Well the blog at the beginning of the week did not quite happen but better late than never. How good it was to celebrate Easter in Hiragishi with our first-ever Easter Festival. With a forecast that had been predicting rain for the weekend, and a pretty awful day on Saturday with rain through the night, we looked forward to the weather God would send on Sunday. We awoke to no rain, then a bright start to the morning to dry up the soaked ground, and a beautiful warm, wind-free afternoon - perfect for our Easter Festival. Preparations were made. But would people come? Some started to arrive 40 minutes before it was due to start. And people kept coming and coming. Children of all ages, mums, dads, grannies. In all we had around 110 there, though it was hard to keep count. Everyone had fun with the outside football and strike out, enjoyed the various activities inside, indulged in sausages and chocolate bananas, and there were some yummy cakes for the adults. All left with a self-decorated egg, some chocolate eggs and a short Bible verse. In the middle of our Festival we had the exuberant JP helping us all join in some hip hop dancing to a praise song and then David gave a short and simple message about Easter. It was a blessed day. We look forward to doing it again next year. Meanwhile we are thinking how best to follow up all who came and what to do next - some larger events, some smaller gatherings so we can have more time to chat more leisurely to people. It will be great to see some wanting to take the next step, maybe open to some basic Bible study, or coming along to a service. We meet many of these people as we are out and about in the community, or at the local school; some are neighbours (two sets of JP and Nora's neighbours came and one commented that it was great to be able to meet her neighbours at a church event!) We are excited to see what God is doing and look forward to all that will lie ahead. We had a great Easter worship service too in the same building, with the sun streaming in. A blessed Easter indeed.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Hallelujah
Well the blog at the beginning of the week did not quite happen but better late than never. How good it was to celebrate Easter in Hiragishi with our first-ever Easter Festival. With a forecast that had been predicting rain for the weekend, and a pretty awful day on Saturday with rain through the night, we looked forward to the weather God would send on Sunday. We awoke to no rain, then a bright start to the morning to dry up the soaked ground, and a beautiful warm, wind-free afternoon - perfect for our Easter Festival. Preparations were made. But would people come? Some started to arrive 40 minutes before it was due to start. And people kept coming and coming. Children of all ages, mums, dads, grannies. In all we had around 110 there, though it was hard to keep count. Everyone had fun with the outside football and strike out, enjoyed the various activities inside, indulged in sausages and chocolate bananas, and there were some yummy cakes for the adults. All left with a self-decorated egg, some chocolate eggs and a short Bible verse. In the middle of our Festival we had the exuberant JP helping us all join in some hip hop dancing to a praise song and then David gave a short and simple message about Easter. It was a blessed day. We look forward to doing it again next year. Meanwhile we are thinking how best to follow up all who came and what to do next - some larger events, some smaller gatherings so we can have more time to chat more leisurely to people. It will be great to see some wanting to take the next step, maybe open to some basic Bible study, or coming along to a service. We meet many of these people as we are out and about in the community, or at the local school; some are neighbours (two sets of JP and Nora's neighbours came and one commented that it was great to be able to meet her neighbours at a church event!) We are excited to see what God is doing and look forward to all that will lie ahead. We had a great Easter worship service too in the same building, with the sun streaming in. A blessed Easter indeed.
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