Easter

 

Happy Easter from FBA Global Missions!

 

If you’ve ever wondered how Easter is celebrated around the world . . . join us as we explore!  (Special thanks to Wycliffe Bible Translators) 

Note:  We have seven Faith Promise Missionaries serving with Wycliffe.

AFRICA

Easter is widely celebrated in churches throughout Africa from the Thursday before Easter (called “Maundy Thursday”) through Easter Sunday. Churches are often decorated with cloths that have butterflies, flowers and more on them. Church services are the most crucial parts of Easter throughout the region, and people attend Easter vigils to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

In Ethiopia, Christian churches celebrate Faskia, which is the 55 days leading up to Easter. Faskia is actually a bigger deal to people than Christmas, and that’s why it’s celebrated longer than our Easter in the U.S. During this holiday, people spend 55 days fasting from meat and animal products.

The night before Easter, Christians have a vigil that begins somber; but when morning comes, dancing and music breaks out. Families and communities spend Easter Sunday at church services and in homes, eating and celebrating.

In South Africa, the day after Easter was officially recognized as “Family Day” in the 1990s. Originally the holiday was called “Easter Monday” and was designed for people to recover from the Easter weekend’s festivities. Today the holiday gives families the chance to spend time together.

PACIFIC

The Pacific is home to thousands of islands with a variety of landscapes. You’re probably familiar with countries in the Pacific like Australia and New Zealand. And since they’re both in the Southern Hemisphere, Easter actually occurs during the fall instead of springtime there. And a lot of New Zealand residents (who are called “Kiwis”) enjoy eating hot cross buns during Easter.

While we typically associate Easter with images of rabbits in the U.S., some Australians don’t use rabbits for their Easter festivities because they’re considered to be pests. Instead they use the holiday to celebrate an endangered Australian animal called a bilby. It has long ears and looks similar to a rabbit so they dub the animal the “Easter Bilby.”

Easter week is full of church activities in Vanuatu which is an archipelago located in the South Pacific. These activities include a sunrise service on Easter morning and the observance of Good Friday and Easter Monday as official holidays.

ASIA

Asia is the largest continent on Earth, and contains a vast number of people groups, cultures and traditions.

Easter is a major religious holiday in the Philippines, which is home to more than 7,000 islands! In this country, two processions happen during Easter — the men are in one procession and follow an image of Jesus risen from the dead while the women make up another procession and follow Jesus’ mother, Mary, who’s wearing a black veil. The two groups meet at the church as a symbol of Jesus comforting Mary after he was raised from the dead. Then girls who are dressed up as angels for Easter take off Mary’s veil (called a lambong) and people celebrate!

Not all countries throughout Asia celebrate Easter, a traditionally Christian holiday. But even though a small percentage of people in India are Christians, many people celebrate the holiday as a “spring festival.” Egg dyeing and decorating isn’t really celebrated in India but since people are still aware of the longstanding tradition, many purchase elaborately decorated eggs and give them as presents to their children.

EUROPE

In Orthodox countries throughout Eastern Europe like Romania, Serbia, Greece and more, Easter is celebrated about 1-2 weeks after other countries because the Orthodox churches in these countries follow the Julian Calendar.

People in Germany love decorating for Easter! They even decorate tree branches for Easter with painted eggs in the same way that people decorate tree branches in December for Christmas. In addition to celebrating the holiday itself, Easter marks the kickoff of spring! Many people wear colorful traditional dress to celebrate the occasion.

In Poland, families get together to celebrate the holiday and eat a filling Easter Sunday breakfast. But the most famous part of a Polish Easter is the babka, a bread that traditionally has raisins and a thin glaze on top of it.

On Easter Monday in France, something unique happens. Volunteers in the French town of Bessières gather to cook a giant omelet. Thousands of eggs are cracked and cooked to create this huge dish. So why in the world do they do this?

Well, tradition says that Napoleon and his army were traveling through the south of France one day and stopped in this small town. They ate omelets there, and Napoleon liked them so much that he ordered the townspeople to gather their eggs and make a giant omelet for his army the next day.

AMERICAS

Since the Americas contain North, South and Central America, there are a lot of different Easter traditions and celebrations.

In Bermuda, people like to fly kites on Good Friday. The tradition started one year when a teacher wanted to help his students learn about Jesus ascending to heaven. So he took a kite decorated with Jesus’ face on it, and let it soar into the sky. It was like Jesus ascending!

In Colombia, Easter Sunday itself isn’t celebrated with lots of fanfare. But Holy Week is celebrated widely throughout the country, with many people having off work part of the week or the entire week! Many people go on vacation during Holy Week, while some travel from bigger cities to smaller Colombian towns for traditional Holy Week processions and to observe decorations in churches.

And of course, in the United States, Easter is traditionally celebrated with church service, plastic egg hunts, dyeing real eggs and eating lots of sweets. Like… a lot of sweets. Americans actually spent $2.6 billion on candy in 2018 according to the National Retail Federation. We certainly love our sugar, don’t we?

We've visited many countries in this blog, but you might not know that there are people groups in each area of the world that don't have God's Word in a language and format they clearly understand yet. That means they don't know the story of Jesus' resurrection yet. That's why Wycliffe exists: to help speakers of the remaining languages get the Bible for themselves.

So whether you’re celebrating Easter by attending a sunrise church service in the U.S., eating a traditional breakfast in Europe or fasting from animal products in Africa, may we all take the time this season to remember the significance of 1 Peter 1:3-4a:

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance …” (NLT).

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PRAYER & PRAISE - April 13-19

 

4/13 Isaias & Judith Catorce 

TMS Global, Philippines 

Praise the Lord for the once-a-month training of Young Ambassadors For Christ (YAFC) evangelists which has produced many street preachers. The trainees come from different churches and denominations, with targeted street preaching in other religion communities.

 

4/14 T & A  

Central Asia 

Pray as they meet outside the country for a week in their first face-to-face meetings with all the regional leadership teams since the pandemic began. This gathering is to inspire fresh vision, make connections with other leaders, gain ideas and wisdom from other regions, and grow in their clarity of vision of how to promote increased engagement and fruitfulness in their region.

 

4/15 J & K 

Central Africa 

J has been asked to join co-workers and others on a three-day trip to visit what once was an unwelcoming area to explore the possibility of starting mother-tongue education in their schools. J is excited for this opportunity! Pray for God's purposes to be accomplished.

 

4/16 Diane Harrington 

e3 Partners Ministry, USA 

Pray for the Helping Hands ministry which Diane has begun in her 55+ neighborhood. It is an outreach to help those in time of special needs. Over 40 volunteers from the neighborhood have indicated their interest in helping their neighbors with small temporary issues when needed. Those who are Christians are using it to be the hands and feet of Jesus to build bridges for the Gospel. Please pray for wisdom and clear direction from the Lord as they plan this ministry.  

 

4/17 Greg & Pam Smith  

InStep Global, USA/Worldwide       

Pray for the Healthy Church training planters in India and Nepal. The Church Planters (1,500 in Nepal) have a vision to plant a church in every village by 2030 – 21,000 churches is the goal. The Church Planters (100 from Mexico to Chile) have a vision to plant 10,000 churches by 2030 for a one million soul harvest. Pray for the Gospel Boat ministry in the Philippines and the Bible Training School, for the Pastor/Leader Training in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

 

4/18 T & D 

Asia 

To raise some much-needed revenue, their girls' dorm has been rented out for the next year and a half to a Nursing School and 389 new girls will be living in the building next to them. Pray that they would be a good witness to these new girls and would have opportunities to reach out to them. Also pray that their new semester and classes will go well, and students will be motivated to learn! Please pray for the salvation of the lost and for a greater passion for God.

 

4/19 Linda Summer 

The Agape Puppets, USA/Worldwide 

Please pray for Ukraine! Linda and her teams have done many puppets shows in Ukraine over the years. Most of Ukraine does not have faith. Many have been taught to trust in their own goodness. There are a significant number of Ukrainians who believe in nothing, who deny God's existence. Terrible times make people's hearts tender to the Gospel. Pray that the Lord would use this war to call Ukraine to Himself.

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“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58 (NASB) 

Our monthly Prayer & Praise Calendar is also available on fba.org/globalmissions