A Tri-cultural Easter

Last weekend we celebrated Easter in three different cultural traditions. It started Friday night at our house. Joel and myself and Erin each invited a couple students over to our house to celebrate Passover and to watch The Passion together. Erin's family has a traditional Seder Meal each year, so she led us all through one. It was interesting to do that together and to picture Jesus and his disciples as they enjoyed their Passover meal together so many years before.

Then on Saturday Joel met Anja at the Catholic church near our home for Easter Mass. For the last two years we've watched as people from the village have flocked to the church starting at 3pm on Saturday until early Sunday morning, basket in hand, carrying their Easter meal to be blessed by the Priest. So this year, Joel decided to join in the tradition and meet Anja at the church. Little did he know, though, that she would have 2 baskets in hand, one for her family and one for us! Later on that afternoon, Joel, myself, Erin and the Hunnicutt family joined Drago and Megi and their son, Filip at their house for the traditional Slovene Easter meal. The meal is usually eaten at breakfast on Easter morning and it includes, ham, hard-boiled eggs, fresh horseradish, bread, cheese and a special rolled-sweet bread that is made here called, Potica. Almost every part of the meal holds some special meaning, much like the Jewish Seder meal. The part that most impacted me is the fresh horseradish. It is traditional in both meals and it symbolizes the pain and suffering of Jesus on the cross and when you eat it, it truly makes your eyes water from the intensity of the flavor.

Then Sunday morning, Anja brought over another traditional meal that is baked fresh that morning. It's a combination of eggs, ham and bread that is covered in crisp pork fat and baked. After that, we all went to church and celebrated the Risen Savior and came home to a traditional American Easter lunch.

Whew! I think we've had our fill of ham and eggs for quite a while! : )