Easter Weekend Update ( belated )

It has been too long since I've posted, and so much has happened that I thought I should post an "update" blog just so that everyone is caught up...

This past weekend was full of Easter activities for our family, and our larger family at RVCC.
Friday night ( 4/6 ) we had a Tenebrae Service. It is the first time river valley has tried something like the Tenebrae, and although the service is meant to be very emotionally impacting ( and possibly even depressing ) I felt like it went very well.

Kayla came to the tenebrae service and brought her friend Dan along. After the service a large number of River Vallians ( Thank you Paul Goshorn ) adjourned to Pizza Hut across the street for fellowship and food. I got to sit and talk with Kayla and Dan for about an hour, and enjoyed it very much.

Saturday morning ( 4/7 ) dawned bright and early. I wanted to be at Bristol Park in Waverly at 6:30 AM on Saturday so that I could see the sun rise, in preparation for Sunday's sunrise service which would also be held in the park. The dawn came cold and beautiful right on time at 7:10, so I went on over to the church to meet the "early crew" for setup of the RVCC Easter Egg hunt.

For anyone who doesn't know, or isn't from around Waverly or River Valley, our church has a HUGE free Easter egg hunt for the community on the Saturday before Easter every year. The egg hunt usually involves something like 20-25,000 easter eggs, 2000+ free hot dogs, free drinks, prize drawings, photos with the easter bunny, our bouncy house ( yes, our church has a moon castle ), and music.

This year the egg hunt had a slightly smaller crowd than normal on account of it happening in the midst of a mini-blizzard! When Jenn came down with the kids at about 10:30, I had her bring my heavy coat and my insulated boots, and I was still semi-frozen when we wrapped up and tore down about 2-o-clock. There is a fantastic video of the egg-hunt festivities on our church website. It can be found HERE.

After the egg hunt, we had a late lunch at Bob's with Jenn's parents and then crashed at the house all afternoon, and called it an early night so that we could be up and moving for sunrise service.

[EDIT]

Sorry Anna... Late Saturday afternoon after we got back to the house Anna and Jordan came out and we had an excellent time just hanging out and enjoying their company. We ended up talking, watching Mean Girls on TV, and eating chicken dip. It was a great evening.

[/EDIT]

Sunday morning ( 4/8 ) Jenn and I arrived at Bristol Park a little after 6:30 to find Marty already parked and waiting on us. We had a brief pow-wow about where to setup, when the cars started rolling in. I had braced myself that since Sunrise Service was a new things for River Valley that an attendance of 8 or 10 people would be great. Needless to say God smacked me when 21 people rolled in, including two of the youth!

The service was short and we were all cold, but it was awesome! Marty led some great Easter worship and then he and I shared about what sunrise service experiences we had from our pasts, and how awesome it is to be able to celebrate Easter and that Jesus is ALIVE! After the sunrise, a group of us had breakfast at Bob's before heading down to the church for the two "normal" morning services.

The all new MFE completely rocked the morning worship, and Steve had a fantastic message about what it actually means to God that Christ was fully human.

Sunday afternoon we spent at the house having Easter dinner and playing Wii with my parents and my brother... My dad kicked all of our butts at Wii Tenis.

This week has been long and slow, but pretty ordinary... I'm looking forward to the upcoming weekend even though it is going to be a busy one.

Enough rambling for now. Roogles out.