Easter At Our House: He Is Risen!

He Is Risen!

This morning started off with Easter Sunrise Service at Inspiration Point in Idyllwild, California. As we worshipped in community we overlooked the clouds - a truly inspiring way to start the day!

After Easter Sunrise Service we rushed back to the house to put on new Easter outfits and head to church for an egg breakfast and worship. On the way to church we coached our children that when someone says "He is Risen!" we say back "He is Risen, Indeed!" After church it was back to Nonni and Gramp's house to hunt eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden.

For our ham lunch my niece shared Resurrection Rolls with us. You take a large marshmallow (which stands for Jesus) and roll it in cinnamon (representative of the spices Jesus body was rubbed with to prepare it for burial) than you wrap it in a crescent roll (the kind that comes in the tubes in the refrigerator section at the grocery store) representing the grave clothes that Jesus' body was wrapped tightly with. Remember to tightly seal the edges. Then you put it in the oven reminding us that Jesus body was put in a tomb. When they are cooked and cooled you bite into them -- to find the marshmallow gone and a hollow roll -- symbolic of Jesus tomb the first Easter morning.

Easter At Our House: Egg Hunts

Egg Hunts

Today we had a lazy morning -- wandering over at 10AM for the community egg hunt (more like a race). We enjoyed hunting eggs and then coming home and making egg salad sandwiches.

The kids enjoyed hiding the plastic eggs out in the yard with their cousins and finding them.

Today we made sure our Easter clothes are ready and made final preparations to celebrate Easter tomorrow.

Easter At Our House: Good Friday!

Good Friday!

Today we spent the morning packing and preparing to go to Nonni and Gramps for Easter. We attended the noon worship service for Good Friday at Solana Beach Presbyterian Church(www.solanapres.org) during which the kids made cross necklaces and talked about how Jesus died because he loves us and I reflected on how things aren't always what they seem -- how can Good Friday be good when that is when Jesus dies? We have been talking about talking about how Jesus died because he loves us and wants us to live forever. After the service we headed up to Nonni and Gramps for Easter anticipating a risen Savior and mindful of his death and burial.

Easter At Our House: Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday

Today we recognize the Last Supper Jesus shared with his 12 disciples - his body and blood.

William brought home a sheet from Preschool today sharing some questions and answers to help dialogue about Easter with our preschool children. They talked about "...the bottom line of Easter. God loves us enough to send his son Jesus to us and is then big enough to make him come back to life."
- How did Jesus' friends feel about Easter?
- Why did they kill Jesus?
- Where is Jesus?
- What is Jesus doing in Heaven?
- What is it like in Heaven?
I got some other questions at our house:
- How big was the stone that was rolled away? (so we got to look at pictures of when David and I went to Isreal)
- What does it mean that the stone/tomb was sealed?
- How do we know Jesus was dead?

We had planned to go to church tonight but instead we had a quiet evening as family.

I'm not quite sure what I think of having April Fools' Day and Maundy Thursday on the same day...

Easter At Our House: Resurrection Eggs

Resurrection Eggs

Today we got out our resurrection eggs while we were going through our plastic eggs and finding a basket for William to bring to school on Thursday for his Easter Egg Hunt next week.

We got to go through each of the resurrection eggs (we have collected 2 different kinds -- one large egg with a palm branch, angel, donkey, stone and heart in it and then a purchased set from http://www.shopfamilylife.com/resurrection-eggs.html) As we looked at each symbol we talked about how it related to the Easter story -- why was this object included in our resurrection eggs? It amazed me as we talked how much is contained in our symbols -- for instance, when we pulled out the coins that Judas was paid to betray Jesus and I asked why they are part of the Easter Story William told me that it was because Jesus paid for our sins.

After we had gone through each of our symbols William went to find his Bible - "the book that has the Easter Story in it" -- and we read through the parts of the Easter Story that were included seeing where each of the symbols was included and getting them out during that part of the story. Then we had to go back through and tell the parts of the story for the symbols that had been left out.

As I reflect back on our interaction this afternoon I am fascinated by the fact that nobody wanted the "empty egg" - the symbol of our risen Savior and the essence of the Easter story. But is that really that different from the first telling -- were the disciples excited about the empty tomb? Did they really "get it" -- do I really "get it"? I believe accepting the empty tomb changes our lives. As the kids and I talked about the empty egg and how the tomb was empty because Jesus is risen we also talked about where Jesus lives today -- "in heaven" and "in my heart" - that's why I'm glad our lenten journey started with the Afar people and Community Serve Day because it makes it a lot easier to explain the empty tomb and what it means to have Jesus living in my heart -- as the lenten guide said Monday, "it's all about friendship". Whether it be friendship with my neighbors or the Afar - those friendships are what reflect the reign Jesus has in my life and the reign I anticipate him having in my children's lives as they "get it" a little more each time we tell the story and as they help me "get it" a little more with each of their questions and observations as we journey in faith together.

Easter At Our House: Where has the time gone?

Where has the time gone?

I was shocked to read in my Lenten guide this morning that this is our last week with the Afar -- wow! -- where has the time gone? As we approach Palm Sunday the beginning of Holy Week it is hard to believe that Easter is so close at hand!

We are talking regularly about bringing our cardboard banks "Love Loaves" back to church this Sunday for Palm Sunday.

Easter At Our House: Schools and how big God is

Schools and how big God is

Today we learned in the Lenten guide about schools in the Afar - we have a lot to be thankful for with the many schools we have to choose from.We also got into our ongoing conversation about how big God is. It's something that comes up every once in a while as William is trying to find something bigger than God. Today he started out with explaining that God is bigger then us, he's even bigger than grown ups....but is outer space bigger than God? No, God is bigger than outer space. So Lia needed confirmation as well if she went to outer space it would be bigger than God. No God is even bigger than outer space with Lia there.

Easter At Our House: How Does God show us He loves us?

How does God show us He loves us?

So this weekend we went to a family retreat where we talked about the importance of knowing that God loves us so we have been talking with our kids and their cousins (ages 5 and 7)about that. Do you know God loves you? Do you know Jesus loves you? What does God do to show us He loves us?...He made trees, he died for us, he gave us the Bible.... It has been fun to hear how they experience God's love as we share how we have experienced it and also how we try to show it to them.

Easter At Our House: A Week in Review

A Week in Review

So much for posting everyday -- but hopefully this week. We have spent the week celebrating Community Serve Day -- and at times mourning all the things we didn't get to do. It broke my heart even as I rejoiced when my son while looking at photos of other kids at Community Serve Day shared what he didn't get to do with tears in his eyes and then continued on to ask if we could do that next year. We keep reiterating that we serve and love people close by and far away -- and those reminders seem ever present. Today, at chapel at preschool William learned more about the Afar people -- and even got the chance to play the drum (not that he took it).

On Community Serve Day, now a week and a half ago, we got to write appreciate cards for military -- William's commentary on it then was we should thank them for blowing things up which has led to quite the ongoing conversation -- how do you explain to a 4 year old what the military does. But through our ongoing conversation today he announced out of nowhere that there are people who fight to keep us safe and he should tell his cousin that because he didn't get to go to Community Serve Day.

And so we keep discussing camels, eggs, and serving and loving others in the ongoing saga of our Easter journey.

Easter At Our House: Real Life Story

Real Life Story

Today we continued to debrief and talk about all that we did on Community Serve Day -- I had to laugh when Lia told me her favorite part of Community Serve Day was the car --the only explanation she would give me as to way was "'cuz". I, however, have to wonder if it wasn't finally getting to rest her little legs after all the walking she did during our site visits.

I had the pleasure today of having my son explain to me that "Everything in the Bible is a real life story" tied in with the stone being rolled away. It was fun to affirm to him that yes, indeed, everything in the Bible is a real life story -- none of it is pretend or made up.

Easter At Our House: Another Day Closer to Easter

Another Day Closer to Easter

We are still processing everything that happened yesterday with Community Serve Day yesterday -- William has declared that he liked the packaging of the beans and rice for the people who don't have anything the best.

We also got our Easter boxes out so we can start our Easter preparations in force!

Easter At Our House: Community Serve Day 2010

Community Serve Day 2010

Had a great day today serving in community with over 3000 others in San Diego county todayhttp://www.sdcsd.org/ It has been an event long in the making and William thought nothing of it when I said we were doing Community Serve Day today -- though I don't think any of us were prepared for just how full our day would be. For the most part we had blue skies though there were a few threats of rain. Our kids were troopers as we visited family friendly site after family friendly site looking at how the site was running, what people were doing to serve, and sometimes joining in for a few minutes. The photo above is from one of our stops where we joined the family of my fellow MOPS co-coordinator and her family as they worked to collect food for military families at a local Vons. We also saw landscaping jobs, pot decorating and planting, sorting, portioning, and packaging of food, hygiene bag assembly, State Park campground maintenance, new mom giftbag assembly, sewing and stuffing of helmet coolers for the military, sock sorting and folding and even got to create some appreciation cards.

Then we continued our celebration with MJ's Birthday Party.

We didn't talk much about Easter today -- in fact, I'm not sure it ever got mentioned but we did experience a lot related to God's love, our call to serve and the gift of life!

Easter At Our House: MegaBlock Camels

MegaBlock Camels

It was a busy day today.
The day started by discussing our chocolate eggs from yesterday and how they held surprises. It was fun to hear William tie in his memories of camping at Forest Home this past fall for our All Church Retreat where we learned about the Gospel of Surprise -- he talked about the 2 hunts he went on to find surprises -- one with a bag and one with a box.
This afternoon we continued final preparations to join the other 3000 people serving with Solana Beach Presbyterian Church for Community Serve Day (http://www.sdcsd.org/) this Sunday. We got to go and pick out hygiene items that were still needed for kits to be assembled Sunday for homeless men, women and children.
Then this evening we talked more about the Afar people again, reviewing how they have to pack up their homes onto camels and move to the next spot with water. So we used our Mega Blocks to build camels tonight. We got to feed our "Love loaf" and talked about not everyone being able to have clean water to drink -- we have so much to be thankful for!

Easter At Our House: ...the reality of grace...

...the reality of grace...

I had really great intentions today. Last night we got home from the Ash Wednesday service and the kids had their drawings about Lent...which ended in a question of "What's your favorite things about Easter?" William had an instant reply of "eggs."
My egg lesson never materialized today -- it got lost in arguments over listening and discussions on why we should pee and poop in the potty and other urgencies of life.
As I reflected on my day and having hit day 2 without an ounce of success I realized just how long a 46 day lenten journey may be -- and so I am glad there is grace -- to begin again tomorrow.
Yet, as I reflected on our day I was also reminded that William did play with eggs today. We have an advent calendar of Kinder eggs from Germany which he had me pull out today -- because he really needed a chocolate egg-- even in all the chaos of today, God had provided our times with eggs -- even if it went unnoticed by me until I took time to reflect this evening. It wasn't the time I planned of discussing why we have eggs at Easter but it is a good reminder to me now that God is at work in my children's lives even when I am distracted. And it is also a good reminder of how our holiday's tie together -- I never thought about it when we got an Advent calendar of chocolate eggs that it kind of tied into Easter...
Kinder eggs for those of you who aren't familiar with them are made of chocolate and have a capsule inside with some type of surprise/toy -- always something that qualifies as a choke hazard and it typically has to be assembled -- the one William got today is a small horse which he assured me Hopelyn didn't get any part of while he was putting it together by himself after I told him he would have to wait for his daddy's help.
And so today we have experienced the reality of grace -- grace that gives us a fresh start for our journey tomorrow and grace that met us on our journey today providing in unexpected ways.

Easter At Our House: Ash Wednesday - the start of our Easter Journey

Ash Wednesday - the start of our Easter Journey

Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of our family's observance of Easter.We are starting our Easter journey using the 2010 Lenten Guide: a thousand words prepared by Solana Beach Presbyterian Church and collecting money in a cardboard box bank ("love loaf") to go to the Afar people in Ethiopia.

Today our Lenten guide introduced the Afar people -- my 4 year old and 2 year old discussed these nomadic people -- that is a pretty big concept for us to understand -- what it would be like to keep moving our house to find more water. But we really got excited about the idea of packing our houses up and putting them on camels -- and what a house that could be packed up and put on a camel looked like. This afternoon I printed out some pictures of camelshttp://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.coloring.ws/animals/camel8.gif
and we colored them and colored our packed up houses on top of them.

We are thankful God put us in a home that we don't have to keep packing up to find water. It is my prayer, in the words of the closing of the introduction of a thousands words, that "this Lenten journey will help us all to see Jesus more vividly and to love Him more fervently."

For the next 46 days of Lent, I am committing to be intentional about sharing my faith with my children and asking you to hold me accountable in that. But I need more than just accountability -- I need your ideas and input. What makes Easter special in your house? What lasting memories of the season do you have? What elements of faith will you share with your children this season? How will you be celebrating the season of Lent with your family this year?

Thanks for sharing in this journey -- but thank you even more if you can actively take part in our journey by sharing yours.