Easter is a great time for making meaningful memories as a family, and although participating in some of the American traditions we enjoyed as kids takes extra effort here in Cambodia, we were grateful for the chance to hide eggs, enjoy some candy, make Resurrection Eggs (go here for more details), and dye eggs.
We'd looked forward to celebrating Resurrection Sunday with our Khmer family of believers here in Phnom Penh, and it was a special day. Ryan had the opportunity to preach in the worship service (in English) - he shared the joyful message that because of Christ's resurrection, we need not fear death. Then we hosted the whole church (more than 5o people) at our house for an Easter dinner, American-style! The menu included a smoked ham (generously given by the John Hoover family, visiting from PA in January), baked corn, cooked green beans, raw carrots and cucumbers (to stretch the meal!), rice and khaw (a Cambodian stew with pork meat and hard-boiled eggs) -since a meal for Cambodians isn't really complete without rice! We also shared some store-bought candy and homemade peanut butter eggs to complete the meal and stay true to American Easter tradition. : )
Thanks to Auntie Joanne, we enjoyed an Easter egg hunt on Saturday. We woke up to rain, which is unusual this time of year, so had it indoors instead of in the yard. Without her Easter package, we wouldn't have been able to make Resurrection Eggs, since colored, plastic eggs are not to be found here. (Thanks again, Joanne!)
We don't have pictures of the yummy meal, since we were busy serving it to everyone (cafeteria-style so we'd have enough for all), but after the main course, Juliana and I passed out sweets to everyone because "life with Jesus is sweet!"
We had given advance notice to anyone wanting to enjoy an American Easter tradition to bring a hard-boiled duck egg (chicken eggs are all brown, but duck eggs are white). Here, I'm explaining how to color with crayons on the outside and then dunk the eggs in one of three available colors for dying.
Church members enjoy drawing and making designs on their eggs
Checking to see if the right color has been achieved...
... and inspecting the resulting decorated egg!
This was the first time most of our guests had ever dyed Easter eggs, and they really enjoyed the experience! We explained that the eggs are symbolic of the new life that we can have in Christ - and that it's also okay to eat them if they wanted to!
Pastor Dady shows his beautifully-decorated egg (above), while Mades and Sopheary display theirs (below).
It was really special to host our church family, to share American food and some of our cultural traditions with them, and to celebrate the new life we have in Jesus. He is risen - He is risen indeed!- Bethany
