Easter

Every holiday comes with many traditions. Many are commercialised and the real reason for the holiday has become vague or obscured by all of the other activities. For me, one of the greatest blessing about living so far away from home, and from others who celebrate the same holidays, is that I have to be consistent and deliberate about the traditions I want to keep. For example, if I lived in the Philippines or Greece, Easter is the biggest holiday of the year, the entire week (Holy Week) shuts down parts of the cities and there are days of celebrations or mourning, re-enactments of Christ carrying his cross through cities or individuals who are crucified (for just a few moments) on literal crosses as they celebrate during this week. Luckily for me, I don't have to choose if those will become family traditions. Having lived in countries where Christianity is a minority religion, we have to seek out the things we want to include. This year, we chose to use a truncated format of Christ's last week on Earth- each day leading up to Sunday we spent time talking about what Christ did, reading about his teachings, miracles, the last supper... we skipped the Easter Eggs, candy, Easter Bunny, new dresses, ham dinner... and it was probably my favorite holiday yet. Maybe when the children are older it won't seem like putting a 5 course meal on the table distracts from what they really need. 

We had our normal block of meetings yesterday- church meetings will be suspended next week so we can watch the re-broadcast. I am so very thankful for this time of year, and for the inspiration I feel like I need and an anxiously waiting for. We have already begun listening to the first session, this is also a blessing... we now have a whole week to digest the 10 hours of talks before next Sunday. With only 3 talks down, I've already had a lot to think about.

Imelda has been home for several weeks, she went back to the Philippines because her son was graduating from High School. I have appreciated the time with just our family in the home, but we can't wait for her to get back. We share the work when she is here, so when she is gone I remember how much laundry we actually have to do or how much milk we drink... I don't think I've caught up on laundry the entire time she's been gone. And we are constantly short on milk. (That and Mary decided to play April Fool's jokes, dying the remaining 3 gallons of milk rainbow colors... they were so brightly colored, they were toxic.)

The rest of the week (the children had spring break this week) has been a blur of books, the zoo, laundry, bikes...

Love you all!