Reformation Day

We don't celebrate Halloween in our house, but we have been struggling with a better way to love our unbelieving (and believing) neighbors who come knocking on our door once a year asking for a treat instead of hiding in the house with the lights off! Though this year we have some errands and a medical appointment that will keep us away from home during the trick-or-treating, we are considering giving out candy and perhaps a gospel tract or something about the good news of Jesus Christ next year.

Also, did you know that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg on October 31st? While Luther's work is controversial, there is no doubt he was pivotal in setting off the firestorm we now call The Reformation. More and more churches have taken to celebrating Reformation Day instead of Harvest parties or carnivals. Our church doesn't do either, but it is an interesting idea.

My hubby and I have several seasonal movies that we watch every year for different holidays. We watch Groundhog Day on Februrary 2nd, The Patriot on July 4th, The Passion of the Christ on Easter, etc. This year we're adding one of our favorite movies to our tradition; Luther on October 31st. If you haven't seen this movie yet, I highly recommend it!

Some Lose Houses By Fire; Others, By Persecution

PAKISTAN Christian Homes Demolished in Pakistan - VOM Sources

On October 19, local Muslims demolished homes belonging to three Christian families in the village of Lobhana, near Lahore, Pakistan. According to The Voice of the Martyrs' contacts, more than 70 armed villagers moved in with tractors and began destroying the homes. VOM contacts said, "They demolished and looted three homes and only stopped when the police arrived." Some of the Christians attacked reported that the Muslims threatened to kill them. VOM contacts added that the land where some of the demolished homes were located had been given to the Christian families by the Pakistani government more than 10 years earlier. However, some local Muslims claimed the land, intending to build a cemetery. Pray for God's protection for Christians in this area. Ask Him to provide resources for these families to rebuild their homes. Pray the testimony of these believers will draw nonbelievers, especially their attackers, into the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Psalm 68:19, Proverbs 3:5, 6

I Love Autumn

One of many reasons I love autumn!

One of God's Paintings

I love this time of year! For some reason we have the best sunrises in the fall and winter months here, and I've been enjoying them tremendously this week.

Getting Caught Up

Since we've returned from California I feel like all I've done is laundry, sorting mail, paying bills, getting out fall clothes, getting rid of too-small clothes, organizing, getting our homeschool year going, and just generally running in circles. This week has been much better though. I've made some headway on things, and now that I'm not spending hours each doing therapy with Abigail, I actually have found time to do some blogging. For the first time in probably eight months, my blogs are all caught up! In fact, I was so close to getting all the posts done that I wanted but had run out of free time today. So I went through the closet for something for the kids to do for a while so I could finish up the last few posts, and I found their Leap Pads which haven't been touched for probably a year (how could I have forgot them that long?). They each spent about an hour with them quietly on their laps, and I got my posts done!

A Night to Ourselves

We hadn't been back from California and Georgia for even a full week, when we headed off again for a night away. A coworker of hubby's got married out in the gorgeous hills near Mt. Hood, and a dear friend offered to watch the kids overnight for us. We dropped the kids off around noon, and then headed to a place we've been wanting to visit for a few months...The Original Stash, the first geocache ever placed. After making a couple of finds in that area, we headed out to The Columbia River Gorge, truly one of the most beautiful areas in Oregon, perhaps in the country. We did a little more geocaching, finding some really neat areas we wouldn't have found otherwise and a few we'll have to bring the kids back to. Eventually, we made our way to Hood River, a beautiful small town along the Columbia River and right in the heart of the Gorge, and checked into our hotel. We got cleaned up and headed to the wedding.


It was an outdoor wedding and we all were freezing, though thankfully there was no rain. It was a fabulous setting, and had there not been cloud cover, there would have been a breathtaking view of Mt. Hood. The cloud cover and threat of rain were only two more proofs that it was definitely an Oregon wedding...no one here gets dressed up for anything. There were guests in tennis shoes and jeans, and I felt way overdressed despite the fact that I was initially worried I wasn't going to be dressed well enough. The groomsmen wore shortsleeved linen shirts, and the bridesmaids wore flip-flops.


After a five-minute reception line which we missed out on, there were drinks and delicious hors d'oeurves while we waited to be taken inside where it was warm. After a while we were moved inside where we sat at a table with Devotion, Confidence, Refinements, and Katie. They did the flowers for the wedding, and are true flower children if ever I've seen any. Hubby and I laughed later over the fact that a schoolteacher who had come alone asked us if it would mess up the table if an "odd" person were to sit there! Between us and the flower children, she was probably the least odd person at our table.


My favorite thing about the wedding was their music selection; they made some great choices. Interestingly, their gift to everyone was a CD of 20 of their favorite love songs (stolen music for everyone, woo-hoo). After a yummy dinner and spice cupcakes for dessert, we wished the bride and groom well (oh, and the groom gave hubby the backup tapes for work...what a great employee!) and headed home before all the people who were drinking heavily got on the road! The two young women at our table had at least six glasses of wine each (these were huge wine glasses, I might add) during the two hours I was watching and who knows how many before and how many after!


The next morning we ate our free breakfast and went out to see some more of the town. We did a few geocaches, one of which got us our exercise for the day with climbing 350 stairs from the bottom of the town to the top, really neat but exhausting. Then we ate lunch and took the "fruit loop" out to the country to see if we could find some good apples and cider. It was raining and not ideal for browsing fruit stands and markets, so after buying some cider and looking at the odd things one can do with pumpkins, we decided we better go pick up the kids. We made one more stop on the way home, a beautiful house and farm with dahlia fields, which was the flower of choice at the wedding.


This is the second time this year we've had an overnight stay with just hubby and I, and we so enjoyed it! It was so relaxing. We had dinner provided for us, and we had one of the most comfortable hotel beds I've ever slept in, and a free breakfast the next morning. It was wonderful to reconnect with my husband after being apart for so long!