He has risen.

easter seemed to sneak up quickly this year. i don't know that i gave it much thought in the days before, but i did have some time to reflect on sunday. easter marks the time of year when i first became a christian [11 years ago] and when i got baptized [7 years ago]. it's kind of amazing to look back and see how much i've changed, and stayed the same. :)

sunday service was great. we had a slide show and sharing from tim, a dentist from church who had been in stationed in fallujah. people got baptized, lots of people were in attendance - it is easter afterall.

after service, i had a church meeting for the worship team. here's a funny story that might be familiar to you if you've served in a church or fellowship before. a month and a half ago, i was asked if i would be open to participating in the worship ministry and possibly leading on occasion. my response was that i would be open to the idea. i think the worship ministry is changing some things up. so...last week, i get this e-mail about a worship leaders meeting. and i found out that i'm part of a regular rotation of worship leaders and that we'll be forming a vision and purpose for the worship ministry as well as doing a study together. my "sure, i'd be open to the idea" somehow morphed into a "sign me up and commit me to this ministry." but now, it's back to allowing me to sit in on the worship meetings and seeing how things happen and then a choice to be in or out.

after church, a few of us went to this new place on the ave, the green zone, to have tea and egg balls. i had never had an egg ball before - they're like belgian waffles, except it's egg shaped, rather than waffled, and the batter tastes better. the man behind the counter had me point out what i wanted on a menu that had chinese subtitles. i meant to point at a honey milk tea, but i think my finger drifted upwards toward lemon tea, because that's what i got. it was made with real lemons and tasted like lemonade green tea. it was really good and plus, i didn't have the heart to communicate that it was something else i wanted and it just didn't matter that much. and it turned out that everybody else ordered the same drink because it was that good.

he wrote my total on a small slip of paper and slid it across the counter to me. this confirmed my suspicion that he didn't speak english, or at least, not very fluently. it then made me want to figure out how we could make things easier. i suggested to jeanette that she try mandarin, but we saw that mandarin wasn't really working and his accent seemed to have some cantonese to it. so when joyce and wing-onn got there, i asked joyce to try cantonese, which worked. the man was definitely more at ease and in a very short time, we learned that he pretty much only speaks cantonese, he's from vancouver, ca and the shop belongs to his son and he was just filling in for the day to give his son a day off, and the cute posters advertising the egg balls were designed by his son's friend. joyce really wanted one and he said he would ask his son to get one for her for the next time she came by. i just thought it was so great of him to work for his son despite the fact that it might have been tough communicating with customers. it really made my day.

for the evening, i went to my first easter dinner. chris and jason fong's parents invited people to join their family for dinner and it was a lot of fun. there were appetizers and lots and lots of food and dessert, including jello in the shape of eggs. after dinner we played apples to apples and uno. it was just a really great day, for so many reasons.

He has risen indeed.