Easter days, Easter life

I loved what Ann wrote last week! I love how churches here keep on celebrating Easter; we have many times of repeating "Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!" to look forward to. We also keep the celebration going in our home.

In the past, we've had forty little candles to light one each each night, as we sing and repeat the Easter greeting. We play a little game of "looking for Jesus." Our Easter garden stays out as a centerpiece. This year, it's been different. I haven't been so organized with the candles; some evenings we light one, some evenings we don't. We are playing our game, and our Easter grass is growing beautifully. Best of all is the idea of living it, though. That's what I want to see! It doesn't matter how the fun little remembrances happen or don't. What matters is the Easter lifestyle!

Христос Воскрес! Christ is Risen!

Our wonderful day, in more pictures than words, because I'm tired. . . happily tired:

They got up to the sound of Easter music and found all the candles lit! We started reading:

HE IS GOD! He cannot stay dead. HE IS ALIVE. The true Glory of God shines in the world. The Light has won! The Eternal Light! The Bright Morning Star! The Light of the World!

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay."

And then we hurried on to the kitchen to see. . .

The empty tomb!
We finished our reading there.

Then it was time for breakfast: red eggs and cake!

Raia didn't want to eat hers, because it was so pretty.

Jaan read his for us.

"Христос воскрес!"

Asya wanted to ponder a little more before church.

Ready to go!

So that you can see the beautiful backdrop
Didn't the youth do a wonderful job? This is the prettiest it's ever been!

Most of the children

Everyone from my little Sunday school (except Asya) recited a poem.

Then they sang (Asya, too!).

After church, naps went so long that we would have been late to the evening service, so we went for a beautiful walk instead.

Through the GREEN

Jaan the Mountain Climber

Воистину воскрес! He is risen indeed!

"The darkest day in history"

One last candle

This was the darkest day in history. The Son of God himself was killed.... (click to read more.)

Preparing for Easter

Instead of writing about our trip right now, I'll just quickly share what we did today. (I'll write about Poland next week, after Easter.) The photo above is just to get you the right mood; that's what we collected this morning.

I didn't like that we haven't had time to do anything special leading up to Easter, but we've woven some into daily life. Jaan and Raia got to go to Sunday school and hear about Palm Sunday there. This morning, when we went to check on the violets (and pick some!), we also talked about the incredible thorn trees that grow in the same area. Of course, that connected right into the crown of thorns and Jesus' suffering for us. We went to church for communion this evening. We've also been reading Lenten Lights and talking about those Scripture passages.

In the past we've made Noel Piper's "Easter mountain" and also combined that with the idea of an Easter garden that I got from Ann Voskamp. (No time to add links now. Maybe later.) This year we didn't have time for anything complicated. I loved an idea that Ann linked to recently. We have grass seed and dirt, so we put it together today. The grass can grow throughout the Easter season for us. We read John 12:24 and examined our seeds first. They certainly seem to be dead! We're hoping for new life from them soon. And then we got our hands dirty....

Well, first we got everything ready.

A little miracle: the water didn't come on this morning and was off almost all day. I decided to be brave and go ahead with this project. The water came on about when this photo was taken.

Then we sprinkled seeds everywhere.

How does it look?

Lenten Lights

We started reading Lenten Lights tonight, even though Will is in Odessa. We'll just read the first part again with him when he gets back. I have tried a few times to get candles, but without success, so we just gathered what we had lying around. Instead of setting everything up in a pretty arrangement by myself, I let everyone help. . . and the result is just beautiful!

We lit the candles, enjoyed their beauty, Asya recited her verse, "Jesus is the light of the world," and then we read and blew out the first candle. It wasn't such a surprise this year, because they remembered it from last year. Jaan and Raia were waiting for it this time, ready to explain the symbolism to Asya: "Mama, when will you blow out a candle to show the darkness of sin?" And then we sang our song from last year. I want to choose a new one to learn this year, too, but last year's remains one of their absolute favorites.

This evening was a simple, thoughtful and lovely beginning to our preparations for Easter.