Halloween Weekend

John, doing his Halloween thing.... 


The Dancer and the Nerd...Can you guess who's who?..;-) 


The Trick-or-Treaters 


Us out on the town...trick-or-treating 

This last weekend was quite eventful. On Friday, Roxy, Roxy's dad, my roommate, and John all went out for coffee in Koreatown. It was this neat little Boba/coffee shop.
On Saturday, I slept in til 9, organized some things in our apartment, prayed, and visited a girlfriend of mine in the building. A couple of friends came down to visit as well. There were about 6 kids down there and my roommate had them all playing UNO and focused. I am still amazed at her ability to get young kids focused and playing nicely. While she played UNO, I hung out with the adults. We sat on the bed and discussed our weekly events.
That night, Jackie (a girl that lives downstairs from me) came over to the apartment and we made homemade Pizza and Brownies. There were many who thought we were going to buy it, however, no-- we really made homemade pizza. She helped make the crust, make the sauce, put on the toppings, and the cheese. I think it was the best pizza, I've had the opportunity of making thus far. Everyone who ate some, including Jackie's brother Jack, thought the Pizza was good. Even the brownies were good. I didn't have much of those though--I let Jackie take most of those home. Every time, Jackie and I, make them from scratch....good old Betty Crocker Cookbook. She read all the directions and I helped her make the food! It was a lot of fun. While we ate the food, I taught her how to play UNO. Her brother hung out for a while and chilled with us!
On Sunday, Halloween, my church had a mini-festival. My boyfriend, some friends, and I hung out and watched some of the youth play the games they had. It was nice to just rest. I hadn't had a lot of that in the last week. When I got home, I sat down and collaged some of the things that were on my mind. Erwin, the pastor at Mosaic, on Sunday talked about the reality of Spirits in our world. We often try, as humans, to believe that Angels, Demons, and Spiritual experiences can't happen and that they don't exist. But, what the Bible doesn't ALREADY tell us--I think the New Age Movement portrays quite well. There are some crazy things, whether good or bad, happening in the this world and it isn't happening with human hands. I spent a good hour and a half thinking about the Unseen Spirit World in our world and how it effects people. It made me really think about the Battle between Demons and Angels that are going on for our lives. And it has helped to understand why prayer is so important. It is pray that helps us fight this battle--a battle that cannot be fought physically. There are so many verses that talk about: Angels that are protecting us and so many verse about demons that are trying to destroy and confuse us. God asks us to put on the Armor of God, so that we can withstand them (Esphesians 6). We joke, dress up, and have fun on Halloween. And though, I don't find anything wrong with this, I find, sometimes, we forget that there really are Powers at work in our World that are not here for our good. They seek to confuse us and they seek to destroy us. And it is probably mindful that we be in prayer against them.
On Sunday evening, my roommate and I got dressed up and went out Trick-or-Treating with some friends and their kids. I had never experienced Trick-or-Treating in quite the same fashion. It actually allowed me to get a better look at the neighborhood I live in. Because there are not many homes in our area, the kids couldn't go trick-or-treating at door-to-door. So what did we do...went business to business. We went to some apartment in our building, but for the most part, people weren't home and you really can't get into the other buildings! My teammate, John, loves to provide alternatives to candy, so when kids come to Him and his wife's door- He lets them role dice. Each number that could possibly be rolled has a set of prizes they could pick from. So depending on the number you got, depended on the type of prize you got. He had a variety of prizes: from stickers and pencils to basketballs! His place is the hot spot for a lot of people in the building!!!
For the rest of our Trick-or-Treating endeavors, we went up and down 6th street walking into local businesses like the KFC, the Chinese restaurant, the Movie Rental places, and the 99 cents stores asking for Candy. The picture place was actually letting each family take a Halloween photo for free! It was really neat. Although, I have to admit: the kids didn't get nearly as good of candy as I got growing up. Primarily, they got hard candies. But, I guess, if you are giving out large amount of candy (40,000 kids), you have to stay within your budget!
The most interesting and yet scary thing that I found was that even the Botanicas were giving things out and they were the most sought after things yet. Botanicas are spiritual shops. It is the place you go to get candles that have magical powers or voodoo dolls to cast spells on people. They have a variety of different mystic beliefs and religions that they cater to. They were giving out necklaces that were meant for good luck. My friends were really excited about these and we spent an hour trying to get them. The whole time my stomach was in knots and I kept praying that if they had some negative spiritual power that somehow, they wouldn't get their hands on one. In the end, one of my friend's sister was the only one that got one. I was really happy about this. I really wished she hadn't got one either, but I am glad that the others never got one at all.