Reformation Celebration

Most churches have a harvest festival or trunk or treat this week. Our church takes a little different approach to October 31, choosing instead to commemorate the day in terms of the Reformation, since it was the date that Luther tacked the 95 Theses to the church door. Every year, we hear stories of reformers who were martyred for sharing the gospel; Adam was John Knox one year :). This year, we heard the story of Hugh Latimer, executed by Bloody Mary, and probably best known for his famous quote: "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." He said this to fellow reformer, Nicholas Ridley, as both were about to be burned alive for heresy. This is even more exciting to me because this quote is in the novel Fahrenheit 451 which I'm teaching right now. I love that connection - such a great, prophetic book if you've never read it.

So aside from hearing stories of martyrs each year, there is also a costume contest and this year, there was a chili/salsa cookoff. Sadly, we did not win the costume contest; there were many superb entries, including most of our youth group dressing up as the Duggar family. The child's prize went to Seth, a boy in Charlotte's class for his stinkbug costume. Hilarious. Since we didn't participate in the cookoff, enjoy our costume pictures.

Here are Charlotte and me. Charlotte is, hopefully obviously, Princess Leia this year. Since she had that costume, I decided to be Leia's mom, Queen Amidala, from the prequel movies. Adam called us Princess Lottie and Queen Mommy-dala, which I thought was clever. Honestly, my church was not the best audience for this costume decision, since about half the people I saw thought that I was a geisha. I should have said that I would never dress up as a geisha to come to a church function, but most people don't really know what geishas are/were anyway.

Here we are - the whole strange family. Adam was in a kind of monk/choir robe regalia since he was a part of the storytelling earlier in the evening. If it were not for that, I think we could've talked him into being Annakin. He really wanted to be Darth Vader chasing Charlotte around saying, "Give me back those plans! I want those plans!" Haha. All in all, it was a fun, but long day and evening. I already have an idea for tomorrow's post, so tune in! Soli Deo Gloria.