Celebrating the Risen King in TZ!

Easter was such a great experience for us this year.  We kept traditions and made new ones, visited with friends and family that are in the U.S. and that are here, and got to experience church in Tanzania and at home!

One of our teammates mentioned last year that they spend the hours from 12pm-3pm in quiet and darkness to remember those hours of darkness Jesus hung on the cross.  Megan and I loved making this part of our Easter weekend and found that those hours of reflection helped us to get into the right frame of mind.  Afterwards, we watched The Passion of The Christ, which we've done every Good Friday since deciding to follow Jesus.  It was a great day of remembering the price that was paid.

Saturday we worked hard in the kitchen to prepare some Easter favorites - cheesy potato casserole, baked beans, and fruit salad!  Then that evening we went up to our office to Skype with our awesome nieces and nephews back home to do the resurrection eggs together!  Another sweet tradition we have done for the last 4 years, even with thousands of miles separating us for the past two.  Such great memories made with our favorite kiddos!

Sunday morning we went to our church here - Arusha Vineyard Church.  It was a very memorable service that focused on the power in the fact that He is Risen...He is Risen Indeed!  (And for those of you who don't know, that is a thing.  One person says He is Risen and your response is supposed to be He is Risen Indeed.  Well, Megan and I didn't know that.  In fact, never heard it before.  So when people kept saying He is Risen, we were like, Amen!  Thanks to the sign outside church, we caught on!)

Megan with Flat Stanley at our church here in Tanzania

My favorite part of the service was when we highlighted the global nature of our God and our church.    A person from each nation represented in the congregation stood up and declared that "God is Risen over 'home country'" in their national language, then everyone would respond in English, "He is Risen Indeed!"  IT WAS SO COOL!!  We had people from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Canada, America, Mexico, Korea, Philippines, and India!

After church we raced home to get food in the oven and eggs hidden!  Megan and I stuffed and hid 180 plastic easter eggs that our mom sent us in the mail last year.  It was such a blast for the 4 kids on our team and 2 grandchildren of another team member to race around our Center to find the eggs!  Okay, in all honesty, I think it was most fun for Megan and I to hide them all :)  And we hid some so well that an estimated 5 are still MIA.

Sunday evening we came up to the office to access our internet and got to live stream our home church's, WRCC's,  Easter Service!!!  It was so cool!  The first 20 minutes was painful buffering (5 seconds of talking followed by 30 seconds of buffering).  But then we figured out we could rewind and then the rest of the service was flawless!  Coolest part was seeing everyone we know.  For us, our internet usually isn't fast enough for watching anything live, so we need to download sermons, which are usually just audio.  But we got to see our pastor, the worship team, and even the people who gave their lives to Christ!  It was such a great way to end our weekend of celebration!

He is Risen...He is Risen Indeed!!