African Easter

Every Easter, I grew up putting out my shoes for the Easter bunny to fill, with the rest of my family. The night before Easter Sunday, my brother and I would pick our largest pair of shoes to lie out for the Easter bunny to fill. Until I was a teenager, I thought everyone put out shoes for the Easter bunny, not baskets. I actually don’t know why it is that my family had this tradition, but I like it. Anyways, once I got married, I let Jeremy in on our tradition and informed him that we too will be putting out our shoes each Easter. So the past two Easters in the States, that we have been married, our shoes were filled up with goodies. Now this could be a little embarrassing to say, but since I live so far away from you guys I don’t really mind saying it, but Jeremy and I lived in Abilene where my mom and grandmother both lived. So each Easter, they would come by our apartment early in the morning and fill up our shoes. Each year I would think we were probably grown up enough not to put out our shoes, and then I would receive a call from my mom late the night before reminding us to put out our shoes.
Now here we are in Zambia on another Easter morning. Jeremy and I have big plans to celebrate in the evening with Jason and Erin. We are making hamburgers, homemade buns, sweet potato chips and an apple pie. It is going to be GREAT! So the morning of Easter Sunday, I woke up and went out to sit on the couch for a few minutes before I made breakfast. I always leave my pair of tennis shoes out on the porch because they are too dirty to bring inside. Jeremy called for me to come see something outside so I go look out the screen door, and this is what I find.

Culture shock can be overwhelming in certain moments, and our first holiday away from family, friends and our church home hit me a bit. Of course, I was not expecting to have my shoes filled (and really that is not the point), but my awesome husband brought a little bit of home to me this morning. Happy Easter from Zambia! -Whitney