Hmm, well the “crazy” weekend unfortunately turned out being crazy in an unexpected way!
After arriving Saturday and holding the SYC Staff meeting, Victoria and all three children became very ill with stomach flu, so Saturday night was spent dealing with some very sick and unhappy people.
Sunday morning Nick offered to drive me to church as the Huyers had decided to leave their second vehicle here and return to Ottawa, Timothy being the only healthy person able to drive. So I left them to pack up and headed to church. Once at St. Stephen’s I set up the mantle piece with our Lenten Symbols and laid out the very large nail (a gruesome visual reminder of the price Jesus paid for our sins), ready to add as the symbol for the final Sunday in Lent. The Cathedral organist had dropped off two beautiful Palm fronds on Saturday afternoon so I spent the balance of the time before the Gathering getting a head start on palm crosses.
William, age 6, had been so disappointed about not coming to church to help make them so I assured the family I would bring home some crosses and add them to their Easter Basket.
Happily as the chairs began to fill up, a visitor with her little girl joined us and so, once the opening Worship was over, I invited her to join us for Children’s ministry. Harper turned out to be 10 years old and was very adept at making crosses after a short tutorial.
It had been surprisingly difficult to find a good Palm Sunday Video suitable for all the children but I finally settled on this one and after snack we all watched it before the smaller children went off with Pippa to make some felt Palm branches using outlines of their hands.The four of us managed to complete a reasonable pile of crosses before Paul came to tell us it was time to re-join the Gathering.
The children were proud to carry the tray in and give it to Nick, and after he had prayed over them, to pass the crosses out to everyone in the congregation. Watching them earnestly handing out the crosses I thought of the thousands, maybe millions, of Christians worldwide who would be sharing in this same ritual and felt the powerful connection of such a “great cloud of witnesses”.
After church I did not stay for lunch but walked quickly home as I expected to do a lot more clearing up before the 3pm Board meeting, but found the Huyers still there as packing up a household of sick children and their Mum, is a slow process. Although I was anxious to work on cleaning up, instead William and I sat at the kitchen table and, together, produced Palm Crosses for his family. It was one of the best parts of the day to to teach this craft to my eldest Godson.
Once we had completed our task I set up for the meeting and quickly walked Wil before the Board started arriving. The Huyers stayed long enough for Victoria to review a few things with our CTM President and then they all left before the meeting.
That evening Alexander drove me down to Crossroads where we all pitched in to make things happen since Victoria had been going to present a skit but instead we watched a good one on YouTube and Luke led a discussion after. Following the Service I served hot apple cider and pretzels.
Sadly, around midnight, I also succumbed to the flu and so was out of commission yesterday, hence “Sunday Reflections-on a Tuesday!”.
Probably not stellar prose, but a vignette of Palm Sunday weekend around here 🙂