Last year, after reading Noel Piper’s book, Treasuring God in Our Traditions, I started thinking about how I could make Easter more meaningful for our family. Why is it that we spend so much time and energy celebrating Christmas and often only rely on the church for celebrating Easter? The resurrection of Christ changes everything for us. This year we started a new family tradition that we hope will grow and last – Resurrection Week Celebrations.

Our week consisted of special readings each night,  a resurrection tree complete with homemade ornaments, a countdown calendar with special activities for each day, and plays on the nights we could do them. We really enjoyed doing John Piper’s Lenten Lights readings each night with candles.

We started the week off with a Palm Sunday  party to decorate our tree. We also acted about Jesus entering Jerusalem.

Monday we acted out Jesus clearing out the temple. Anna was quite upset that her table was overturned and kept trying to set it up.

Tuesday was Anna’s birthday so we were busy celebrating that all day. Wednesday we took a trip to visit our co-workers in another province. Four families got together to celebrate Lydia’s 40th birthday. It was a three hour drive each way with a flat tire on the trip out and a broken air conditioning on the way back.

Thursday we had a Maundy Thursday service, remember the Lord’s last Passover and we washed each other’s feet.

Friday we read through the crucifixion story. Saturday was just a reading day. Saturday morning we decorated duck eggs and in the afternoon we had a egg hunt with plastic eggs.

Resurrection Sunday we had a special breakfast with eggs, bacon, and a pumpkin roll. The day before Josh brought home some bulb flowers he dug up from some Jarai people who live near out church. We attended church with our Jarai brothers and sisters. After church we rested and had a water balloon fight in the afternoon. We ended our celebration with a party which included a play (yes, the globe ball is the stone rolled away from the tomb), gifts, games, and our last reading. We had hoped to do a Bible club with our neighbor kids, but April 14-16 was Khmer New Year and all the kids were busy at the Wat with carnival activities all weekend.

We were very pleased with how things turned out. It ended up being a very busy week for our first celebration.  We had Anna’s birthday. Josh taught a Khmer Bible school Tuesday morning and taught at Jarai Bible school Thursday through Saturday. But we’re thankful we started this year and look forward to keeping and adding to this new family tradition every year.  Christ is Risen – He is Risen Indeed!