Back to Easter

Friends, lend me your ears! Actually, this is just Justin's ear as he so willingly posed for me. :-) So, a few weeks ago I had a very busy Easter weekend but then I left on my trip right away and didn't have time to blog and tell you about it! So, here are some photos from Easter. Many of the Moldovans had gone home for the weekend so I invited some of the ex-pats to my place for Easter brunch on Saturday. Australian, Swiss, Romanian, and Danish friends joined me for omelets and muffins and fruit salad before I left for my visit in northern Moldova with my friend Corinne and the team there.

It's always great to spend time with Corinne, and never boring! I will post 2 more blogs to cover some of the exciting events of that weekend but for now I'm just summarizing the highlights. I arrived at Corinne's early on Saturday evening. Later in the evening we went for a little walk to observe one of the Easter traditions in this Orthodox country. While the faithful attend Easter vigil all night on Saturday at the local church, many people go out in the field for a bonfire and stay there much of the night. We walked to a place where you could look out over a nearby valley. Immediately below us was a group of young people gathered around a fire. Not too far away was another one, and as we looked over the whole valley we could see that it was dotted here and there with groups of people having bonfires and celebrating the Easter vigil in that way. It was quite a sight.

On Sunday morning we attended the Easter morning service at the local church and enjoyed the presentations by the children and the young people. There were many people who participated in the service, singing, drama, and a brother playing the accordion even though he was missing several fingers - very impressive! And of course the pastor preached a good Easter message - the Lord is risen!

In the afternoon we went on a wonderful outing to a nearby monastery in a most beautiful setting. But I will tell you about that in another post.

On Monday morning I was privileged to go with the team to the little church (6 members!) in a nearby village. Our local team has a ministry in this village with the children, who had prepared an Easter program. Following the program we had the opportunity to distribute Christmas boxes from Samaritan's Purse (no, they didn't all get passed out at Christmas time!) to these very sweet, very needy children.

Returning to the town we went to a nearby seniors' home, where the church also had packets of Easter treats for the elderly occupants. The group sang and preached a bit and I was able to talk with the staff and see some of the patients who were bedridden. It was a very clean and bright facility, unlike many, and I was impressed with the care and courtesy of the staff.

They had concerns about funding, though, and we know there are many more elderly who need care like this but there are not enough spaces or enough funding.

So, it was a great weekend and I'll write later about our visit to the local monastery and about our 4-legged friend Silas and his new girlfriend... Meanwhile, here's me and the Easter bunny: