Easter 2011

It was a great weekend. Friday we went to church at 3PM for the Good Friday service. It was a moving time of remembering the death of Jesus and all he suffered in order to purchase our salvation. Two women read the story from the New Testament. At one point, one of the woman broke down and cried as she read of the suffering of Jesus. The sermon was given by a man who has been under tremendous persecution and even had his life threatened. It was a privilege to worship with brothers and sisters who have paid so much to follow Christ. Saturday we celebrated the resurrection of Christ and it was a packed out service. Believers from the north and south of the country came for the occasion. A man that was sitting in front of us was asked to stand up and everyone clapped and cheered as the pastor told us that this was his first Easter & the first time he has been with other believers. Two months ago, a really neat guy that we liked a lot (kind of like the asst. pastor) left the church because of differences with the pastor. At this service, the 2 men stood in front of the congregation and asked for forgiveness from each other & from the congregation. In 28 years in the Middle East we have never seen anything like this! The humility & transparency on their part was really amazing. They cried in front of 200 people and asked for forgiveness. It was truly one of the most moving things we've ever witnessed. The guy that preached was fantastic and we left after 2 hours feeling like we'd tasted a bit of heaven. On Sunday, we figured we could skip church as they were having a joint service with the French & Arabic congregations and we knew it would be packed. We also had had such a great time celebrating the resurrection of Christ on Saturday that we didn't feel we needed more! And we were hosting an Easter dinner for 18 people Sunday evening so I needed to get ready for that. It turned out to be a very nice evening with a beautiful spread of food (everyone brought something), worship time with communion & games afterward. A great Easter weekend! The people around the table here are only part of the gang that was here!