Easter Sunday/Monday

He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! We were surprised not to hear some form of that on Easter, and missed singing many of our favorite Easter hymns, but did appreciate some special things about celebrating the resurrection here. Before the regular service, we stood in the morning sun for special baptisms of youth, who each said a memory verse as they stood chilled and nervous down in a pit of water, and then were dunked while everyone else sang. I didn’t catch all that was said, but it was clear that it felt something like a death to be put under the cool water and then like being given new life as they rose into the warm sunny air proclaiming the resurrection of Christ. Later the children shared memory verses up to 20 verses in length (an interesting day to take about 30 mins for this, but it reminded me of the same idea that we used to have to say our lines from a Children’s Christmas Program in front of the Christmas tree as part of our family celebration).

There was singing and dancing, preaching and offerings as we expect, but also an extended time of thanksgivings, where about 20 people stood to share something that happened in their life they thank God for, instead of about 3-5 on a normal Sunday. Communion capped off the 6+ hour service. We had a break for lunch that included the delicacy of sheep head (which La Maestra got to help clean the day before). Then we went home to recuperate, but the congregation got back together to sing more songs and have a sort of Bible-trivia competition between the women, youth, and men’s seating sections. It was also interesting to observe many Christians taking Easter Monday off, and I believe some schools did as well, as the day seems to be more important here than Good Friday. One of the churches in town had a baptism service on Monday in addition to their normal celebration on Sunday.