A wonderful Easter celebration!

Q and I had a marvelous Easter day. It was a cold and rainy day, but it was good, nonetheless. The night before, I got the Easter eggs ready for the hunt I was going to do with the jr. church kids. I placed three small chocolate eggs in each plastic egg (27 in all). I used some clear tape squares (cut in half) and placed that on one side between the two halves of each egg. I found matching ribbon for each color egg and cut them into 10 and 1/2 inch pieces. The piece of tape secured part of the ribbon as I tied and knotted each one. 

It was my first Sunday back since surgery and I was so excited to see everyone and be there for Easter. I'm still recovering, but am so thankful to the Lord for allowing me to get back to ministry with my husband. After being in the teen girls' Sunday School class, I hid the candy-filled eggs and the Resurrection Eggs upstairs in the high school hallway. It was the best place to do it to keep the children together (and not get wet outside!). When I came down from hiding them, two of the others who help with jr. church had already begun having the kids find Resurrection Eggs in another part of the building. Because of my absence, I did not know that they had planned to do this, too. But--we came up with a solution: they also had candy-filled eggs, so as one sang songs with the kids, the other gal and I went upstairs to put her eggs out and recover my Resurrection Eggs. One of them could do the Easter story with the eggs, then we'd all go and do the candy hunt!

 
But--you can see here that I ended up using the eggs to tell the Easter story with the kids. Turns out that the other teacher had her newborn with her and he was very hungry, so she had to leave to feed him. I was fine to let her do it, but she insisted that I go ahead and use my set of eggs. The Lord has a way of changing things a bit, doesn't He? I had a different child come up every time we were to open a new egg. I found Scripture verses to read for each one. They really enjoyed finding out what was inside the eggs and remembering the real meaning of Easter.

After telling the story, we found large cups for the kids to use for the egg hunt. My husband led them upstairs and told them the rules: only 3 eggs, don't run around too crazy--and have fun!

We had 18 children scurrying about to find the eggs of their choice.

Sweet Michaiah smiles with her first egg in her cup. I love seeing their smiles and getting hugs from these children every week.

After Q and I ate lunch, we went to an assisted living facility where we hold a service each month. Sometimes, we have some teens with us, but because it was a holiday, they spent the afternoon with their families. Q asked me if it was okay if he used the Resurrection Eggs for the service. He did an awesome job--he's such a natural with teaching and did much better than I did. He was able to weave in the Gospel a lot more than me, too, so I took mental notes for when I do it next time.

How was your Easter? Hope it was a great time of being thankful and reflective of what Christ did for us on the cross. It's so wonderful to know that He is alive in Heaven today, preparing a place for us. If we know the Lord as our personal Savior we will spend eternity with Him. 

Amazing!