Easter Blessings

We dye eggs as a family tradition each year.

     This year Easter in Russia fell much later than Easter in America. It wasn't until May!  I really enjoyed that it was late enough that it actually felt like spring here (whereas some years it still is very

much winter) .  One of my favorite things is that you can say "Jesus is Risen!" to people on the street because of the Orthodox influence here.  It's a wonderful reminder that Jesus IS risen and that's why we can have eternal life with Him!

Ell was especially proud of her eggs.  She probably ended up dyeing over half of them!

     We like to take advantage of this season for special Easter traditions and talking about how truly AMAZING it is that the God who made the entire universe came to this world as a tiny, helpless baby, lived a perfect life, and died so that we can live forever with Him. 



     And, of course, we had an egg hunt.  A special family from Germany sent us Easter chocolates that we could hide around the living room for the kids.



     Another of our traditions is to open "resurrection eggs" together with little symbols and verses inside that tell the Easter story.  This year we mixed it up a bit with some new symbols.  The kids really get into telling the story.

All three of our kids were part of the group that sang a song for everyone.

      For a few weeks, Ella had been praying every night that our friend, Asya, and her kids would come to church.  I really didn't expect her to, as she lives far away and hasn't been to our church in well over a year.  But I sent her a little message on Saturday to invite her.  You can imagine my surprise when she called that morning from the bus, saying they would come to church in a few minutes! They all really enjoyed the service. 

 
     And Anneka was part of this special skit that showed Jesus as a healer.  They did a great job!

         We had our annual Easter feast after the service and enjoyed talking with everyone.

Ella was so welcoming to Asya's kids and helped show them were to sit and go during the service and how to get food during meal time.  They're family stayed for a couple of hours afterward.

Family Picture

The girls with their friend, Matthew

 
     We had an Easter theme for English Club that afternoon.  One Buryat guy leaned over to me and said, "I totally don't know anything about Easter."  By the end of the day, he did.  ;)

     Leif typed out a couple of texts from the Bible both in English and in Russian along with some questions for us to discuss.  It was encouraging to my heart to see all of these dear people hearing the best news ever.



     The weather was so nice, I couldn't not let the kids play outside.  They were all delightfully dirty.   When I pulled this yellow dress out of the clothes hamper a couple of days later to wash, there was a downpour of sandy dirt that made a big pile of dirt all over the floor.  I knew the dress was dirty, but I was quite surprised at the amount of dirt that came out of it!!