Lent in our Home

We use this table in the kitchen as our "family altar". It's here I will put reminders of what season of the Church year we are in.  

Here are some of the ways my family is observing Lent in our home this year.

I made this "prayer jar" out of an old formula container and construction paper. I cut an opening in the top for adding more prayer requests. (My kiddos think it's a biggy bank and really have a hard time not putting money in there!)

This year we decided to pray for a missionary family throughout Lent.

I chose the Eisold family who serve in Peru. Check out the LCMS website for more missionaries you can pray for.

To help me stay on task and more organized this year, I made a Lenten calendar like this one, very simple, just not very "neat" so don't look to closely!

It's not always easy to fit all the Christian practices I'd like to into a busy family schedule.

I've given myself 3 times during the day to fit in prayer, alms giving and our Jesus Tree lessons so if something doesn't get done in the morning I try after school, if not then, then hopefully after supper during our family devotion time. 

With lots of little people in my family I'm learning that I need wiggle room or wiggle time, when teaching them things. And certainly there will be days when none of our Lenten intentions, if I may use that word, get done.

Here's what we're working on through Lent. Typically the themes of Lent are Prayer, Alms Giving and Fasting. Since I'm usually pregnant during Lent and my children are still too young to really understand Fasting or Abstaining, we don't focus on those as much. Instead I try to give them something to learn. 

We'll work on 3 hymns this year and a memory verse.

On each day I wrote what we try to pray for (in addition to a prayer request from our prayer jar). 

Also for each day, there's an item around the house that we will count. The kiddos count how many...beds we have for example, receive a penny or nickle for that amount and then add it to our Giving Jar or Alms Jar. We will take our collection to church for Wednesday night Vesper services through Lent or all at once on Easter Sunday.

We'd love to hear what some of you are doing!