Easter in Peru

After such an unusual Christmas experience in Peru, I kept asking people how they celebrate Easter here.
  I mostly got blank faces.
   A peruana from the Villa El Salvador church said that those who don’t know Jesus drink or go camping because it is a long weekend.
  Families take time to get together which they do often.
  Since Catholicism is the official religion in Peru the banks were closed on Thursday and Friday.
 Everything seemed to be back to normal for Saturday and Sunday.
 
 Friday night Kelsey called me over to our front window to show me the procession heading down our street.
  The people in the crowd were holding candles and there was a casket carried in the middle of the group with an image on top of it.
  Ricky said that it was people from the local Catholic church here in Villa Jardin, San Luis.
   I am told that Catholics visit 7 churches on Easter to view the images.
  Going to the service evidently isn’t necessary.
  For all I can tell, Easter Sunday is celebrated like any other Sunday at the evangelical churches.

 

I was grateful that the CMA church we attend had an Easter song and read the Easter story during the English service.
  Fourteen of the World Racers attended the service to support Jon who was the guest preacher.
  At the end of the service all fourteen went to the front to share about their work here in Peru and beyond.
 

 

Easter is a very important day in my faith and my family.
  It is incredible that God humbled himself and became a baby which we celebrate on Christmas.
  Jesus’ death in our place is the best event of forever.
   But his resurrection…that is our hope and our joy.
  There is nothing like it.
  That is something that should be celebrated to the fullest in my book.
  I enjoyed the lack of commercialism that surrounds Christmas, but Easter should have as much attention in the church, I would think.

 

We’ll since there was going to be little help to celebrate Easter from my peruano amigos, I sought out other ways to celebrate.
   I asked the entire Squad A World Racer’s to come to our CMA church service and then over to our apartment for lunch.
  I was told 7 World Racers would be coming for lunch
 so prepared Aji de Gallina and a chocolate cake the night before.
  Easter morning I watched Bethany Church’s live service online from my daughter’s church in New Hampshire.
   Robert headed out to do street evangelism with some of the World Racers and then to help with a service in the same area at 3:00.
  You can read how one woman and 3 boys came to the Lord through that outreach at Emilie’s blog:  http://emiliejanson.theworldrace.org/index.asp?filename=a-different-easter

 

Kelsey and I went to the CMA church at noon and learned that fourteen World Racers were coming to lunch.
 
 After the service I stopped at the local store for a few more groceries and then we all headed for our apartment.
 

 

The team streamed into our fourth floor apartment exclaiming how nice the place was and quickly set up their computers and used our two as well.
  Thank the good Lord for a wireless connection to share.
  Kelsey introduced them to our Vonage phone and they began calling their parents at home in the US.
  Amalia, a World Race interpreter and member of the CMA church, started to help me prepare lunch.
  Immediately Talia offered to help and then Jon joined us and soon Aaron was helping in the kitchen, too.
  Others pitched in as well and we prepared a large salad, garlic bread, Alfredo with spaghetti noodles, rice and warmed up the Aji de Gallina.
  The racers enjoyed their lunch and time in a “normal apartment” and were off to prepare for the evening service at Villa El Salvador. 
 

We arrived at church in time to enjoy the evening service.
  The World Race Team prepared a dramatization of a song about Jesus being the Lamb of God.
  There was a guest preacher who preached an awesome sermon about the church’s purpose and around 15 people of all ages came forward to ask Jesus into their lives.
  The evening ended with the worship team playing worship music to dance by after the service was all done.
  About 100 people came up to dance with joy—including americanos from both the World Race and ChildReach Ministries.

We did not get to enjoy the family meal with our daughters, their husbands, our new granddaughter and our extended family at Bob & Gale Morse’s home or the Easter service at our church, but God provided a day that blessed us immensely. 
  Sharing with others with the gifts the Lord has given us and watching many new brothers and sisters stepping into His kingdom.  Awesome!  Thank you to all our supporters for making it possible for us to spend our first Easter in Peru!