A blessed Easter to all! {We're going on a treasure hunt!}

Image source here.

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15: 55-57)

Although our Lenten and Holy Week plans and promises did not all go according to what we had hoped, we are nonetheless grateful for how God has brought us to this wonderful day — Easter, when we celebrate Jesus' rising from the dead! :) Thank God we have 50 days to celebrate this beautiful, blessed occasion!

Here's a peek at what the kids will be getting today at our "Easter Treasure Hunt," which we will have during our planned Easter party later at Lolo Mon's house. We'll be having lunch with my dad, my youngest brother and our young "family" members from Timor Leste, who are here for the Youth for Christ International Leaders Conference next weekend:

I reused the plastic Easter eggs we bought last year for our Resurrection Eggs set and placed different "goodies" in each egg — the pink and purple ones are for Rysse and the green and blue ones for Tim. I also bought some Catholic items at our local St. Paul's store.

Can you guess what are inside these eggs? LOL! I think the sticks pretty much give it away! (Lollipops! Tee hee!)

I bought these little books about stories from the Bible (OK, they're kind of NOT related to Easter, but we don't have that many choices here in the Philippines!). Then, I taped Easter eggs to the covers of the books, with each egg containing a one-peso coin. :)

These eggs contain small glow-in-the-dark statues of the Sto. Nino (for Tim) and of Mama Mary (for Rysse).

The last and greatest "treasure" in our hunt will be these VCDs of Saints Stories with holy picture cards of the Resurrected Christ, the Holy Family and St. Therese (for Rysse) and St. Michael (for Tim, they didn't have a St. Timothy card at St. Paul's). The Easter eggs contain a jelly candy each.

I taped the eggs to the kids' favorite snack foods - choc chip cookies for Tim and cheese crackers for Rysse. The eggs contain, again, one-peso coins. :)

We don't have Easter baskets, so I'll just ask the kids to use the bags they got from the CFC Kids for Christ International Kids Village we were blessed to attend last year to gather their Easter treasures. :)

Last-minute additions :) I tried to make a cross out of lollipops, after reading this post about symbolic Easter baskets for Catholic children. How I wish we had Catholic stores that sold Catholic-themed candies and goodies like those featured here! :) 

It's not too late to have a Christ-centered Easter activity for your families, friends! :) Here are some useful links:

Symbolic Easter baskets from Three-Sided Wheel

Catholic Easter basket ideas from Shower of Roses

Easter ideas from Catholicmom.com

While we're at it, let's include the whole family! :) Here are 50 Ways to Celebrate Easter from The Word Among Us website. :) 

P.S. This Easter Sunday, the kids are going on a treasure hunt and we'll be having a simple party. But our only prayer is that they discover the greatest treasure of all, i.e. the Resurrected Christ, alive forevermore! Alleluia! :)