Easter Fun

Easter is a bit different here in Ecuador - mostly because we don't have the newness and fun-time of spring and all the "new life" that brings (thinking of the North American ideas of Easter bunny, Easter eggs, and all that cute stuff).

It's always interesting to explain all the North American "stuff" to my English class when Easter comes around - why the Easter bunny, coloring eggs, cute little baby animals, etc. Ecuador doesn't have four distinct seasons, so the concept of Spring is a rather new and unknown idea for my students - the flowers blooming (flowers bloom all year round here), grass turning green again (grass is always green here), trees budding out (trees never lose their leaves and bud again here), a new growing season (things grow year round here) . . . .

But the cool thing is that as we talk about this symbols of Spring and Easter in my class, we are reminded once again of the New Life we have in Christ - the true meaning of the celebration of Easter!

And in speaking of New Life - it was a joy on Easter Sunday to see three of the elderly residents at the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home for the Elderly) raise their hands to receive Christ as their Saviour! Santi decided to include an opportunity for salvation at the end of his message and 2 new ladies raised their hand to say a prayer of salvation along with another man, Luis Alfonso, who has been there for a while! Needless to say, this was a joyful time for all us! I don't have photos of the two new ladies, but here's a photo of Luis Alfonso.


Please pray for these three people as we help them to grow in their relationship with Christ!

And at home, we also started a tradition of coloring Easter eggs, with some guests we had for lunch! It seems that the adults enjoyed it as much as the kids! This was the first time that Santi had colored Easter eggs (this is definitely a north american tradition) and Nathan really wasn't quite sure what to do with the eggs. We had fun!


A typical Ecuadorian tradition during "Semana Santa" (or Holy Week) is to eat Fanesca. This is a special soup/chowder made with a number of ingredients, including 12 grains (to represent the 12 disciples of Jesus). It also has potatoes and pumpkin in it. Often it is garnished with boiled eggs, a sprig of parsley and some plantain chips. Some people like to put salted cod in it as well (due to the concept of not eating red meat the week before Easter). Anyways - everyone has their own recipe and the taste can vary in different parts of the country. We had the priviledge of being invited to some Ecuadorian friends' home for a "fanesca meal" on Palm Sunday - it was delicious (although I can usually only eat about one portion as it's very filling with all those grains and stuff in it!). Here's a photo of our bowl of fanesca!


We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday with friends and family and are enjoying springtime. . . . all the flowers popping out and green grass and hopefully warmer temperatures! If you'd like to see more of our Easter photos, please click HERE.