Church

The thermometer soared up into the balmy 20’s today, so the whole family grasped the opportunity to visit the Russian-speaking church that Pete and Strider attended a few weeks ago.  We all found it to be a very welcoming, happy place!  We clearly stuck out as visitors in this congregation of about 70 people, and people were eager to greet us – and give the kids pieces of candy.  (I think we’ll have no arguments from the kids about going back there!)

 A 17-year old girl I had been introduced to this past week, Irina, offered to sit next to me and help explain the main points of the service. Then during the sermon, the associate pastor, Val (whom Pete met last week) sat with us and translated some of it as well.   As we listened to the pastor, choir, speakers and prayers in Russian, we could only pick out a few key words:  Eesus Khrestos, (Jesus Christ) and Спасибо ("spa-see-ba"), which means “Thank you.” From the great number of times we heard these words, we can only conclude that this is a people very thankful and very centered on Jesus!

 We didn’t know most of the songs – they were all melodies in minor keys – except “There is Power in the Blood.”  Since it, too, was sung in Russian, we just quietly sang the English words under our breath and bopped our heads happily.  I hope Pete’s bass-line interjections of “in the blood” during the chorus wasn’t too disruptive.  :)

The service was a bit longer than we are used to, with several special musical performances, and three different prayers throughout the service during which many congregation members prayed out loud.  The sermon was towards the end, and after he had been preaching for a while, a group of young children and one adult spontaneously walked toward the back of the room.  I asked Irina what they were doing, assuming this was signaling the near-end of the service.  She responded that they were going to Sunday School.  In other words, the service was not going to be over for a while longer!  Hmmm.  By this point our kids had already, collectively, been taken out to the bathroom 5 times…. So we were getting ready for it to be over!

At the end, we all participated in communion.  That was pretty cool – joining with “family” at the Lord’s Table, getting a small glimpse of how Heaven will be – transcending individual languages.  And it included real wine and the most delicious bread ever!  (Strider says drinking wine make his heart get warm - literally.)

We are thankful for such a welcoming  place where we could worship a very big God who is close to His people everywhere.