzzy feeling love). So how do we separate ourselves as Christians from the worldly Christmas? We got to get out of the cycle of giving out of fuzzy love, and we can do this by getting back to the true love of Christmas. We got to get together, talk this over, and realize our friendship won't change whether or not we get gifts or not. If it means no one giving or getting gifts, so be it. We also must be giving gifts to others beyond family and friends. These means presents for the poor, authority, strangers, unpopular, unliked and the hated enemies. People we wouldn't give to normally. They're the ones who feel the lack of love during Christmas. It's not only important that we give to them, but we must give equally to them as everyone else. Then not only will we be giving the true love of Christmas, we will be reaping it back to ourselves. We will be living the life of love Christ set an example for us to live.

OFFICIAL Countdown to the first quizmatch of 2007:
33 days, 18 hours, 22 minutes

Peace: The Second Week of Advent

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." -Luke 2:13,14

I could take this post and spend the whole time raving about how our God is favoring peace, not war, then go into the whole non-violent resistant, pacifist thing. I could use the 274 times peace is mentioned in the Bible to verify, but I'm not going to. Maybe a short, tame one at the end, but I reall want to focus it on something else we can all agree on. Peace is much more than the opposite of war. I learned this as our Sunday School had classes on the topic of peace. It was a DVD series, with class discussion in it. The program had a definition of peace that cirriculated throughout the lessons-

"Peace is when everything is the best it can be." -PeaceDVD (www.peacedvd.com)

Of course, I couldn't say it right, and everytime I tried, I pretty much quoted a popular praise song. I would say, "Peace is when everything is as it should be." If you didin't recognize it, it comes from the praise song "Blessed be the Name." But it comes down being the same thing? If the world was as it should be, as God intened it, without sin, then everything would be at the best. That's peace. We see a peace in the garden of Eden. The garden is peaceful because everything was as God planned, nothing wrong or out of place. Adam and Eve walked with God. They were at peace with their maker. When Satan came in and Eve fell to his temptation, that peace was gone. When God promised them a messiah, not only was he providing a way to get out of the sin, but a promise of restoring the peace. Isn't that what Jesus did coming to earth? That's what the angels meant when they were talking to the shepherds in Luke 2:14. The hymn "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" rewords it when it says "Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconcile."

Remember, when the Israelites could come into God's presense, it was not peaceful. First, there were several preparations one had to go through to be able enter the Lord's presense, from cermonial washing to performing sacrifices to wearing the right thing. Even when they could go in, it was was enter, do your business, and exit. No tarrying. It was very hard. Perhaps the man entering the Holy of Holies were in great fear doing his job. God was seen as the boss, not a friend. One wrong move, and you were gone. But as this Christmas season comes, remember that the child born would eventually die on the cross, splitting the heavy curtain dividing God from His people. God was saying, "No more of this bossy business stuff. Let's be personal. Let's become friends. Let's talk." God gives us the oppurtunity to have that peaceful relationship with him again. How much more perfect will it become when we have it in the new Heaven and the new Earth!

The characters in the Christmas story that show peace have to be Mary. Mary had a big assignment. Based on we know of culture back in the time of the New Testament, Mary was probably between the ages of 12 to 17! I don't think any of the girls around my age I know would want the responsibility. On top of that, Mary was engaged, not married. Being pregnant and not married was a dangerous situation. Mary could be punished for that from just being disgraced to being stoned to death. Mary must have been freaked out. But God's messenger Gabriel put Mary at peace with that. That's another gift God gives us in this gift giving season: a peace of mind. Not a piece of His mind, a peace of mind. The Holy Spirit relaxes us when deep down inside we want to panic. Just as the children's song tells us, it is the peace that passes all understanding. It doesn't make sense to be peacefully calm, when we really want to be tense.

As I was writing my Christmas cards, I came across one that said "Peace on Earth." Christmas is the one time of the year we wish we could stop all military combat and have world peace. We think it's unlikely to happen, but it did happen. On December 25, 1914, in the midst of World War I, the German and British soldiers stopped fighting and took up what is now known as "The Christmas Truce" (Google it if you don't believe me). The troops ceased to fight and celebrated the birth of Christ. The men met in the middle of no-man's land. Banners was made, carols were sung, gifts were exchanged between countries, and a friendly game of soccer was played. Some scholars are doubters of this; they say the event demonstrates at this point of time the war was still not taken seriously. But I think it was. The men realized that both sides had Christians who celebrated the holiday. They were united for a while as God's children. The next day, the fighting resumed. Wouldn't that be great, to do it again? For one day, especially a day where it is promoted to have no fighting but a time of peace? Not just war, but any kind of fighting. No homocides, no bar fights, no bullying. And to continue that, why can't we have it for more than a day? Why can't stop fighting between neighbors and nations all year round? It would be our way of helping the Lord restore that peace that he intended.