I spent Easter (Velikonoce) in Husinec. It's a small town or large village in Southern Bohemia and is the birthplace of Jan Hus. Jan Hus is a Czech national hero who started the Protestant reformation about 100 years before Martin Luther. At one point during the 5 days there were approximately 30 young adults at the gym that we were staying at! That's a lot of names to try to remember! But fortunately there is grace and our group is patient with me.
A small group of us left around 8am via bus. This is a unique experience because you never know if you are going to get a bathroom stop or if there will be more people on the bus than there are seats. We set things up and began to relax. The weather the entire weekend was incredible! Temperatures were in the 70s and the sun was shining. Krasna! (beautiful). We spent the weekend playing games involving charades, participating in our sports day- basketball, volleyball, soccer for 4 hours, and eating yummy food. I'm certain that all the weight I had lost is now back.
On Good Friday we fasted and interviewed the community on what easter means to them. I was saddened to discover that most people don't know the true meaning of Easter. For most it is just a day off of work (Monday). We attended a service at the Czech Brethren church. The pastor had us write down out sins and he then nailed them to the cross at the altar. I felt a new found freedom that I had been missing since coming to Prague. I feel like I did when I was living at HDC, which is healthy and good. We then had a worship service just us youth and I was released to worship like I had before coming to Prague as well. Which lead to many people asking me to sing the rest of the weekend. We then wrote down what we were thankful for and headed to the river to set our paper boats adrift. Some of the guys and I danced to the BeeGee's "Staying Alive". I feel free to be me, Emily, with this group.
Easter Sunday we went to church and we were all feeling the joy of Christ's resurrection. We went up on the hill to take a group photo. The day was spent being lazy, playing games, I played guitar for about 2 hours, and that night we watched the movie Fireproof. It was good. A reminder that love is a choice. We also prepared for Monday...
The Monday after Easter is an interesting experience in the Czech Republic. The boys chase the girls with sticks that they braided the day before to keep the girls looking beautiful. I was sweeping the gym when all of a sudden I heard my name being yelled and us girls took off out of the bathroom window, scaled fences, and ran from the boys. They caught up with us and hit us on our rears with these sticks. Everyone laughed when I yelled, "It's so hard to not hit them back!" The boys recited a poem to us about being beautiful and we then presented them with deocrated eggs to keep them from hitting us anymore. I will always remember this Easter. Quite the adventure! I'm very glad I went!
