What's a Polygon?
A missing parrot! If I were going trick-or-treating, that would be my joke. Thanks Carrie ;) P.S. This is how Freddy is sitting as I am now writing this post.
Today is Halloween/Reformation Day, but all my celebrating was done early. YLM and San Pablo have had a busy weekend, starting with YLMHC's 2nd Annual Golf Tournament on Friday. More on that later, today I'll focus on the festivities. First up--bilingual Reformation service. It was a little odd to do it up big yesterday instead of today since Reformation Day conveniently fell on a Sunday, but there are always tons of volunteers (mostly from Juarez) around on Saturdays that we wanted to include, plus it served as a joint celebration with all the Lutheran churches of El Paso and several of our Juarez affiliates that are all having their own services today. It was neat to see the huge procession of all the pastors and hear all the choirs (including a bell choir) playing in unison, and today's service was actually really nice too; the sermon talked about how Luther's "Faith alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone" saying boils down to "Christ alone," and we sang "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" like every other Lutheran church. Here are some photos from yesterday's service:
Somehow I wound up running the sound!?! That thing looks pretty scary, but I only really had to touch like 4 of the buttons. Stephen gave me a 2-min crash course so I could fake that I knew what I was doing, which I suppose was a success since there was none of that high-pitched reverb.
Pastor Heimer sang a song in German, English, AND Spanish during the offering. He learned it at the first congregation that he served in Cleveland, OH.
All the El Paso/Juarez pastors present processing out of the sanctuary.
85-year old Pastor Martinez trick-or-treating!
Karla, Rosy, and Rita singing karaoke. Damian, one of our maintenance guys, sang a bunch of songs too, and he's good!
We used the open area between the Institute and the kitchen for the event.
Blanca Tovar, the woman behind the empanadas. There was also more traditional "fair" food, like popcorn, nachos, and hot dogs, but the empanadas were by far the best thing there--homemade, with a filling of apple, quince, guava, and peach.
Hard-working cooks inside, preparing gorditas and posole (a soup made with pork and hominy).
Miguel the mummy. He had his whole head wrapped too, but it was too hot--the high yesterday was 85!
Ticket-takers Sra. Palma and Danny. None of the booths handled cash, only tickets.
Today is Halloween/Reformation Day, but all my celebrating was done early. YLM and San Pablo have had a busy weekend, starting with YLMHC's 2nd Annual Golf Tournament on Friday. More on that later, today I'll focus on the festivities. First up--bilingual Reformation service. It was a little odd to do it up big yesterday instead of today since Reformation Day conveniently fell on a Sunday, but there are always tons of volunteers (mostly from Juarez) around on Saturdays that we wanted to include, plus it served as a joint celebration with all the Lutheran churches of El Paso and several of our Juarez affiliates that are all having their own services today. It was neat to see the huge procession of all the pastors and hear all the choirs (including a bell choir) playing in unison, and today's service was actually really nice too; the sermon talked about how Luther's "Faith alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone" saying boils down to "Christ alone," and we sang "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" like every other Lutheran church. Here are some photos from yesterday's service:
Somehow I wound up running the sound!?! That thing looks pretty scary, but I only really had to touch like 4 of the buttons. Stephen gave me a 2-min crash course so I could fake that I knew what I was doing, which I suppose was a success since there was none of that high-pitched reverb.
Pastor Heimer sang a song in German, English, AND Spanish during the offering. He learned it at the first congregation that he served in Cleveland, OH.
All the El Paso/Juarez pastors present processing out of the sanctuary.Next: Fall Festival. I am still in shock at how well this went off. In general, our congregation is not very responsive to requests for donations and volunteers, so when the Council decided to ask for a 10-person planning committee or there would be no festival, I was pretty sure I was going to have the Saturday night before Halloween free, especially since that's how it went down last year. HOWEVER, we not only got almost 20 people involved in planning the festival (almost all of whom agreed to run a booth and provide all of their own supplies), BUT the congregation donated candy, other foodstuffs, and over $100 to purchase other incidentals so that the event barely cost the church anything! It wound up being an overwhelming success that hopefully introduced tons of community members to our church. I didn't know it until I got there, but I worked the drink/empanada booth all night with Karla, her daughter Michelle, and Blanca Tovar. Michelle was great about manning my station for me so I could go take pictures:
85-year old Pastor Martinez trick-or-treating!
Karla, Rosy, and Rita singing karaoke. Damian, one of our maintenance guys, sang a bunch of songs too, and he's good!
We used the open area between the Institute and the kitchen for the event.
Blanca Tovar, the woman behind the empanadas. There was also more traditional "fair" food, like popcorn, nachos, and hot dogs, but the empanadas were by far the best thing there--homemade, with a filling of apple, quince, guava, and peach.
Hard-working cooks inside, preparing gorditas and posole (a soup made with pork and hominy).
Miguel the mummy. He had his whole head wrapped too, but it was too hot--the high yesterday was 85!
Ticket-takers Sra. Palma and Danny. None of the booths handled cash, only tickets.Happy Halloween/Reformation Day to you all, and if I could ask for one prayer request--pray for discernment as I decide whether or not to accept the position of Events Coordinator for our Thrivent chapter that was offered to me. It doesn't sound like a huge committment and the people who approached me about it think it would be good to have a younger perspective on the board, but I have to decide by Tuesday afternoon!
Until next time, blessings!
Until next time, blessings!
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