Hunting for Easter Eggs

For those who are not familiar with Easter eggs, let me explain. Here in the US, around Easter time stores sell colorful plastic eggs which is bought and filled with candy for kids. Normally the eggs are spread around the lawn where kids pick it from. We decided to host an egg hunt for kids in our community this year. We were busy preparing for the last one month starting with mail ordering over 500 eggs! Then we bought about 20 lbs of candy. Over several weeks we have been advertising in our local web sites, yahoo groups, Evites etc to gather 'hunters' for the event.

It is supposed to be an outdoor event. However in spite of our earnest prayers it rained heavily on the proposed day. We were not discouraged the least bit. We emptied a room in the basement, brought available artificial plants from around the house, added some stuffed animals to the show and spread the eggs all around. We had over 20 kids who showed up on the big day.

Now, 12 of these 500 plus eggs were special. They were numbered 1 thru' 12 and whoever found one of these eggs were asked to bring it to the organizer for a special gift - a little teddy bear! Once all eggs were hunted down, we gathered the kids in the next room for a story reading session where we had an appointed guest read out the book called Benjamin's Box - which talks about a little boy called Benjamin who narrates the Easter story as it happened to a friend. As the person reads the book, she opens these special eggs one at a time to reveal a special Easter related item inside the egg - such as a tiny donkey, a nail, 30 silver, a piece of cloth, a crown of thorn, praying hands etc. The 12th egg is purposely left empty to emphasise to the kids that Jesus's tomb was empty the third day as He resurrected.

After the story reading we showed a Veggie Tales movie called 'T'was the night before Easter' followed by light dinner for all.

The whole event was an instant hit among parents and children alike and we wish to host it every year - God willing. Here's sharing few pictures from the event which occured 23rd April 2011 - last Saturday...