Easter in Thailand

Easter was very different in Thailand since of course most people in Thailand do not know that it is a very special day. They have no idea what happened on Easter but we fortunately were able to share it with some Thai people who would listen. Our kids also were able to share it through a special program at their school. It was an interactive program where you actually walked where the people of Jesus' time walked - the disciples, soldiers, and many more. Here are a few pictures to show you what it was like:

It made everything seem so real as we were the crowd of that day and participated in every scene of what was happening before Jesus was crucified.

These are Davis and some of his classmates that were in the program

Samantha was part of the worship team that sang "Hosanna" as we walked through the palm branches

Davis was Peter and just realized he had denied knowing Jesus

It was very powerful to me as I listened to the people that shared their story of how this time effected them. There seemed to be so few who really knew Jesus and loved Him and realized how amazing He truly was. As I stood there outside looking around at Thailand I could get a small sense of what they felt. It is true here. It seems so hard because there are only a few of us who really know Jesus, love Him, follow Him and want others to know Him. And as we look around there are so many deny who He is just because they don't know Him. Easter truly came alive in a whole new way this year being in this country.

But praise God for the empty tomb. We all shouted as we heard "He is alive!"

We ended up beside the empty tomb, on the basketball court, and we all sang "Oh Happy Day!" After you have just participated in something so powerful and realized again how thankful you are that Jesus is alive you have to celebrate and we did with this song! How great it was as children and adults alike were jumping up and down singing and shouting that "Jesus is alive and it is a happy day!"  Praise God!

We were able to invite a couple of our dear Thai friends to go with us to this Easter program. It was great as I watched Aajan Busaba (the lady in the middle who is our teacher in our Thai language program) start to clap and smile so big and almost jump up and down as she watched everyone sing the final song. We were able to explain to her afterward why everyone was so excited. God is at work in her and I ask you pray that she will say yes to Jesus. We love her and we want her to know the love of Jesus personally! Ice Cream is on the side and she already follows Jesus, praise God!