Happy Easter!

This week is a slow week at work. Most of my EA2 students are on vacation for Spring Break, so I only have a few students each morning (the ones that come to EA2 as their only school). This week, Kayle has two days off (Wednesday and Thursday) while the furniture and offices in his building get rearranged. I came home after work on Monday to clean the house and do the laundry that has been piling up. On Tuesday, I volunteered at Eastside Academy for a few hours before subbing at another EA2 location in the afternoon. Tomorrow, Kayle and I hope to use his day off to go to the aquarium, Pike's Place Market, and Boeing's Museum of Flight after I finish teaching my morning students. On Friday night, we are trying to have a board game night at our condo, but I'm not sure if anyone will be able to make it. And finally, next week, we are off to Las Vegas for Kayle's product release!

Easter weekend was crazy busy for us yet incredibly joyful. Altogether, Kayle set up and programmed lights for about 24 hours over 5 days. On Friday, I attended one Good Friday service taught the Sunday school lesson at another. The video they played at the service was a half hour reenactment of Jesus' last days. The church actually taped the whole thing on the Spartacus movie set in California, so it was well-done and very powerful. The hard thing about teaching a Good Friday service is hearing all the stories of deaths and funerals that the kids have experienced. As soon as you mention a topic, it is inevitable that kids will raise their hands and share their own experience with the topic. One pair of sisters shared how their baby cousin died when a blanket got stuck on his face and he suffocated. Praying for these kids and hearing their fears and sadness was at least as powerful as the Good Friday service itself.

On Saturday, I woke up early to tutor a girl from church in math. Her parents can’t afford to pay a tutor right now, so I sat down to teach for about 2 hours in Panera Bread. It is fun and rewarding to see kids suddenly understand a concept and gain confidence. At night, my youth group girls came together to eat dinner and watch the Passion of the Christ movie afterward. I had mixed feelings about watching it again and haven’t seen it since it debuted while I was in high school. It is a historically accurate yet brutal movie of Jesus’ crucifixion. I remember thinking “thank you Jesus” over and over again when I watched it for the first time. It hurts to watch someone you love so dearly suffer so much, but I am glad I decided to watch it again and experience Jesus' death with 3 of my high school girls. Afterward, we just sat in silence in a big group hug before quietly talking about it all.

On Sunday, I partied all day long with my church family. After the heartache of Good Friday, celebrating the resurrection is so amazingly joyful. I sang my heart out, cried happy tears, and smiled until my cheeks hurt. It is incredible to see God change people as they believe for the first time and talk about the new freedom they have. It’s so exciting to see people baptized as a symbol of their identification with Christ’s death and resurrection. One of my high school girls and several kids from Sunday school were baptized as believers. It reminds me of the day when I suddenly knew God loved me and died for me and trusted in Him myself. My life and my heart were completely changed for the better that day and I have so much hope for how much I will continue to grow with God’s help. I stayed at church all day, attending two services and teaching Sunday school at the other two. In between the morning and evening services, Kayle and I went to Claim Jumper restaurant for our Easter meal with 3 other friends. I sat in my purple, flowery Easter dress and shared a full rack of BBQ baby back ribs with my husband, licking my fingers and all. I never was much of a lady...

Easter at Mars Hill Church feels like the giant celebration that Easter is supposed to be. Easter should be the most exciting day of the year for all Christians, since we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. If Jesus actually resurrected, then we know he is truly God, his promises are trustworthy, his words are truth, and we will one day rise from the dead with new bodies just like he did! If it didn't really happen, then the Bible tells us, "your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." The sermon showed video from Israel of many of the places Jesus went during his last hours, including the Garden of Gethsemane, the jail where he was held, the place where the crowd chose Barrabbas, where Simon of Cyrene was told to carry Jesus' cross, Golgotha, and the garden tomb. It was a short sermon and very interesting to see the places we read about in the Bible. You can watch it here: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/easter/easter-2010

Mars Hill sure knows how to party for Jesus. We had over 2000 people attend at the Bellevue campus on Sunday (600 more than usual) with about 50 people being baptized (about half became Christians or decided to get baptized on the spot that day). Church-wide, over all 9 campuses, almost 7000 people attended a Good Friday service, almost 13,000 people celebrated Easter with us in person, another 19,000 watched Easter online from all over the world, and 376 people professed faith in Jesus by being baptized. God was working powerfully in the hearts and lives of many, many people and I, for one, was just overflowing with worshipful happiness at the glory of my risen Lord and Savior. This is a cool video of baptism stories and a summary of some of the cool things God did in our church on Easter this year: http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2010/04/04/mars-hill-easter-stories/

Well, that's all the news for this week. I'll try to post in Las Vegas and maybe even take some pictures to show you all!

We love you!
Angie and Kayle