Hero Holiday

Finally, they had arrived…all 107 of them. We had waited all day to get to this point, and in typical style, they were 2 hours later than we had agreed upon! But, we reasoned with ourselves, the point was that they were here now!
It was the last day of our time with them, and the day before Good Friday. Our Hero Holiday team had spent the past hour hiding 1200 Easter eggs and about 150 marshmallow candies on a one acre piece of land that we were staying on. They hid them for the kids that were coming to say good-bye to us after spending 10 amazing days together. These children had impacted our lives in such an incredible and unique way that it was very difficult for us to quantify what it meant to each of us. They had taught us so much about courage, resilience, and hope- and they had taught us that you can trust again after incredible pain and tragedy. These children and their leaders had become some of our personal heroes.

When they came running down the steps to meet us on the cleared area, we were anxious as we saw the sun quickly fading and worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to finish our plans. As they sat in front of me and the translator, they were completely unaware of what I was going to tell them. For them, it was enough to be able to see us again and be together. The thought of what I was going to get to tell them even got me excited! I began to tell them about the tradition for Canadian children about hunting for hidden Easter eggs. I explained to them that this weekend, all over the world, millions of children would be doing this, and because we loved them so much, we wanted them to have the chance to do it first.
I explained to them where to look and showed them what the candy looked like, and as we handed out the little bags to collect the candies in, some of them started to quiver with excitement and anticipation! A couple of the little girls were holding and squeezing each other’s hands as they tried to contain their excitement. We counted together out loud to three, and then I yelled “Go!”.
It was mayhem! They squealed and laughed and shouted as they jumped over bushes, rolled on the grass, and dove under plants to find the candies they had been promised were there. I actually started to cry as I thought about how beautiful it was to hear them laugh and play like this, and how privileged we were to be able to do this for them.
As I was drinking in the scene of chaos and ecstatic joy, I was brought back to a little dose of bizarre reality: one of the staff at the hotel where we were doing this with the children, in an effort to try to give us some mood music and background cheering thought he would start up the giant, rusty sound system and blare the music at the maximum volume. A nice gesture…until I realized it was the Black Eyed Peas…singing ‘My Humps’!