Easter

If there's any day to celebrate, it's definitely Easter!  It's a joyous day to remember that Jesus came to testify to the truth, He died for our sins, and He rose again!!!  Because He lives, we can have life.  What a thing to celebrate! So celebrate we did here in Pohnpei.
We began with yet another awesome meal by Maryanna for Good Friday.   It was a good time of everyone being together, hanging out on the porch, and playing Uno.

Salads by Laurel, tuna, breadfruit in coconut milk,
and BBQ chicken

My favorite tuna in coconut milk with chocolate cake for
dessert

The lovely ladies of our Good Friday dinner

I asked Maryanna if they had ever done an Easter egg hunt.  She said, "A what?!"  I took that as a no, and proceeded to explain to her how we hide eggs with candy in them and the kids run around trying to find them.  She told Jay who was immediately interested since it involved candy.  Luckily my mom had sent pre-filled Easter eggs because there weren't many available on the island.  So Saturday afternoon I sent Jay off to gather some of his friends from the neighborhood for their very first Easter egg hunt!

This is where they were confined while the eggs were
being hidden

A few more join to fun; we're ready!

Can you find the egg? :)

It was surprisingly a bit challenging to find
good hiding places in our yard

They caught on to the idea pretty quickly, giggling all the way.  What I loved the most was seeing how they acted at the end of it all.  Naturally, some were able to gather more than others.  But it didn't matter because they are wonderful at sharing.  They gathered together to empty their eggs, and soon it was like they had all gotten the same amount of eggs.  There was no pouting about getting less or hording it for themselves.  It was community candy and everyone was happy!

 Maryanna made sure to save the eggs so they can do it again next year.  It also rained just a bit while the kids were hunting.   I didn't mind though since it was followed by this:

Then Easter Sunday came, bursting with celebration the Jesus is risen!  The youth did some great little performances for us.

Some of my Sunday School kiddos!

It was also my Sunday to teach Sunday School, which I absolutely love getting to do!  My kids are so great!  I'm totally impressed by how attentive and well behaved they are.  They're very bright, eager to participate and love their crafts :)

 

 Following church, friends had made reservations for us to have Easter lunch together.  They're so good to us.  Such a delight!

I had just enough time to get home and prepare my dish for the next event of celebration - Easter potluck!  The whole congregation gathered at the youth center (I just discovered that we even had one) for crafts, games, and tons of food as usual.

 

I loved the decorations!!!  That took some time.

Craft time

You have to have bags to put the eggs in!

 After crafts, it was time for relay races for the young and old :)

Who can transfer the most water to the other bucket? 
Funny to see them realize it's not always about speed

The girls dominated the relays!  Go girls!!!

The boys thought this was a little too close to kissing

Get the marshmallow!

The classic egg relay

There is goes!

After a few other relays, it was time to corral the kids while the adults hid all the eggs.  What an adventure to find hiding places for all of them.

There's even one hidden inside all that hair

Palm trees transformed into ornament trees

Everyone became fair game for hiding

And they're released to hunt!

 With all the kids completely occupied with their piles of eggs and candy, it was time for the adults to have just one relay race - coconut husking and grinding.  The women would husk.  The men would grind.  A little role switch.  I was completely content to act as photographer while other women did the relay.  But oh no!   Lori and I were quickly informed that they want to see menwai ladies husk.  Of course so they can get a good laugh :D  We agreed to do it.  I saw it as an opportunity to husk my first coconut, plus I'm quite fine with giving people a good laugh.

Husking sticks ready

Carol's ready

Go Carol!  You can do it!

I've selected my coconut

This is certainly harder than they made it look

We both needed...

a little help :)

I did get it husked.  I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon.  I'll pay the 40 cents to get it at the market.  But I ran it down to the men where the grinding was taking place.

Go Bob!

 

 

 I don't even know which team won.  We just had fun laughing at each other as we all struggled through it.

After all that fun it was time to chow down on the long line of potluck dishes.  Do you get the idea that food is a big deal here?  And there's always tons of it?

You can't even see the end of it and that's
just the main dishes!

I didn't get a picture of all the desserts, but I did remember to get one of the impressive birthday cake.  One of the men was celebrating his 60th birthday on the same day.  A lady from our church made this beautiful, monster of a cake all by herself.

So sweet!

Quite a day.  I love celebrating the joys of life with so many wonderful people.

A little footage from the Easter weekend:

Happy Easter!!!