EASTER IN BEANTOWN

Willie and Grace were baffled by the mysterious happenings at their new friend Jasmine's house, but decided not to worry about it for a few days, because this was Easter week. And Beantown was having a town-wide egg hunt!

Their church, Calvary Chapel of Beantown, was sponsoring the event, which was to be held the Saturday morning before Easter. The older children were given the job of boiling and dying real eggs, as well as putting Bible verses on little slips of paper in plastic eggs. Grace and Jasmine were at Grace's kitchen table the Friday before the egg hunt, looking up good Scriptures to put in the eggs.

"All the kids of Beantown will be coming to our egg hunt, not just church kids," said Grace as she thumbed through her Bible. "We need to put easy-to-understand verses in these eggs. We need to find short verses that tell the basic truth about God."

"How about In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?" Jasmine suggested. "That's pretty basic!"

"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!" Grace sang out happily.

LATER ON THAT WEEK...

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny in Beantown, and Grace, Willie, and Jasmine's Sunday school class were out hiding the eggs for the little kids. They were hiding them all over the small town, not just on the church property.

"I hope the kids have as must fun finding the eggs as we're having hiding them," laughed Grace as she hid an orange plastic egg in a rose bush in front of Beantown's post office.

"My little sister Glennie can't wait to hunt for eggs," Willie answered as he placed a polka-dotted hard-boiled egg on a window ledge. "Man, if the kids don't find these hard-boiled eggs today, they're gonna begin to smell bad!"

"If the kids don't find them, the raccoons will," remarked Jasmine. She was placing a purple egg on the outstretched hand of the statue of Wilbur X. Bean, the founder of Beantown.

LATER ON THAT DAY...

The egg hunt was in full swing, and everyone was having a terrific time! The church's praise band was playing lively music in the town square, and the moms were serving bagels and cream cheese nearby. The dads were out roving around town making sure no little child strayed too far in search of hidden eggs.

"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!" a little girl read from the paper she found in her egg.

Suddenly, Willie's little sister Glennie ran up to him and tugged on his sleeve. "Willie! Weren't you telling Mom and Dad about a box of papers that were stolen from Jasmine's house last week? Come see what I found!