We love the opportunity to walk around our 'hood interacting with neighbors and the kids enjoy dressing up, but the rest of Halloween has gotten pretty lame. So with the inspiration from one my friends in California, "Heroween" was born. In honor of All Saints Day on November 1st, we decided to highlight heroes of the Christian faith. I borrowed one of Dave and Neta Jackson's Hero Tales book from our church library and searched for coloring pages on each of our heroes. (These were not as easy to find as I would have hoped. Any artists out there want to draw some simple coloring pages for a variety of Christian heroes?) The week before, we highlighted four of them and the kids colored the sheets while I read (and sometimes paraphrased) stories about how God used these folks to bless people around them.
Our heroes for this year are:
George Washington Carver - I want to read an entire biography on this guy - he's awesome. He basically used crop rotation and his inventive uses of the peanut to get the African American farming community off of their reliance on cotton. He also created a school on wheels to teach kids who couldn't come to him. He wore a fresh flower in his lapel everyday and though he didn't learn to read until his teenage years he had multiple degrees by the end of his life. He also refused pay raises so he was earning the same wage at the end of his life as when he first began. I wish current teachings on him didn't dilute his faithfulness to God and heroic stewardship of His creation.
Mother Teresa - Who doesn't love and respect Mother Teresa? It's a joy to teach my kids about her. One of the vignettes in the book talked about how some hoodlums were threatening to kill she and the sisters and she basically said to their faces, "Fine. It would get me to heaven faster." They were so tripped out by her response that they never threatened her again. She's another one who's message has been watered down, especially regarding her strong feelings against abortion. When she received the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1979 she stated that "the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion." I love her love for children.
Brother Andrew - This guy actually went to war looking for an adventure, but ended up injured and confused about life. Not only did he find God during that time, but he was led to the adventure of a lifetime smuggling Bibles into closed countries during the Iron Curtain years. His famous prayer was asking God to, instead of making blind eyes see, make seeing eyes blind, so that he could get the Bibles through. This led to the organization Open Doors International. He was also a contemporary and travel companion to Corrie Ten Boom.
Mary McLeod Bethune - Definitely lesser known than the others, MMB was the fifteenth child of former slaves. She was one of the first teachers to start a school for young black girls after the Emancipation Proclamation, which is now Bethune-Cookman University. She believed in teaching their minds, hands, and hearts and would often say, "Faith is not a puny thing! If you are going to believe - believe like a giant!" The cool thing for the kids is that there is a beautiful statue of her at Lincoln park, where the kids play just 6 blocks from our house.
This was another fun experiment of celebrating the church calendar in creative ways. It makes me look forward to All Saints Day next year!
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