Easter Festivities

This is my second year celebrating Easter in Romania, and both years have been truly sweet, worshipful celebrations of the resurrection of Jesus, my Lord and Savior. This year, as last, we started with a sunrise prayer service on the "campus" of the medical school. I say "campus" because it's not really a campus. I think a campus is required to have some type of green space. You can see much of the medical school "campus" in the photo below, and the big building in the back is one of a handful of buildings for the school. We arrived at 6am, well before the sun was up, and it was a simple time of prayer and singing, reading scripture and sharing what Jesus has saved us from. 

I spent the remainder of the morning with my teammates and a few students for a brunch. Just lovely to be together, share a meal, and play silly games with the kids. Though certainly nothing replaces our birth families and traditions during holidays, I am certainly thankful for the precious family I have here in Iasi.

We also had a regular church service but with a Feast beforehand, and we started earlier so the meal portion could be longer. We expected quite a large number of people, so we made sure to prepare a TRUE feast. That we did, and here is the spread plus all the cooks:

And indeed, we had plenty of people to feed. Here is a photo after the meal with most people sitting down:

We've had a guest pastor here from Sierra Leone to teach over Easter and while the students are on a break. It's been great to hear teaching from him, and his sermon on the Resurrection was outstanding. The choir sang a few songs in addition to our usual worship set, and it was just a lovely evening. Many people wore tradition clothing from their home countries, and most at least made an effort to dress up a bit.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!