Happy Easter, family, friends and strangers!
It is hard being away from my family and country for yet another holiday, but I've been feeling much better this week and am having a great Easter with my Peruvian host family. While in the States last February I bought plastic Easter eggs and today put them to use in the first Easter Egg Hunt that my host family has seen. It was a ton of fun, even for the two youngest who had no idea what was going out but ran around screaming and laughing anyways.
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| My totally squeezable niece and nephews with their Easter eggs and candy |
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| Bruno can walk a few steps! Practicing with his mama and papa while his cousins and sister watch |
On this Easter, I'd like to share an Easter message from Paul Walker, Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, but first I'd like to tell you a bit about what this church and pastor mean to me. Back in 2006, in the spring of my first year of college, I was feeling quite broken for a number of reasons. I made a somewhat random decision to apply to Alternative Spring Break, a UVa group that provides the opportunity to dedicate your spring break to a service trip, nationally and internationally. I got accepted to the Argentina trip, and headed off on my first real international experience (since I'm not counting Caribbean family vacations). The trip was life-changing for me, in a variety of aspects. I came out of those two weeks having taken some small first steps towards healing and finding myself.
The journey continued back in Charlottesville, when a friend from the trip invited me to check out a student-focused church service in downtown Charlottesville. My whole life I had felt estranged from church and religion- I always wanted to believe and belong, but I couldn't. Walking into Christ Church and hearing Paul Walker speak for the first time, I was bewildered by the sense of acceptance I found, never before felt in church (quite the opposite, I had always felt like the whole congregation was staring at me and judging me). Week by week, I felt more and more connected and healed, and through the ministers and congregation, I finally found God.
Christ Church and its community are two of the things I miss most about the States, but I am lucky enough that the sermons are provided in text and audio on their website. I'm not going to pretend that I listen to the sermons weekly, but in moments like the truck-punching day, I can turn to them.
So, here is one of my favorite Christ Church sermons of all time, Easter 2010. The sermon is very down-to-earth and the message is simple: Life is hard- sometimes we are consumed by despair and pain, and messages like "everything is going to be okay" seem childish and out of touch. But the message of Easter is that in the end, the good days will prevail.
Obviously this idea is very important to my Peace Corps experience... when I am in the moments of most darkness and dispair, I have to remember that this too shall pass. It always does, and it always will.
I hope some of you are able to connect with this Easter promise- everything is going to be okay.
Sermon audio: http://www.christchurchcville.org/wp-content/uploads/sermons/10-04-04%20Paul%20Walker.mp3
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