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Its our favorite holiday and we were blessed this year to spend it with my dad. Dad, or “Papa” as Micah calls him, is on the island waiting for the rest of the the mission team from Our Saviors Church back home, and its the first time my home church has sent a team.
Emily has had the house decorated for a few weeks now, but she had lots of plans for Easter. The festivities begin the night before with coloring Easter Eggs. Micah remembered this from last year, and it was so much fun. Emily had 2 dozen eggs ready and prepped. She used the “bright” setting on the dyes and that’s about all it took… mix in a 3 year old and you’ll got a egg coloring party.
Dad and I have been working on building the school a new shed, and we took some boards from the old one and built a sandbox for Micah. We tried to do it stealthily so that it would be a surprise, but you’d be amazed what the little boy can guess! Later we went to the beach and I carefully timed filling up the truck bed with heaps of sand. It was so heavy the truck tires were almost flat!
Then finally Easter morning came. The sun rose bright in the sky, and before we started preparing for church, Emily had and Easter Egg hunt. However these eggs were different than the ones we dyed earlier. These were special eggs scattered all around the house and they weren’t filled with candy or goodies, but instead with little mementos of the Easter story from scripture.
After Micah had found them all, we all sat down and as he opened them 1 by 1 we would read the corresponding scripture to what was in the egg. There was a tiny palm branch for Palm Sunday, a little stone to represent the tomb, and in the last egg, there was NOTHING – because the tomb was empty. It was really a neat project and Micah had fun and learned the Bible story too.
Somehow Emily also found time to prepare an Easter basket filled with some treats and stickers for Micah too. So he had that too, but we had a larger distraction for him. It was the sandbox. At school his favorite thing to do is play in the sandbox. As soon as we showed it to him on Easter morning that was the end of it, there was no taking him away from the sand. In fact later on the way home from church he told Emily, “now we don’t need to go to the beach any more, because we brought the beach to us!” Hilarious!
Church was a celebration and we enjoyed with everyone in our congregation. I did the Lord’s Supper sermon and served as the morning moderator and our friend Wayne Ingraham preached. Wayne even asked my Dad to pray at the end, and I had the congregation repeating the traditional Easter call to worship, “He has risen!,” followed by, “He has risen indeed!”
Then after church, Emily put together a huge Easter lunch. I’m honestly still full from it. She cooked an enormous ham that we’ll be eating off of for the next few days. She did homemade sourdough bread, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. And that’s not all, somehow she even found time to make a 3 berry pie. What a feast!
Then to top the day off, Papa brought Micah a kite to fly. This was Micah’s first time ever flying a kite by himself. Tag kept barking at it like it was a bird, it was very funny. I can’t think of a better way to spend Easter than with our family – we just wish everyone could have been here.
Easter is a special time of the year because of the traditions that we all grew up with as children, but most importantly we’re thankful to our God who has given us His Son. And Jesus didn’t let His life be taken from Him, but instead He laid it down by His own purpose, and He had the power to take it back up again. Easter is ultimately our celebration of a resurrection that we too will share in just like Jesus.