an aussie easter

Happy Easter everyone!  So I know this post is a couple days late, but I wanted to share with you all about Aussie Easter.

I noticed a ton of differences between an Easter in Kansas and an Easter here:

You cannot buy an Easter Egg dying kit in Australia.  I was so thankful that my mama had sent a kit in our latest care package, and so were my housemates.  None of my housemates had ever colored Easter eggs before, so I was so excited to do this with them.  They loved it as well!

I got really excited when Dane wanted to color eggs this year. (It hasn't always been his thing).  He said to me, "well it is a Wutke tradition you know? "  The thought in my head was, "you hated coloring eggs as a kid."  That's when I realized he meant our little Wutke family, and that made me super happy.

In Australia it is rare to find white eggs in the store, so our colors were a lot more earth toned than normal, but I loved the colors we were able to create.

Mama Sue, this egg was made for you especially.  We were all so thankful for that simple egg dying kit.

Another difference in Aussie Easter, is Easter is recognized as a public holiday.  That means everyone gets off work on Good Friday (even McDonalds is closed).  As a result of this, our house decided to have our own 6 Kidman Street Family Easter.  On Good Friday, everyone here eats fish instead of other meats, so Sarah Anne made fish for us.  I ate Basa for the first time and it was AMAZING.  The fish tasted super buttery, Sarah Anne had used no butter in cooking it.  I loved it so much I went to the store the next day and picked up two fillets for Dane and I to enjoy later on.  If you come visit us in Australia, I would LOVE to make you Basa!

Menu: basa, chips, deviled eggs, mandarin orange salad, and cucumber salad (by Dane's request)

The Easter bunny from south Australia also gave our house a little visit and we all got to enjoy South Australian chocolate, milk and caramel filled.  So yummy!  Thank you south Australian Easter bunny!

Easter Sunday was a CRAZY day for Dane and I.  Dane and I serve at a Hillsong extension service called Hillsong Greater West.  Dane runs monitors for the service and I help with the 3-5 year olds during church.  The church meets in a college lecture hall, so every Sunday morning they build the church from the ground up.  Sound system, lights, video, full band, welcome lounge, kids rooms classrooms, city care.  It is quite amazing to watch the space turned into a church.

Church was amazing.  We were linked in with Hillsong pastors from several different campuses.  It was so great to celebrate as one giant church.

Sunday night, Hillsong held a huge city wide service in downtown Sydney.  They rented out the Sydney Entertainment Centre, and this was still not enough room to hold everyone.  People participated in the service, out on the street, in the rain!  Simply amazing to people so hungry for God.



The speaker was Reinhardt Bonnke, who has seen over 55 million people come to Christ in Nigeria over the span of 8 years.  He loves to preach the gospel, and it was such a beautiful presentation.  Dane served at the service by singing in the huge choir (see if you can find him, he's on the back row in the center.)

After the service Dane served on the New Christians team, handing out Bibles and helping people fill out decision cards.  I even got to hand out a few Bible to some young kids.  They were so pumped to have a Bible in their hand, I was just tickled by this.

So yes, it was a Happy Easter.  One thing to make it even happier.  Since Easter is a national holiday here, and it falls on a Sunday, this requires the government to give everyone a week day off work, so here they celebrate Easter Monday, which is genius.  Who doesn't need a bit more rest after a big Easter Sunday.  Something the USA should think about huh?

Love you all!  Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!