As Chaplains, it is our team's privilege to coordinate many different Easter events during this time, so that's what's been keeping us busy for the past weeks: 3 Easter services (Good Friday, Sunday Sunrise, and Easter Morning), 3 movie nights, 1 craft afternoon, 1 Open Cabin evening, 1 Easter Breakfast, and the Maundy Thursday events (more about that later) - all with the help of other crew and volunteers. We also had an amazing Easter Sunday lunch put on by our Food Services department!
On Thursday we transformed one of our function rooms into the Upper Room...
which included the 12 Stations of the Cross and Communion, and the opportunity to come and find some solitude and stillness all weekend long.
There was a foot-washing station on Deck 7.
The International Lounge became the Garden of Gethsemane
...followed by a place to contemplate what Jesus did for us on the cross on Good Friday
...and then a place of celebration and praise as we filled the cross with flowers on Easter Sunday morning!
It was such a special time. (Although I'm not sure if Kevin wants to see another palm branch for a while!) We were thankful to have time to experience all of these different aspects of Easter as a family and as a community.
I want to finish with this quote by David Janzen about community life, which we have found to be so true in our work and lives here on the Africa Mercy:
life regularly brings out the worst in us. Yet what better place can there be for our weakest parts and crankiest moments to happen than among those who love us deeply? Living in community is the choice to lie down on God’s operating table and open our hearts to the Holy Spirit's healing through each another. It is an invitation to spiritual surgery . . . using and submitting to the "surgical tools" of gracious truth-telling and patient listening. God's strength is made perfect in our weakness.”
May we all experience the depth of His healing and love through each other as we choose vulnerability over perfection.
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