There will be no candy until everyone is saved.
Napili, Maui
March 21, 2008
The flier promised an egghunt for kids, and that seemed like a great way to spend Friday night (especially since our kids would spend Easter in airports and on planes). It even mentioned something about a "secular egghunt" -- which in hindsight should have been a red flag.
Many thanks to the church youth group that organized the event, and when they passed the bucket around I gratefully opened up my wallet and dumped in some money to show my appreciation. Turned out, they wanted something a bit more precious from me.
Our kids were good sports, sitting patiently through some Christian hip hop ("Hey, those kids really get it!") and a Three Little Pigs morality play. That was my first hint of trouble: I could understand them dissing the first pig, who foolishly built his house on a foundation of video games, but to condemn a second pig for being enthusiastic about sports, in this age of childhood obesity, seemed a little out of synch.
Steve was way ahead of me. "How come there are no eggs out in the field? Mark my words: this egghunt will end in a church."
But there was no need to bring the crowd to the church, when they could bring the church to the crowd. Things seemed to cross a line when the youth pastor kept promising to get to the egghunt "real soon" -- "But first, I want to ask everyone to come up here and accept the gift of everlasting life." Jen and I merely glanced at our watches and wondered when the hunt would begin, but for our compadres who are not as weathered as we in suffering subtle threats of damnation, it was a bit too much. We gathered up our kids and headed off.
Soon after we returned, the Easter Bunny seemed to find us anyway, and our own hunt with eggs and candy materialized on the lanai and grass in front of our condo.
