Easter

Funny the difference a year makes!  Last year, Easter was our commissioning service and the next day we left for Costa Rica. This year we were able to celebrate it here in Costa Rica and in just a about 16 days fly back to the States for the summer!

The week before Easter in Costa Rica is a big vacation time.  We didn't have school for the whole week and most of the country has it off too.  Most head to the beach, but we decided we didn't really want to share the beach with everyone else, so we stuck closer to home.  We did have several adventures during the week (more about that later this week), but this last weekend was packed!

On Saturday, on the families that works at ILE invited everyone over for picnics and an Easter Egg hunt.  Here, nobody connects Easter with colored eggs and bunnies (gosh, why not, right?  I mean it makes so much sense!)

But traditions die hard.  I managed to find some white eggs (so not typical here) and the boys had a good time of dying them.  Then the dads hid about 300 eggs for the kids to find (there were a lot of families!) and the kids went at it.  It was a good time of just being able to speak English and have a bit of our home culture.

Sunday, we did our own egg hunt in the morning with felt egg pockets I made.  There are no plastic eggs here and even Easter candy is not existent ( I did find jelly beans at PriceMart, which is owned by Costco), and these funny chocolate turtle shells that looked like eggs to me!

Then it was off to church.  We were sorta surprised by how normal of a Sunday morning it was.  There wasn't much different or unusual about the service.  I asked around about that, and it seems that in the protestant church there has been a reaction against all the hype of Semana Santa (Holy Week) that the Catholic Church has.  When I explained to a Tica about how Easter Sunday is in the States, she was surprised.

After church we went to another family's house for a gathering with several other families from school.  While we looked for ham, there was none to be had, so instead there was grilled chicken!  And can I just tell you how everyone raved about that?!  We really prefer grilled meat, and haven't had it in almost a year!  So good!
There was also salad, roasted potatoes, mango cobbler, pineapple pastries and more Easter Eggs.

Overall, it was a great weekend of remembering the reason that we packed up and left everything we have know...because of the risen Savior and His direction to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."