Rātapu Nikau at Rongotea
The donkey hire industry must have had a bumper weekend this past Palm Sunday, with a number of parishes using live donkeys to bring the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem to life. In our Rongotea whānau, the humble creature chosen to play the part went by the name of Pockets, and the many children there were delighted to have her there.
Rev. Hannah Rowan and some of the Rongotea children with Pockets the Donkey
Rev. Hannah Rowan used a service outline developed by Scripture Union New Zealand, and told us the church family there were delighted to welcome Pockets. "She was clearly a big attraction as there were 23 kids at the service!" Hannah told us.
Hannah described the service: "It involved us putting ourselves into the scene imaginatively, as it might have been over two thousand years ago. There were ferns and olive branches lining the aisle, and no one got poked in the eye! (Thanks to Dean, one of our dads for vacuuming afterwards!"
The service involved reflecting on Jesus' words from Luke 19:39-40 – "Some Pharisees from the crowd told him, 'Teacher, get your disciples under control!' But he said, 'If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them, shouting praise.'” "We wrote our prayers of thanks to Jesus on sticky labels which were then stuck onto rocks and stones," Hannah said. "Praise God for sending Jesus to us, for Pockets and other donkeys and for stones that are ready to cry out in praise! We are looking forward to journeying through Holy Week together."
We still have two Chrism services left, to enable you to enter Holy Week and end your Lenten journey together with us. St Mark's Carterton will host tonight's service at 7:30pm (Tuesday 30th March) and St John's Feilding will host tomorrow's service (Wednesday 31st of March) at 7pm. Go to movementonline.org.nz/chrism for details.
