Easter Week 2009

Praises:The Lord has been working in the youth group we taught last winter in wonderful ways. Several have asked to meet with their leader for discipleship classes, others who had dropped out of the group have come back and asked for forgiveness for leaving and others are seeking and asking for godly counsel regarding situations in their lives. Keep praying for these youth that they will become firm and strong in their faith.

Prayer requests:
1. The Lord will bring forward a couple who feel called by God to start a new house church or church.
2. For Pastor Armando and his wife Carolina, as they get passports and attempt to get visas so they might attend FEC convention in August.
3. For Auris, the young woman who lives with us, as she travels to Argentina this week to attend a training seminar led by Desert Streams from the USA. She has never flown in an airplane before so this will a big adventure for her.

How is Easter celebrated in Venezuela? Holy week as it is called is a big vacation time. Since we don't have seasonal changes here we do not have spring time and all the new life it brings. As a result one of the things that is noticeably different is the lack of commercialism during Easter week connected with spring. New spring clothes, Easter baskets, Easter candy, chocolate bunnies and colored eggs are definitely not apart of Easter here. The church here has it's Good Friday services, honoring the crucifixion of Jesus. The Catholic church through the centuries has large processions protraying the crucified Christ. But to most people Holy Week means, "Lets go to the beach!"

The city of Caracas empties; businesses and stores shut down, some for all week and others from Wednesday until the following Monday. There are long traffic lines as people leave the city for the ocean, river or lake. By Friday streets were nearly empty and you could go anywhere in the city in record time. It is a great time for those who stay in the city. Resorts and beaches are shoulder to shoulder people.

Whereever we are it is easy to forget the real reason for Easter when you look at how the world lives. How we rejoice and thank God for loving us so much to provide a way for us to have a relationship with Him through the shed blood of Jesus and the hope we have through his resurrection for eternal life.

We went to Guatire like usual on Friday but we had a birthday party instead of Bible Study. Our group had a big backyard party, grilling Venezuelan style steak and garlic and blood sausages accompanied with boiled yuca, and cabbage salad. The blood sausages are a little more than we can handle but the rest of the food was super delicious. Birthday cake, a lemon tart, strawberry jello and chocolate oatmeal cookies were the dessert. What a fun time with our friends.

Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday as it is called here was celebrated by our three churches having a united service in a park with about 90 people in attendance. Before the service Bible tracts were passed out to people in the park inviting them to attend. After a great time of worship together we enjoyed picnic lunches brought by each family and a relaxing afternoon in the park.