We are celebrating Easter today in true American style! Waking up to an Easter Basket left by the bunny. Eating a delicious lunch while talking about what the cross means to us. Love, Hope, Victory, Sacrifice, Restoration, and so much more! Laughing at the pettiness level John reached when he mentioned 3 times that he was faster than Peter when running to the grave to verify what the women said they saw. (Seriously look it up: John 20:3-8, verses 4, 6 and 8 specifically)
Then we had ham sandwiches with Jim and Lynn the American missionaries who have adopted us this month and continue to bless us with feelings of home. We worshiped together, played together, and laughed together.
But every time we wish the people here “Happy Easter!”
They respond, “It’s not Easter.”
This is because Orthodox Easter is celebrated the week after Protestant Easter and over 80% of the Serbian population is Christian Orthodox.
They love Easter here though! In talking to different locals most of them love the same things I love! It’s a time when families come together! They eat, they laugh, they love each other.
The Easter Bunny visits but it hides presents like shirts and socks instead of eggs. (I have yet to find openable plastic eggs here. And trust me I tried!)
The boiled and colored eggs are involved in a game of war. You try to crack the top of your opponent’s egg with the bottom of yours and vice versa. The one with the egg that is cracked the least gets to take the losing egg.
Easter also isn’t connected as much with Christianity here as it is with its pagan roots. Easter was actually first a pagan spring celebration for a fertility goddess. Hence the bunnies and eggs theme both ancient symbols of fertility. It fell close to Passover.
The Hungarian parts of Serbia will celebrate the day with a group of men going around throwing water on a woman to bless her with fertility.
I’m sure there are many other differences I have yet to discover as Easter is next week! ;D
But for all my friends and family back home: HAPPY EASTER: HE IS RISEN!!!
