Easter Celebration

What a fun time we had at this past Monthly Fun Day Program!  Since Easter is coming (Ethiopian Easter is April 12th) we thought we would have an Easter-themed event.  While preparing for the event, I decided that I wanted to do the “Resurrection Eggs” that are very popular in America.  Problem was, I didn’t have the “Resurrection Eggs” kit so I went online and tried to find out if I could recreate it.  While it is possible to recreate the set, I quickly found out I wasn’t going to be able to recreate it that easily in Ethiopia as most of the items are unavailable here.  I left the internet cafe that day feeling sad that I wouldn’t be able to use this creative and visual teaching tool for the kids.

“But God”

Mussie came home later that SAME day with a box from some of my friends at HPC Church in Anderson, SC.  As we were looking through this huge box, completely overwhelmed by the love shown to us by my home church in SC, guess what was all the way buried in the bottom of the box?  You guessed it-a “Resurrection Eggs” kit!  I was so excited.  Of course, Mussie had no idea why I was so excited as he had never heard of these eggs before.  I love how God brings everything together.  He knew that I really wanted a fun, creative, visual way to explain the celebration of Easter to these children and He provided!

But why was it so important for me to have a fun, creative, visual way, you ask?  Because a lot of the children that come to this program are not Christian-most of them are Ethiopian Orthodox.  Ethiopian Orthodox people celebrate Easter but to them, Jesus is not the Savior-not the way to heaven.  We wanted to be able to stress to these precious children that Jesus and ONLY Jesus is “...the way, the truth, and the life” and that “no one comes to the Father except through” Jesus!!  (John 14:6)  And through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we are able to have eternal life.

The kids had fun with the “Resurrection Eggs”.  They were interested and impatient to wait to see what was in the next egg!  After the lesson, we split the kids up into groups and had them draw a picture of what Easter looks like to them.  Again, we were pleasantly surprised by some of the beautiful pictures the kids drew.

The "tomb" is empty.  Praise God!

After the kids had lunch, we had fun with Easter eggs.  I know Easter eggs have nothing to do with the true celebration of Easter but it is fun and the kids really enjoyed it.  The eggs were filled with candy that my HPC friends had sent me and some of the eggs had numbered slips of paper in them that the kids could redeem for fun toys that were in that box from the States.

Besufekad picking a prize.

Our beautiful volunteers, Asmara and Zewidtu.

What a great day to celebrate the sacrifice and resurrection of our King!  

Beauty all around

This past Saturday was our Saturday Fun Day.  Each month we attract more and more children to our group.  I wasn’t aware before just how many community kids we have coming to us but this past Saturday we had 60 kids in attendance and on average we have about 25 kids coming to our Sunday School program.  So that is about 35 community children that are coming to see us on these Saturdays!!  Praise the Lord!

We had a really great time during this event.  I spoke to the kids about Beauty.  We talked about how we spend so much time taking care of our outside appearance but so little time focusing on our hearts…the place where God looks.  I did a demonstration with the kids.  I had two bottles that looked exactly the same and in one I put water, in the other was vinegar.  Yabsira volunteered to be my helper.  

I asked him if the bottles looked the same and he and all of the other children agreed that they did look the same.  I had him sip the first bottle and asked him if it was good.  He said yes, because it was the water.  He then sipped the next liquid but when I asked if it was good, he said “No!”.  The lesson was meant to show that by the outside, the bottles are attractive with the decorative glass and blue top, and they are good because they do everything you need a bottle to do for you.  But it’s not until you examine and experience what’s on the inside do you realize that they are indeed not the same and one is bad and one is good.  We had a discussion about how God defines beauty and how the world defines beauty.

Then, we had art time.  My friends Jamie and Hannah had purchased some really beautiful paint sets for our ministry and I was able to use them with the kids.  They were so happy!  Some of them had never painted before.  They were instructed to paint something they thought was beautiful.  I found out that we have some artists in our group!!

After painting, we had lunch.  We served Misir wot with injera (Ethiopian food) and fruit salad.  A few of the smaller kids didn’t like the fruit but most of them loved it and we had a few squabbles over the left-over fruit!  Fruit salad is a huge treat for them as most families really only eat bananas because other fruit is so pricey.

Enjoy some pics from our day:

My faithful translator...and husband, Mussie!!

Vinegar doesn't taste so great!

What an artist!

Gorgeous!

Abeneezer is proud of his tree!

Some of our blessings from the community.

Saturday Fun Day

We held another Saturday Fun Day this past weekend.  Each time we hold it, more kids show up!  This time we had even more community kids attend than we’ve ever had before.  We praise God that these children are coming to spend the day with us.  I know that their motivation in coming might only be to receive a free meal but if that keeps them coming, that’s fine because while they are waiting to receive that free meal, they are hearing the Word of God!  We are planting the seeds and waiting for the fruit to bloom!

We had a great time singing, playing games, doing crafts, and hearing the Word of God spoken.  My brother Kevin, spoke about who we are in Christ.  That Christ has created us each for a purpose and we may think that we are not gifted or talented, but God thinks so and His purpose will come to light if we trust Him-no matter what we have to offer.  This is so important for our kids to hear because so many of them think that they are worthless.  Because, by worldly standards they have nothing and they have nothing to offer the world.  But we know that God has created each of them for a purpose and we can’t wait to see what God does through our kids.

Abreham and Teshome- community kids that came for the first time!