Almost Spring Break

I am sitting here in the school's teacher lounge thinking, "just a few more hours..." with regard to Spring Break! It's not that I'm not content with working or the students (or anything, I think), but I'm just excited to be on a holiday! We have something like 30 school days left and 2mths + 2 weeks before we leave for Summer vacation, but who's counting?

The last picture on the blog was of an Aquafina water bottle. "Mabrouk" if you know Arabic and could read it or if you guessed it from the colors.

This coming Sunday is Easter, and throughout this week and last week, I've been taking time to reflect on Easter celebrations past, as well as it's most important meaning. Chocolate bunnies, peanut butter eggs, and fake basket grass are all great, but none of them compare to the fact that Jesus died for you and me- and better yet, that he rose from the dead. Here's something I read:

"It's not enough to know that Jesus died on the cross and rose again on Easter morning. People need to know why. They need to know why Jesus was betrayed, why he willingly gave himself into his captor's hands, why he endured their whips and scorn, and why he ultimately died for them. They need to know why he came alive again, and why this true story has everything to do with our lives today."

Pastor John Piper writes a book, The Passion of Jesus Christ, and gives 50 reasons why he came to die. You can download the book for free from desiringgod[dot]org, but here is a sampling of reasons:

1. to absorb the wrath of God
5. to show the wealth of God's love and grace for sinners
11. to complete the obedience that becomes our righteousness
19. to give eternal life to all who believe on him
39. to free us from the fear of death
47. to rescue us from final judgement
50. to show that the worst evil is meant by God for good

Happy Easter! Christos Voskrese! Slava Isuzu Christu!