Easter

(I'm cheating by recycling an email to grandparents;forgive me, and hopefully I'll add photos soon-jj)

We had a lovely Easter season, starting a few weeks ago when the elementary kids sang contemporary Christian Easter songs at the Garden Tomb. Some were reverent ballads, like Emily's song "Now is the time to worship" where she and her classmates waved palm branches. Others were rousing, like Amanda's song "Every move I make, I make in you, Jesus" complete with dance moves and a rock band soundtrack in the background. (You can find it on YouTube, it's by Hillsong.)  The kids reenacted the Easter story with simple costumes and memorized lines of scripture.  It was very nice.

Then came Palm Sunday, when we walked with thousands of other Christians from Bethphage down the hill by Gethsemane into St. Stephen's Gate (aka. Lion's Gate on the east side) to St. Anne's and the Pool of Bethesda. The crowd was joyful, singing songs of praise and love in many languages. Frank took the little kids home halfway, and the big three walked with their Young Women group and leaders, stopping for ice cream on the way home.

On Tuesday during Holy Week the Primary kids sang at the Garden Tomb, not a big production but a reverent little meeting, like a baptism service in feeling and length. This was followed by photos by the Garden Tomb and an Easter Egg hunt at the Jerusalem Center. Just before the egg hunt one of our trusty security guards caught a snake, not very big but reportedly poisonous; thankfully no more have been spotted since.

On Thursday, the night of the Savior's suffering in Gethsemane, we crowded into the Church of All Nations for a special evening service. We heard, read, and sang the story of Jesus Christ taking upon himself our sins taken from all four gospels, following along as best as we could with the printed program in ten or twelve different languages, with music in square notation (an early way of writing vocal music going back to the 13th century!). Then we joined a candlelight procession through cemeteries to the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, stopping along the way as the different Christian congregations sang hymns and chanted Hail Mary's in Arabic. It was wonderful to see the solidarity of the Palestinian Christians joined by other pilgrims from Europe, Africa, Asian, and everywhere. Only a few cities have high concentrations of Palestinian Christians: Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nazareth are the ones I know of. The procession had maybe 1700 people in it, and we got home at 1:30 am. 2:30 actually, as daylight savings kicked in here. Our friend and Jerusalem Center associate director Tawfic Alawi was there with his wife, children, and extended family, waiting for his son George who had been carrying one of the tiki torches during the procession.

On Friday, we slept in, except for Frank, who took the students on a field trip. That made 6 field trips/hikes this week for Frank: Palm Sunday, a family visit to the old city and a museum on Monday, two BYU field trips in the old city on Wednesday and Thursday (the kids joined in and were real troopers), the Thursday procession, and then Friday's short field trip.

Then Saturday was the Sabbath. Church was very uplifting, with talks by the Candice and Ed Stratford (Candice is the girls' seminary teacher, and Ed is a history teacher.) The R.S. president read a letter from Sahar to the branch and all our lessons focused on the Savior. As a family we watched the church's videos about the Savior's last week, and Emily read us the Easter book she made in primary.

On Sunday morning a few of us woke up at 5:30 to walk to the Garden Tomb. The sunrise service was crowded, and as we entered we were offered a tiny souvenir olivewood cup and a "Communion kit" which is a small individual sacrament-sized cup of grape juice, sealed, with a round wafer on its lid, also sealed so you could open one at a time. A live band played tasteful but energizing Christian music, the scripture story and sermons were uplifting, and we walked home feeling grateful for the Savior's gift to us and the blessing of worshipping with other Christians on that special day. We went home for naps, egg dying, and traditional potato salad--no ham.

That's the Easter Summary. Beyond that, we're feeling thankful to have dodged the stomach flu, pink eye, head lice, and chickenpox that made their rounds this semester. Frank's back was better by the time he went to Turkey.  Megan's bruised elbow has healed; she is playing the piano again, but not yet the viola. Megan signed a contract for Horne Hall in Heritage Halls at BYU (Yay!), and now she has to choose classes. Carrie is making an art project out of keys and experimenting with scrapbooking. Lisa make a timeline of the middle east from 1,000 BC to the present, Amanda learned her times tables up through 11's, and Emily is still amazing us with her reading. I had to tell her to not let the boys kiss her at kindergarten. It's been a blessing to have the Ooma phone working, and we're sorry that sometimes we don't get to it in time, but if you try calling back or leave a message we'll try to make it work.

As far as school, Carrie says the kids her age used to swear a lot, but then a foreign student taught everyone to swear in Italian, so that's better. Lisa's friends haven't kicked the habit but apologize when they accidentally swear around her. There was an incident with drugs on a school field trip, which resulted in a flurry of meetings and emails. The administration said that they discussed and prayed about what was the Christian thing to do, and decided only to suspend him for a week, not expel the boy, as that would turn him over to the shady elements of society who would try to destroy his life. A guest author was flown in from London to talk about how drugs killed her son. The issue has died down a bit, but the topic of discouraging tobacco and alcohol use still come up in the secondary Parent Teacher Forum (like PTA), at which , ironically, an alcoholic beverage was served.

 

Hoping your Easter was wonderful and the blessings and resolutions felt during that special time will stay with us all and help us to continually walk in newness of life.