Easter

A busy week in Dunbar has just passed. It was Holy Week and proceedings started last week with the churches Palm Sunday procession and Passion Play. We had a theatre group, the Covenant Players, in to perform in the local park. Despite it being very cold, we had a good crowd and the churches were sucessfull in reminding everyone what Easter is all about. There is a Dunbar tradition emerging of using the pipe band for every occasion. I am sure if Jesus was arriving in Dunbar for the passover on his donkey, then a pipe band would have been ahead of him. It worked well for us (photo).

All week I have been working with the schools. I was doing assemblies in Dunbar Grammar School on Easter. I talked about George Cadbury who demonstrated great kindness to his staff at Bournville because his Christian faith influenced his outlook on life..and then of course I talked about God's act of kindness shown through Christ. i have also been pulled out doing the Easter services for Dunbar Primary School where I was working with 2 year groups making films to be shown in the services. P5's picked up on this kindness theme and we filmed them telling everyone about how kind they are! The P7's were looking at the Easter story and I got them to think about characters who are either mentioned in the bible, or who we can speculate would have been there, or would be there in a modern setting. We then interviewed them with a news crew and created our very own passion plays (or films). We had interviews with the executioner, palm tree selling woman (Isabelle), Mary, security guards, forensic experts and even Jeremy Clarkson! I think those involved now understand the story and the people in it more. I was also pleased with the turn out of parents at the services. As one teacher said about a kid, 'his mum turned up for the church service, which is more than I can say for the parents evening.'

Yesterday we celebrated Easter on the beach at 8 a.m. The service is only 20 minutes long but for me is all about quality not quantity. As so much of Jesus' life revolved around being on the coast it just adds to the occasion being on a beach to reflect on his life. The fact it is almost freezing and the wind chill makes it even colder does not take away from the occasion. That said the the croissants and coffee served afterwards are quite welcome.

Finally we had all Emma's family around for the day, including Ethan, the latest arrival who was born on Friday to Mary and Jamie. The children were almost as interested in him as they were with Claire's new iphone.