Easter

Easter was a busy time for me here at the center, because Kristen and I had service from Friday to Monday. We spent a lot of time cooking in the kitchen, but also got to do some Easter activities. Friday evening we had a Good Friday service here at the center, which was really nice. It was very different than the Good Friday service I am used to going to, but the meaning of it was the same. We were not in a church and we did not have traditional music, but we read passages from the Bible, prayed, and sang songs together. Aside from cooking meals on Saturday Kristen and I also hard boiled about 50 eggs and in the afternoon we dyed them with the boys who were interested. It was a smaller turn out than we would have liked, but it was a lot of fun, and I think the ones who came enjoyed it.

Sunday morning Kristen and I went to the church service in the village so that we could attend a traditional Slovak Easter service. It was very similar to the weekly traditional services here. The center had their usual service/fellowship in the morning, but I was busy helping to prepare the Easter meal. The Easter meal consisted of the special potato salad and rezen (breaded pork).

Easter monday is a big deal here and I had been warned about it many times before. It is an old tradition that on Easter monday guys dump water on girls- outside or in the shower, and sometimes throw perfume on them. The girls are then supposed to give the guys candy. I don't know where it came from and it makes no sense to me- I mean first they get us wet then we are supposed to give them candy?! I was very careful on this day and somehow made it through the day with just some sprays of foul smelling cologne. In the morning while Kristen and I were in the kitchen we saw some guys come in and fill pots of water and we told them "If you want lunch on time you shouldn't get us wet" and they decided lunch was more important. Monday morning we also had our Easter egg hunt, which we had to explain because they do not do that here. Unfortunately it had snowed quite a bit, so we had to have it inside, but the building is big and it worked well. They especially enjoyed the candy filled eggs!

After our hard work over the holiday weekend they gave us Tuesday and Wednesday off so that we could get some rest and have some time to oursleves. It was nice to be able to sleep in a little bit, and we took a nice trip into Poprad Wednesday afternoon. Nothing else too exciting has been going on- just the usual schedule and usual craziness of the center!