Fröhe Ostern!! Happy Easter!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend celebrating the death and resurrection of our Savior! Mein Erlöser Lebt!! My redeemer lives! On Sunday we attended church with Chad, at an Austrian church, started by the missionary parents of one of our senior students. So yes, it was all in German! I (Stephanie) thoroughly enjoyed the worship, and actually understood what I was singing! Then we got to the sermon, and well, lets just say he talked REALLY fast and was all over the place and making jokes, and I struggled to follow along. But I caught some things here and there. Chad was translating most of it for Matt. All of this to say, it was a great service celebrating the resurrection of Christ.

One of the big things to do around Easter time in Vienna is Easter markets! Similar to their Christmas markets, these markets include Easter decorations -hand painted Easter eggs in all variations, palm leaves, Easter candles and flower arrangements - as well as artifacts from all over Austria, including glassware, ceramics, stoneware, tin toys, straw animals and beekeeping products. My favorite Easter market it the Freyung market because they have over 35,000 hand painted eggs. It is a site to behold!

This is a picture of my Easter Tree. It is tradition in Austria to hang the eggs on pussy willow branches. Because palm branches were not obtainable in Austria, the church blessed pussy willow and used it instead. In some European nations, it is even called Willow Sunday instead of Palm Sunday.

The above pictures are of the 4 new eggs I was able to buy this year. I love all of the intricate designs! My sunflower one is kind of 3-D and the white design on the red one is furry! For those of you who are wondering, Matt picked out the globe one, although I think its really cool too. Who would have thought--a map on a hallow egg?