Happy Resurrection day!
We are having a beautiful resurrection day here in Colombia. Although we didn’t do a whole lot to actually celebrate today we did have a fair bit of activity going on earlier this week in honor of this holiday. While some of you have already seen and heard some of what we did I’m going to give a peek into our latest big happening.
Most of you probably don’t know that the missions time here in Colombia is coming to a close and that we are wrapping things up or trying to figure out how to best end our time here. This struggle isn’t as big for me since I am planning to start a new adventure in the beginning of May and so will be leaving Arauca in less than a month.
Because of the upcoming partings I’ve been trying to spend more time with different of the team members and friends from here that I will have to say goodbye to soon. In one such visit to Amber’s we were talking about different projects I’ve done in the past and in the process I mentioned doing skits and how I enjoy directing them.
Long story short, we decided to do a surprise skit for Conrad and Darlene on the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
In less than a weeks time we had a script written and translated it to Spanish. We invited different friends to help us and began practicing. To keep it a surprise I would offer to babysit the children so Conrad’s could have a date.
We had two practices at the center and then moved our project to a church where we planned to do the final thing. We added costumes and props and were all ready.
Wednesday we got together to practice one final time and after all kinds of things went wrong, managed to run through the whole thing once before it was time for our guests to arrive.
Trying on our costumes.
We started with an introduction to Jesus and his triumphal entry. It was a lot of fun singing hosanna and waving our palm branches.
After a few more glimpses into Jesus’ final week we had the disciples eat the final supper.
While Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane and was being arrested we ladies sang several songs about these topics.
And then he died and was put in the tomb.
Followed by the joyous chorus of “Up from the grave he arose!” As the Angel rolled away the stone and Jesus exited and stood triumphant. We ended with the scene of Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus and then everyone joyfully came to the front when the Hallelujah Chorus started.
It was so much fun seeing the surprise on Conrad and Darlenes’ faces and having the accomplishment of done something successful in such a short time. It was also good for me to look at the resurrection story again and think about it from a different prospective.
This year I’ve thought about it a lot more in the light of Jesus having to leave his friends and die and eventually go back to heaven. May I be so bold as to suggest that perhaps it was a struggle for Jesus to leave earth? I really can’t imagine what it would have been like for him, but in light of having to say good bye to friends here and, for some of us at least, returning to our comfortable lives I really wonder what thoughts went through Jesus mind. And those of his disciples.
What did you do to celebrate Easter this weekend? What has blessed you this year in thinking about Jesus death and resurrection?
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