Easter Weekend With the Wards

Today is the 2nd day of our church's three-day prayer vigil. Members take turns as hosts for two hours, or "prayers" for one hour.

I signed up to host for two hours during Melat's nap time, and Decided to take Destiny along with me to learn a little bit more about the Easter story (sans pink chocolate bunnies).


Both our girls are being baptized this summer, on July 12th, and we're teaching Destiny, especially about learning to walk with God and listen for God. Instead of doing Easter baskets this year, I wanted to give the girls prayer beads, and I wanted to teach Destiny the "stations of the cross" prayers. If she has the same attention difficulties that I do, prayer is an invitation for distraction. I learned a few years ago about using Prayer Beads to stay focused.


During our hosting time, we were to keep the doors open of the church for everyone who wanted to come pray, and ensure that the candles stayed lit. In general, a pretty dull two hours.


I read Destiny the stories of the Stations of the cross, and then drew a 15-square grid for her to draw what it meant to her. I wrote a relevant prayer in each box for her.


After she was done, I took a look at her work of art. The exercise of drawing the story made it so much more real for her. Here's a photo of her drawing:

I thought her to pray the stations with the rosary, and wouldn't you know, the designated pray-er for the church had to leave early, so I invited Destiny to light a candle and go into the sanctuary and pray the stations there until the next person arrived.

She did it and said it was a very interesting experience. I gave her a little red Rosary as her Easter gift. I'm not sure how much sank in, but I'm confident it was good preparation for tomorrow's Easter church service.

When I picked up Destiny's rosary, I also picked up a little wooden "my first rosary" for Melat. Since she was born Orthodox, I thought she might be expected to bring one when we visit Orthodox services.

She was thrilled when she opened it and said "I know this mom!" She ran to the computer and wanted me to put on the Orthodox church (she likes to watch this on YouTube, on the Internet).

She wrapped her rosary around her wrist, swayed in the chair and sang to the church music. Then she wanted to show me how to do it. She watched it for a long time and then stopped for lunch, and watched more.

Here are photos of both girls after our pre-Easter celebrations. Looking forward to tomorrow's service, and lunch with Rob's family and my mom and sisters at Gramma Pat's house.

Happy Easter to All! He is risen, risen indeed!