Is that Yoda? Or a pirate? Or a Picasso painting? No, that’s 2003 alumna Heidi Bruder!  

As a middle school teacher at the beginning of COVID in March 2020, Bruder faced puzzling all educators: how to make online learning engaging. She dug deep for ideas — deep in her creative heart and deep in the bottom of an old costume bin! Before long, she started showing up in teaching videos as someone other than the perky, friendly teacher her students knew so well.

With costumes she found at home, and others contributed by friends and neighbors, and the application of previously undiscovered amazing makeup skills, Bruder began showing up to class as Hulk Hogan, Yoda, a Picasso painting, a mermaid, a mad scientists, a ventriloquist’s  dummy . . . the cast of characters was a delight to behold.  

For Bruder, it was one more instance where she trusted the Lord, and He showed up in an incredible, unimaginable way. She had experienced His kind and creative before: running on a national championship cross country team after she had given up running; forming a close bond with a middle schooler who intimidated her. She has seen Jesus come through in her life and through her life amazing ways over and over again. The Lord’s love for her has been the most amazing of all, and there’s no disguising how much that means to Heidi.

You can catch Heidi’s many transformations in Zoom teaching videos recorded for her fifth-seventh graders.