#11-3: Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter!)

#1 · March 13, 2008, 7:50 am

Quote from Forum Archives on March 13, 2008, 7:50 am
Posted by: hopechestnews <hopechestnews@...>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles
#11- 3:  Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter!)

March 13, 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hope Chest is a free e-mail magazine sent to about 1200 families around the world. The publisher is Virginia Knowles, wife to Thad and mother of 10 children. Check out Virginia's web site at www.VirginiaKnowles.com or e-mail [email protected].

Dear Hope Chest friends,

This will be a slightly unusual (and short) edition of the Hope Chest that I hadn't originally intended to do.  I recently discovered, quite by coincidence (the divine kind), that our longtime friend Lee Walti had a key role in developing the Resurrection Eggs sets that are produced by Family Life Today.   Lee and his wife Jeannette go to our church, and Jeannette is my son's geography teacher in our home school co-op. (She is also a very close personal friend of mine!) Their five children, ages four to 17, are friends with my kids, too. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I happened to be doing a web search  on "Lee Walti" for an article I knew he had written about stillbirth and I kept coming up with references to the Resurrection Eggs.   I didn't take long to put two and two together since I knew Lee had worked at FamilyLife for many years before they transferred to Orlando to work in another division at Campus Crusade headquarters. So anyway, yesterday I asked Lee to write an account of the development of the Resurrection Eggs -- and to share a little bit about their adventure into the unknown future of their ministry as a family. I forgot to ask him about his role in the Adorenaments Christmas set, but he's listed as the author for the accompanying materials for them as well.

As a side note, I have also put last month's issue, With Beauty and Justice for All, on my web site and even added pictures to it. You can find it at www.VirginiaKnowles.com/WithBeautyandJusticeForAll.  I also have mined my archives for previous Easter stuff, and you can find the results at www.VirginiaKnowles.com/CelebrateTheResurrection.

Blessings,

Virginia

~~~

Here's the story from Lee:

In the early 80's, many homeschool families, Christian teachers and others were talking about an exciting new way to share the resurrection story of Easter. Using a dozen plastic eggs, the children would open an egg, one at a time, and find different items in each egg that tell the story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Yet, parents and teachers often were confused about exactly how to tell the story or what items to include in the eggs. It was about this time that FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ focused on helping families, began discussing the possibility of helping families and interested teachers by bringing all the elements of this family fun idea together. This was the beginning of Resurrection Eggs™. Part of the challenge was developing a booklet that would help tell the story in a way that was biblical but that children could still understand.   As the author,  I found it to be a great challenge to write the Resurrection Eggs booklet. I had never tried to write about profound biblical concepts in a way that children could understand. It was humbling, but it was one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever worked on.

Apparently it was one of the most successful projects as well. Literally, hundreds of millions of sets of Resurrection Eggs have now been purchased and families can even buy a set at your local Wal-Mart store. One of the more exciting ways the eggs have been used has been in partnership with Here's Life: Inner City, bringing tens of thousands of Resurrection Eggs to underprivileged families, seeing both children and parents receive the Lord. Many children became so disappointed at the last egg which is empty until they find out that it represents the empty tomb and Jesus' resurrection! Then the responses include everything from joy and excitement to tears and sadness. When a child realizes that Jesus really died for him and for his sins, the Spirit will often work in the child's heart, motivating him to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior for the very first time.

We've been on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ for 16 years, but we are now considering a new ministry opportunity ― the possibility of going to help people over in Europe learn about the real Jesus with a ministry called

Saints Equipped to Evangelize. Many missionary organizations are now adding countries in Europe to their "unreached countries" list. Statistics show that less than ½ of 1% of people in Europe are evangelical Christians. In Italy, where we are considering going to help reach the lost, there are over 32,000 towns and villages with no evangelical witness. There are only 34,000 towns and villages, so that means over 94% have no evangelical witness. We would ask you to pray with us that God would give us wisdom, financial help and clarity on His call on our lives. To learn more about us, just go to the Walti's blog. Until we make a transition to our new ministry, you can actually still give to our family if you feel led and we will still receive it. Just go to Walti's account at Campus Crusade .

Thank you for supporting us! God bless you!

Coram Deo (Before the Face of God),

Lee

~~~

Now, what is really cool about the possibility of the Walti family going to Italy is that the folks they would be working with are dear friends of my family, Ken and Ruthann Wells. We have known the Wells family for over 10 years, even before Ken became the pastor of Orlando Grace Church, the Reformed Baptist congregation where our family fellowshipped from 1998 until 2002. I fondly recall Ken using the Resurrection Eggs set many years ago to explain the resurrection story to all of the children at the church's annual egg hunt in the park. At any rate, I know that Jeannette just shipped two sets of them to Ruthann, and I know that one of the other missionaries is planning to use them in her English classes for kids. What a good idea!   As a little trivia on the Wells family, Ken didn't become a pastor until he was about 40 years old, with six home schooled kids. Prior to that he was a Navy SEAL and a plumber. (He rescued our toilets and sinks many times over the years!) He can also tie the stem of a cherry into a knot -- with his tongue! Ruthann, who had been a nurse, used to take all of the middle school girls from Orlando Grace Church to the nursing home once a month to do nails and hair styles for the ladies there.

The Walti family first met the Wells family several years ago in another state, but renewed contact after Jeannette saw me mention them in an e-mail I sent out to friends and family after Ruthann had visited us last August. So this whole process has been really fun for me to watch.  (We even got to "kidnap" their little daughter Abby for a few days while Lee and Jeannette were in Italy! She's a fun kid!) Please do visit their blog!

And now, for some more related (and hopefully helpful) web links!

Are you interested in reading that article on stillbirth that I was searching for?:

"Losing a Child at 35 Weeks in the Womb" by Lee Walti.

Do you want to know more about Saints Equipped to Evangelize? They have summer mission teams, as well as a study abroad program for English speaking college students (and high school seniors, I think) at Saints Bible Institute.

Do you want to know how Italians celebrate Easter?  Click here! Easter in Italy

FamilyLife has a special offer for the month of March. When you make any on-line donation to the ministry, you can get a free set of Resurrection Eggs. Just click here Resurrection Eggs offer from FamilyLife and enter the key code EGGS when you make your donation.

You can also order them from Christian Book Distributors by clicking here: Resurrection Eggs at ChristianBook.com.

You've heard me mention Gary Thomas's excellent book The Beautiful Fight many times. Lee Walti says it's his favorite book, and it's the one title that Ruthann asked me to send over to her with Jeannette. You can order it at The Beautiful Fight by Gary Thomas, read my review , and see my poem Corpus Christi which is based on it.  You can also pray for Gary as he writes a new book on enjoying God. Find out more about his ministry at www.GaryThomas.com.

That's all for now!

Buona Pasqua!  (Happy Easter!)

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles

www.VirginiaKnowles.com
-- To subscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected] To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected] Visit my web site at www.VirginiaKnowles.com  

Posted by: hopechestnews <hopechestnews@...>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles
#11- 3: Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter!)

March 13, 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hope Chest is a free e-mail magazine sent to about 1200 families around the world. The publisher is Virginia Knowles, wife to Thad and mother of 10 children. Check out Virginia's web site at http://www.VirginiaKnowles.com or e-mail [email protected].

Dear Hope Chest friends,

This will be a slightly unusual (and short) edition of the Hope Chest that I hadn't originally intended to do. I recently discovered, quite by coincidence (the divine kind), that our longtime friend Lee Walti had a key role in developing the Resurrection Eggs sets that are produced by Family Life Today. Lee and his wife Jeannette go to our church, and Jeannette is my son's geography teacher in our home school co-op. (She is also a very close personal friend of mine!) Their five children, ages four to 17, are friends with my kids, too. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I happened to be doing a web search on "Lee Walti" for an article I knew he had written about stillbirth and I kept coming up with references to the Resurrection Eggs. I didn't take long to put two and two together since I knew Lee had worked at FamilyLife for many years before they transferred to Orlando to work in another division at Campus Crusade headquarters. So anyway, yesterday I asked Lee to write an account of the development of the Resurrection Eggs -- and to share a little bit about their adventure into the unknown future of their ministry as a family. I forgot to ask him about his role in the Adorenaments Christmas set, but he's listed as the author for the accompanying materials for them as well.

As a side note, I have also put last month's issue, With Beauty and Justice for All, on my web site and even added pictures to it. You can find it at http://www.VirginiaKnowles.com/WithBeautyandJusticeForAll. I also have mined my archives for previous Easter stuff, and you can find the results at http://www.VirginiaKnowles.com/CelebrateTheResurrection.

Blessings,

Virginia

~~~

Here's the story from Lee:

In the early 80's, many homeschool families, Christian teachers and others were talking about an exciting new way to share the resurrection story of Easter. Using a dozen plastic eggs, the children would open an egg, one at a time, and find different items in each egg that tell the story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Yet, parents and teachers often were confused about exactly how to tell the story or what items to include in the eggs. It was about this time that FamilyLife, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ focused on helping families, began discussing the possibility of helping families and interested teachers by bringing all the elements of this family fun idea together. This was the beginning of Resurrection Eggs™. Part of the challenge was developing a booklet that would help tell the story in a way that was biblical but that children could still understand. As the author, I found it to be a great challenge to write the Resurrection Eggs booklet. I had never tried to write about profound biblical concepts in a way that children could understand. It was humbling, but it was one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever worked on.

Apparently it was one of the most successful projects as well. Literally, hundreds of millions of sets of Resurrection Eggs have now been purchased and families can even buy a set at your local Wal-Mart store. One of the more exciting ways the eggs have been used has been in partnership with Here's Life: Inner City, bringing tens of thousands of Resurrection Eggs to underprivileged families, seeing both children and parents receive the Lord. Many children became so disappointed at the last egg which is empty until they find out that it represents the empty tomb and Jesus' resurrection! Then the responses include everything from joy and excitement to tears and sadness. When a child realizes that Jesus really died for him and for his sins, the Spirit will often work in the child's heart, motivating him to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior for the very first time.

We've been on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ for 16 years, but we are now considering a new ministry opportunity ― the possibility of going to help people over in Europe learn about the real Jesus with a ministry called

Saints Equipped to Evangelize. Many missionary organizations are now adding countries in Europe to their "unreached countries" list. Statistics show that less than ½ of 1% of people in Europe are evangelical Christians. In Italy, where we are considering going to help reach the lost, there are over 32,000 towns and villages with no evangelical witness. There are only 34,000 towns and villages, so that means over 94% have no evangelical witness. We would ask you to pray with us that God would give us wisdom, financial help and clarity on His call on our lives. To learn more about us, just go to the Walti's blog. Until we make a transition to our new ministry, you can actually still give to our family if you feel led and we will still receive it. Just go to Walti's account at Campus Crusade .

Thank you for supporting us! God bless you!

Coram Deo (Before the Face of God),

Lee

~~~

Now, what is really cool about the possibility of the Walti family going to Italy is that the folks they would be working with are dear friends of my family, Ken and Ruthann Wells. We have known the Wells family for over 10 years, even before Ken became the pastor of Orlando Grace Church, the Reformed Baptist congregation where our family fellowshipped from 1998 until 2002. I fondly recall Ken using the Resurrection Eggs set many years ago to explain the resurrection story to all of the children at the church's annual egg hunt in the park. At any rate, I know that Jeannette just shipped two sets of them to Ruthann, and I know that one of the other missionaries is planning to use them in her English classes for kids. What a good idea! As a little trivia on the Wells family, Ken didn't become a pastor until he was about 40 years old, with six home schooled kids. Prior to that he was a Navy SEAL and a plumber. (He rescued our toilets and sinks many times over the years!) He can also tie the stem of a cherry into a knot -- with his tongue! Ruthann, who had been a nurse, used to take all of the middle school girls from Orlando Grace Church to the nursing home once a month to do nails and hair styles for the ladies there.

The Walti family first met the Wells family several years ago in another state, but renewed contact after Jeannette saw me mention them in an e-mail I sent out to friends and family after Ruthann had visited us last August. So this whole process has been really fun for me to watch. (We even got to "kidnap" their little daughter Abby for a few days while Lee and Jeannette were in Italy! She's a fun kid!) Please do visit their blog!

And now, for some more related (and hopefully helpful) web links!

Are you interested in reading that article on stillbirth that I was searching for?:

"Losing a Child at 35 Weeks in the Womb" by Lee Walti.

Do you want to know more about Saints Equipped to Evangelize? They have summer mission teams, as well as a study abroad program for English speaking college students (and high school seniors, I think) at Saints Bible Institute.

Do you want to know how Italians celebrate Easter? Click here! Easter in Italy

FamilyLife has a special offer for the month of March. When you make any on-line donation to the ministry, you can get a free set of Resurrection Eggs. Just click here Resurrection Eggs offer from FamilyLife and enter the key code EGGS when you make your donation.

You can also order them from Christian Book Distributors by clicking here: Resurrection Eggs at ChristianBook.com.

You've heard me mention Gary Thomas's excellent book The Beautiful Fight many times. Lee Walti says it's his favorite book, and it's the one title that Ruthann asked me to send over to her with Jeannette. You can order it at The Beautiful Fight by Gary Thomas, read my review , and see my poem Corpus Christi which is based on it. You can also pray for Gary as he writes a new book on enjoying God. Find out more about his ministry at http://www.GaryThomas.com.

That's all for now!

Buona Pasqua! (Happy Easter!)

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles

http://www.VirginiaKnowles.com

-- To subscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected] To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected] Visit my web site at www.VirginiaKnowles.com