Easter fun for BG kids

We have been celebrating Easter for the last few days with the children and staff at Beautiful Gate. Our church left us some money from the children's ministries and wanted us to use them for the kids' Easter party this year. On Thursday, we painted Easter eggs and colored Easter pictures. I had a lot of helpers who helped us get the kids into "stations" so that our egg painting could be a success. The first group was more interested in just playing with the water for the paint sets so we learned a little and gave less water for the other groups. Some of the kids had no idea what to do and others painted with a great deal of focus. The coloring and stickers were a lot of fun for the kids too so they enjoyed their playgroup time on Thursday.

Yesterday, I rented 2 bouncing houses for the kids to play on during playgroup. Hours and hours of fun were had and naps were skipped!!! I love watching the kids laughing and playing for hours. Bryan cooked up some hotdogs and Margie, Karen and Terp helped me peel oranges, cut hotdog buns and make juice for the kids. At 11:45 we rounded them all up for lunch at the preschool and all of the volunteers and even the maintenance guys helped us carry plates of food over to the kids for their little picnic lunch outside. They ate pretty well and were super excited to run back down to the bouncy houses again. We were given 2 free bouncy houses to celebrate Christmas so it seemed that having bouncy houses for Easter would be a good way to celebrate and judging from the laughter and smiles of kids, volunteers and staff...I'd say it was.

Today at 3 pm we will be reading the story of Easter to the kids and explaining why we celebrate Easter and what it means that Jesus rose again. It is not an easy thing to explain to children who are all 6 and under, but we need to try to lay a foundation of truth in their lives. Then we will let them hunt for some eggs and candy and enjoy the rest of their Easter Sunday! I hope you all had a great Easter weekend and I am thankful tomorrow is a holiday in Lesotho so we can rest after a full weekend :)

As you can see, I wrote this on Sunday but could not get the pics right away, so I am posting it today. Sorry for the delay.