Here are a glimpse of some more things we did:
On Palm Sunday we did a very simple Godly Play version of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. This was part of our evening devotion and afterwards the children placed the palm 'leaves' on the first block of our Pathway to the Cross, and we lit the first candle.
They loved making the Resurrection garden!
It looked lovely!
On Good Friday evening we read the story of Jesus' burial and wrapped a plain peg doll in white 'grave clothes'...
and placed him in the tomb.
I tried to keep things really quiet and solemn on Saturday and we read the story of Jesus' death and burial several times during the day from different children's Bibles. We didn't play any secular music that day. Instead I played beautiful old hymns with the cross as a theme. My mother blessed me with a CD with the Afrikaans versions of many of the old hymns last year, and we listened to many songs in both our home languages. Songs like The Old Rugged Cross, When I survey the Wondrous Cross, Jesus Keep me Near the Cross...
And then...that beautiful Resurrection Morning broke and we hurried to the 'grave'... to find the stone rolled away and only the grave clothes neatly folded inside! We were so happy at the news that Jesus had risen , that we 'planted' beautiful white roses in our Resurrection garden and lit all the candles on our Pathway, with a beautiful, big one on the last, white square!!
I had made the children some new praise banners as a gift for that morning (they love wielding the banners during worship at church, but those are often too big, so I made these ones just the perfect size for my littlies!) We downloaded a version of Tim Hughes' Oh Happy Day and joyfully celebrated by dancing and waving our banners all around the living room!
No use just keeping the Good News all to ourselves, now is it? So...we supported a wonderful local initiative that offered an alternative to bunnies and eggs. Leonardo is a chocolate lamb which comes packaged in a box with a piece of Scripture. (Leonardo now also has his own website with stories and more - please click here to visit)
We wrapped the chocolates up in a lively green and delivered them to two of our neighbours who are non-believers, and some more to widowed friends of ours.
I was really touched by the way my children responded to the message of Holy Week. Little ArrowBoy is still a little young to really comprehend much, but even so he approached our devotions with a sweet solemnity and quietly listened to every story while the candle light played across his darling little face. Sweetpea on the other hand, drank it all in and peppered me with questions all week long. Colouring pages about palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the empty grave, and Jesus appearing to His disciples were excellent springboards for wonderful discussions. I am confident that she now has a good understanding of the sequence of events, and with the grace and love of Father God I will continue leading her toward a deeper heart-experience of Jesus' love, too.
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