An Istanbul Easter

The commercial trappings of Easter are not immediately obvious around Istanbul - we found a chocolate Father Christmas in the supermarket.  But where there is a church, there is a celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter Day.

We decided to have another go at catching the bus in the morning and just happened to catch sight of Corrie, also heading to church on a bus that we hadn't taken before so we joined her confident that we were going in the right direction.  We're slowly learning our way around the public transport system and still resisting getting a car.

We had a nostalgic treat at the beginning of the service with the choir from the East African Service joining us with their bright choir robes and African rhythms.  It reminded me of the Prince of Peace Choir which we were part of in Rwanda over 10 years ago now.  Our South African pastor told an entertaining story about his recent visit to Glasgow and a conversation with a former soldier - "I understood about one word in three" got a big laugh from the congregation which covers a pretty diverse range of quite strong accents itself.

The service was followed by baptisms and then a community lunch which reminded me of All Hallow's lunches except that we don't yet know everybody. We sat with Jo's friend from bible study and Naomi went peacefully to sleep in her arms. We then did see our first Easter egg of the season with gifts of Easter eggs from the Mayor of the Municipality of Beyoglu (the area of Istanbul the church is in).

We had a staggeringly long journey to get home through the crowds and infamous Istanbul traffic jams in the afternoon via tram, bus and on foot.

Once we had finally made it home and after an hour or so of quiet time, Reuben organised a 'Resurrection Eggs' activity laid out on pieces of paper instead of in plastic eggs.  With a bit of help from Jo and the internet, he set out 12 stations telling the Easter story and then took the whole family through the story.  This included having our feet washed (not unusually) and solemnly taking it in turns to wear the crown of thorns (that was new to me).  The stone that was rolled away was gravel sized - the smallest grave stone I have ever seen.  It was a wonderfully creative thing for the children to do and not only absorbed them for ages but also made for a great family Easter.

.