Holy Week, called Semana Santa in Spanish, is an INCREDIBLE gift every year regardless where a person lives, but it is extra special and unique for everyone at the Finca, including missionaries, kids, tías, and other Finca employees! With the notable exception of the holidays at the Finca, which I wrote about in a previous blog, Semana Santa is my favorite time to be at the Finca!
We started Semana Santa with an amazing Palm Sunday mass in Trujillo, where there is a 45-minute procession prior to the mass beginning from another Catholic church further up the mountain to the Cathedral in central park. This procession is extremely common culturally in Honduras, and we sang songs and yelled out chants on our way down the mountain in worship of Jesus’ passion and death for our sins.
Every school in the country had the entire Semana Santa off classes, and we also had Monday through Wednesday completely free from regular spiritual events in the morning and afternoon at the Finca. That being said, THOSE WERE THREE INCREDIBLE DAYS!! The weather was beautiful and sunny all week long, and we went to the beach every day with both the boys and the girls! Due to rules at the Finca, missionaries cannot go to the beach with boys and girls houses at the same time, but we luckily had time to go several hours every day with both the boys and the girls at the Finca!
I am SO, SO grateful every single day to live on the beach, but I am extra grateful for the beach during Semana Santa! Almost all of our kids, except our oldest girls at the Finca who sometimes just don’t feel like getting their hair and clothes wet, love the beach SO, SO much! It is a pure gift during weeks like Semana Santa to love our kids really, really well by going to the beach every day, as well as loving our tías well by giving them a few free hours without their kids yelling, screaming, and fighting in the house.
On Wednesday night for 3 hours, missionaries hosted a girls night in our missionary house and a boys night in the campo and library that every child in the Finca other than our toddlers went to! The girls watched a movie, painted nails, and ate dinner and ice cream, while the boys played soccer in the campo, played tag in the park, and ate baleadas, chips, and ice cream in the library while watching Space Jam. Drew and I didn’t realize that Space Jam was only available on Amazon in English prior to renting it, but our kids decided to watch it anyway and everyone LOVED it, from our 4-year-old boy to our almost 17-year-old teenager that can be hard to please when it comes to selecting movies. All in all, it was a truly awesome time spent with 7 of our boys at the Finca, and sometimes you just need BOYS TIME!!
Natalie, Kenna, and I also decided to host every house at the Finca for either lunch or dinner throughout Semana Santa and the following week, and that was such special time with every tía and child at the Finca! The conversations during dinner were amazing and full of laughter, jokes, and stories, and we always had plenty of time after eating to play tag, dance to music, and to enjoy one another’s presence. Inviting our houses to eat with us at CST is one of my favorite parts about being a Finca missionary, and I will be forever grateful to Natalie and Kenna for desiring to love our Finca community in that way this year!
In addition to the incredible beach time and quality time spent with every house within our fence, the Finca is also an extraordinary place to spend Semana Santa spiritually. Our Sores do our Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday celebrations REALLY, REALLY well and in a way that engages all of our kids and invites them to accept Jesus as their savior who died for their sins.
During our Holy Thursday communion service, the Sores had our 12 youngest kids, including our toddlers, at the Finca act out the 12 disciples! Besides being the most adorable thing ever, those 12 children were able to eat bread and drink child-appropriate wine while everybody else received Jesus in the Eucharist during communion. I thought that was an extremely creative way to allow our youngest children at the Finca who have not yet received their first communion to engage in the Last Supper celebration with those receiving the Eucharist!
On Good Friday, we had a joint Stations of the Cross with Mojaguay, the town immediately outside the Finca gate, at 9am. We started the stations at a nearby plancha and finished the last seven or so stations at the Finca. In the afternoon, we had a Good Friday communion service at 3pm that was also unbelievably engaging for our children and encouraged them to actively wonder what Jesus’ death means for their own life. On Holy Saturday, we had a beautiful Easter Vigil Mass at the Finca, as we are blessed that a priest from Trujillo comes every year for a 4pm Easter Vigil Mass at our Finca chapel!
Finally, on Easter Sunday, after a great mass in Trujillo in the morning, we had a Finca-wide beach party to celebrate!! Finca-wide beach parties are my absolute favorite part of being a missionary at the Finca, and this party was no exception! Our tías cooked pastelitos, catrachitas, fried tacos, Honduran enchiladas, and sopa de gallina, which are some of my favorite Honduran foods. As you could probably imagine, THE FOOD WAS EXTREMELY DELICIOUS!! After eating together as a Finca community at the beach, everybody swam in the ocean together for 3ish hours!! It was such a gift to be able to gather like this as an entire Finca family to celebrate Easter and enjoy one another’s presence.
All in all, Semana Santa at the Finca is something that I am so incredibly grateful for, and our week was full of beach time, amazing time spent with all of our houses at the Finca, and powerful time spent in the church! This children’s home in rural Honduras has captured my heart in so many ways, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to live here every single day.
Please pray for Ryan, our new missionary coordinator that arrives at the Finca on May 6th, and his transition to the Finca!
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
God Bless!