Easter Egg-Stravaganza!

There is no doubt about it-the Afrcia Mercy does Easter with finesse! From Sunday April 17th through to Monday April 25th we had activities thoughtfully planned by the Chaplains Department. Sunday began with the Palm Sunday service in which Jessica participated alongside the other elementary children by waving palm leaves. On Monday and Tuesday evenings the movie "The Greatest Story Ever Told" was aired in the International Lounge. On Wednesday evening,  also in the International Lounge, the concert DVD "St. Matthew Passion" was shown. On Thursday evening the Queen's Lounge and deck 7 were transformed into an area of communion and foot washing stations. Hard working people spent the day decorating the International Lounge into The Garden of Gethsemane. It was beautiful. On Good Friday we had a service and evening film "The Passion of the Christ".

Saturday is where the real fun began. The Koontz family hosted Easter Egg colouring in the Dining Room. The kids(and adults) had a blast staining all the eggs. Jessica is proudly holding "Mr and Mr Egg" in the photo above. Below are just some of the hundreds of eggs coloured.

There was a definite eggy theme going on. This is a photo from the reception area of an egg tree.
Faith, Hope and Love.

Are you wondering what happened to all those stained eggs? Well the kids got to keep two each and the rest were all peeled and made into devilled eggs for a Sunday's Brunch. My friend Dara and I spent four hours on Saturday night making 600 devilled eggs. We had a great time, albiet a little messy-lol.

Whalla! The end result. All those months watching Master Chef finally paid off as I found myself mysteriously and instinctively knowing how to fill and use a piping bag!!

Here we are on Easter morning-Sunday. Incase you are wondering why we look half asleep-that's because we are! Hot cross buns cooked by our wonderful, now departed, baker, Albert, during the night, were served along with coffee at Starbucks at 7:30am.

In keeping with the Egg theme-here is Jess trying her hardest to fit a whole Easter egg into her mouth at once. The Easter Bunny managed to find us in Sierra Leone and even to deliver Easter eggs-impressive Easter bunny!!!

Here are all the kids of the Mercy Academy Elementary School ready to sing for us in our wonderful Sunday morning Easter service. Jessica is in the back row. She is the oldest and tallest! The kids did a great job and the service was such a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. We had classic hymns to African music to dance and sign language.

After church it was onto a spectacular bruch that the Galley and Dining room staff had toiled over since the early hours of the morning. Albert once again shone with his amazing baked goods. We even had grapes and mandarins-such a treat for us in West Africa!

Go Albert!

On Sunday afternoon the kids listened to the Easter Egg Resurrection Story and then went on an Easter Egg hunt around the ship. Here is Jess ready to go!

This is the beautiful cross we had as a central part of the Sunday service. The cross was bare wood to begin with and each of the crew placed a paper flower into tiny holes in the cross. This is the end result.

On Monday evening various cabin opened up to the crew in the popular "Open Cabin" evening. We managed to get round all the cabins except the ten berth which closed early due to illness. Basically it was a great food crawl and a big sticky beak! What a great Easter we had this year. Missed our roast lamb though!!!