parenting

Holy Week Activities for Families

Bible, Uncategorized

I recently had a conversation with a friend about how it can be hard to plan Easter activities with kids. In a season saturated with cute bunnies, colorful eggs, and sugar, it can be a challenge to get to the heart of the resurrection of Christ with kids. And with spring break behind us and summer on the horizon, Easter feels like it sneaks up on us every year!

My family has developed Holy Week traditions to prepare our hearts for Resurrection Sunday. Here are some of the things we love to do:

Resurrection Eggs

I grew up with Resurrection Eggs and love sharing this tradition with my son. Each morning, we open a plastic egg and take out the small, meaningful object. Then we read the accompanying devotional and scripture.

If plastic eggs aren’t your thing, a great alternative to this is building your own in a small box using the book Benjamin’s Box as your guide.

As a kid, I built my own Benjamin’s Box. I showed it to a friend, who loved the box and asked to go through it together on several occasions. You never know what kind of conversations your kids can share with their friends when you provide tools like this.

Go on a Devotional Walk

We love to take a devotional walk during Holy Week. You might be able to find a church or nature path that offers guided prayer or reflection on scripture. In the Phoenix area, I know of two great places we can do this:

Canaan in the Desert, which is a prayer garden in Phoenix founded by German Evangelical nuns. The garden offers a path decorated with artistic representations of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

Prayer Hill at Christ’s Church of the Valley in Peoria. This is an easy hike up a hill that offers several prayer prompts along the way. We enjoy stopping to read scripture at the cross at the top and in the empty tomb on the way down.

Host a Messianic Seder

You may know that in the last few days before his death, Jesus and his disciples were observing Passover. The traditional seder meal is a celebration of God’s saving work during the Exodus, but it also points to the Messiah. Experience this for yourself and see how closely the story of Passover and Easter are intertwined.

Here is a guide for the Messianic seder meal. And this resource can help you prepare for the Messianic Passover.

Plan Acts of Service for Maundy Thursday

One of the most touching accounts from Holy Week is Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. This display of humble servanthood is an example for us to follow.

On Thursday (or any time during Holy Week), read John 13 and talk about what it means to serve others. Do something together to show service–maybe wash each other’s feet, serve at a food bank, or challenge each person to surprise another family member with an act of kindness.

Attend Good Friday Service

Not every church offers a Good Friday service, but it’s easy to find one that does. A Friday evening reflecting on Christ’s sacrifice is a great way to set the mood for Resurrection Sunday.

What does your family do on Holy Week? Share your traditions below!

Breana Johnson reading a vintage book

Why Read Fiction?

books, Special Needs Parenting, Uncategorized

Nothing I do will ever be enough for my special needs child. No amount of physical therapy, feeding therapy, speech therapy or occupational therapy will ever bring my daughter to the level of functioning required to perform basic adult tasks.

This is my daily reality, even as we work through these therapies and utilize the accompanying equipment. I’ve accepted this, and it’s my normal. We are happy.

But every once in a while, this truth slams into me hard enough to knock my breath out.

A few days ago, my daughter had a rough day and vomited several times in the afternoon—not unusual for her—and then fell into an exhausted sleep. I put her down for nap and went to clean up the mess.

When I heard her wake up, I went into the closet where she sleeps and felt all the wind go out from my sails. I sank down next to her crib and cried over the impossibility of this situation and grief for the life I’d dreamed of for my daughter.

Then I picked myself up, because I’m the mom. And I gathered her up in my arms to find that she’d thrown up in her bed. I picked her up and she was limp and listless. A few hours later, we were in the ER. Again.

Unlike the previous week’s hospitalization, this ER visit ended up not being too serious and we had no admission. But as things go in healthcare, it was a long time waiting around for this or that. My husband eventually had to leave to pick up our older son and put him to bed. Brielle fell asleep. So it was just me and my book, Trapped in Yosemite by Dana Mentink, which is a romantic suspense story about a single mom.

I opened the book, pulled out my bookmark and read:

“The day had been endless, terrifying, heart wrenching and everything in between. She was depleted, mind and body, but there was still a baby to be tended.

And that was a fact with which she grappled on a daily basis. What if she didn’t have enough resources, physical and mental, to meet Hannah’s needs? What if she wasn’t strong enough, smart enough, brave enough?

You aren’t but God will give you enough, one day at a time, like He’s been doing.”

I promptly dissolved into tears. It was as if the author had seen me, knew my daily fight and deepest fears, and had found the right words to speak truth into my life.

Read my interview with Dana Mentink

This is why I read fiction.

Yes, there is an entertainment element. It’s a great way to unwind at the end of the day. And a good rom com is just right for escapism during a hospital stay.

But more importantly, fiction holds truths we need to challenge us, embolden us, and speak to our hearts during the darkest nights of our souls.

We’re Foster Parents

American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Bible, Caribbean, Expats, Expats and TCKs, Foster Parenting, International Travel, Saint Martin/ Sint Maarten, Spouses Organization, Third Culture Kids

If you haven’t figured in out by now, Ben and I are foster parents! We’ve been enjoying the company of a teen boy for about six months, who you may have seen mentioned vaguely as “R” in some of my recent posts. I haven’t talked about this explicitly, mostly because I’m not really sure how to talk about it in a public forum. For one thing, our son is a teenager in a small community, we’re Facebook friends with a lot of his friends, and all the kids around here are all over the internet. I don’t really want to be “that mom” and write things that are potentially embarrassing. Secondly, as the rest of you foster moms know, there’s a lot of obligatory privacy when it comes to foster kids. You have to follow the rules, and you have to be respectful. So I’ve opted not to talk about it thus far. However, this is a really big part of my life, and I think it’s good to talk about the foster parent experience. So I’m going to be posting a lot more about foster parenting here, and hopefully creating an element of camaraderie with other foster moms.

So what is it like to be a foster parent? Well, that’s hard to answer. Our situation is very, very different than most peoples’. However, I’d be kidding myself if I said that being a unique foster family is, well, unique. Everybody has a distinct experience with its own joys and challenges. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t put the foster-family lifestyle in a box!

For us, we’re a cross-cultural family. This wasn’t much of a stretch for us. Ben and I already have learned to enjoy and appreciate our own cultural differences. With our son, there’s also a difference in nationality. Ben and I are expats in the Caribbean, and our son is from here. We’ve had to learn to navigate the system in a place that is very different from the United States, but thankfully we’ve had wonderful people from the children’s service organization who are very kind to us as we pick through the cultural obstacle course.

We’re also a young couple fostering a teen. We’ve experienced some judgement from people who don’t think we should be taking on this kind of responsibility, but ultimately, we don’t dwell on those voices. Fostering has taught me that no matter what you do and no matter what your motives are, people are going to find fault with you. You can’t let it get you down. Listen to concerns of people who care about you, but in the end you just have to do what you know is right for your family. And guess what? It’s gone beautifully. If you’ve never considered fostering teens, why not look into it? I never thought I’d be good at this, but it’s one of the best experiences of my life.

We’re in med school. As one of my college professors used to say, “It will never be the ideal time to start having kids.” Doesn’t matter if they’re biological or not. Of course, there are some things that have to be in place, by law, in order for you to foster. But you don’t have to have a house or a massive income! You just have to have an extra room and be able to take care of yourself. Med school isn’t the ideal time to do anything, really, but we decided we just have to live our lives and not act like we’re on pause.

We’re pioneers. As far as I know, we’re the first foreigners to foster here. I think we’re the first who ever asked. Also, the program is fairly new. So learning how this works for us is a process. There’s a lot of uncertainty about things. We just have to take stuff day by day, which is hard for me to process—I love planning everything about two years in advance! It’s a learning experience for me, and a growing experience. I never know what to expect and I’m learning to walk in faith.

We’re Living by Faith. I have to take every step before I can see where it will land, which is scary. It’s easy to say that I know God will lead me and take care of me, but it’s hard to act on it. However, as Pricilla Shirer teaches in The Armor of God (my current Bible study book), faith is an ACTION. Faith has little to do with my ability to believe really hard and everything to do with God’s faithfulness. If I trust in that faithfulness, I can take the action God is asking me to take before I see the outcome. So that is what we are doing. We have to live by faith and do the things God wants us to do. Ever since we first felt God leading us in that direction, we’ve had to take steps before we had assurance that things were going to work out. Financial commitments and time commitments had to be made before we even knew if we were going to be certified. And it worked out. We’re still up against unknowns every day, but we are trusting God to work those out, too.

What about you? Are there any other foster families out there? I’d love to hear your story, too!