Easter roller coaster

Easter weekend was a bit of a roller coaster this year. Thankfully, we have 4 teams visiting us from various corners of the world who all pitched in to make the Easter programme a success.

Everything started well on Saturday when all the YWAM kids, various friends and visitors went to the Wrights' house to decorate eggs...

Jimmy, Junior and Deborah get started

Noah designs with crayon before coloring

Aidan and Joanna dye their eggs AND their fingers

We colored about 150 eggs, then had fun playing the Wii and running around the house.



Sunday morning dawned a bit windy and cool, but we didn't think too much about it. Tim Heathcoate, (from Capetown, South Africa with the School of Journalism team), preached at PAG church while the clouds gathered and the wind picked up. Jjust after lunch a serious tropical storm hit. The rain came fast and furious, and we thought, "Good, let it rain now and then dry up in time for our Easter program at the base." Sometimes these African showers are hard and heavy for 20-30 minutes, then they stop suddenly, the sun comes out, and everything starts up again from where it left off.

Not this one. The heavy storm passed eventually, but the rain continued slightly less ferociously, and by 2:30 we knew we'd have to cancel our egg hunt. We were seriously bummed, but there was no way we could scramble around on that muddy, sodden ground. Reluctantly we sent out the word that the programme was cancelled.

Just after the rain, though, a large crowd turned up at the YWAM base ready for the programme! Some of our staff told them to come back at 10 the next morning. So the programme was back on!

We believe God was at work with the rain storm because several of our Hindu friends would not have been able to attend if it had been Sunday afternoon as planned. Since it was rescheduled for Monday morning, however, Laksmi and Meena, and Meena's kids were able to come, which was a big blessing for us.



We started the program with a couple visiting from England on the Coventry team, Nick and Claire Bradshaw, who sang a lovely song about Jesus being alive.



Then we had the opportunity to explain the story of Easter with our friends and acquaintances from town, many of whom have never heard the story of why Jesus died and the hope we have since He rose again. We used the Resurrection eggs to tell the Gospel story to a crowd of about 50 visitors.



And then we had the big hunt!

We divided the group into 'littles'...

and 'bigs'



and off they went to find the eggs hidden around our base.
















Afterwards we shared snacks of popcorn, peanuts, chocolate eggs, and of course...the hard-boiled Easter eggs.















What we thought was going to be a failed programme, God rescheduled to make it more successful than ever.
Things aren't always as gloomy as they seem, and we have hope because no matter what disappointment, what tragedy, what failure...Jesus already won the victory when He rose from the grave, and we can trust that His plans are better than ours!

Praise the Lord...He is alive!