Semana Santa in Honduras

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!

Amidst all the traditions of Semana Santa, we remember that the reason that we celebrate is not just coloring Easter eggs or going to the beach. We are remembering the sufferings and sacrifice of our beloved Savior and celebrating His resurrection and victory over death! The whole Bible is dedicated to this huge event. The Old Testament leads up to and prophecies about it, and the New Testament proclaims it. There is salvation from sin and death through the blood of the Lamb! There is new life in Him!

The weekend before Semana Santa I enjoyed having Alejandra with some of her classmates over again to color Easter Eggs. They had come before Christmas to decorate cookies as well and talk about the true meaning of Christmas. This time we talked about the true meaning of Easter and the new life in Christ represented by the Easter eggs. I had fun using these eggs to decorate the Easter Challah bread that I made for the family. Our Semana Santa week was filled with family time, breads, traditions, but most of all, the living memory of Christ. My brother-in-law and his wife, Luis and Melissa, had Melissa's family from Siguatepeque visiting all week. And some of Marvin's aunts and uncles showed up for the weekend as well. We had a great time visiting with these out-of-town guests and having them all over for an Easter meal on Good Friday. I made Resurrection eggs for the first time to share with all our guests (and the strawberry pretzel dessert of course!). Marvin and I were also very blessed to share a special Thursday-night service with our church family. It was a lot of fun! We all dressed up like disciples and shared a special candle-lit time partaking in communion, remembering the Last Supper, washing each other's feet, singing, and remembering Christ's challenge to serve one another just as He came to serve us. Oh how we miss the point of the gospel if we can't learn to serve one another! Just as Christ has poured grace upon us, so we are called to pour grace on one another. Lord, help us to do so!

The whole week was great, but the highlight was by far traveling to Guatemala for the weekend to spend Easter day with Kara and Luis!