So I’ve had a few new and unique worship-going experiences lately that I’d like to tell you about! (*Random sidenote: This picture is from a few weeks ago, when fellow volunteer and friend Kristen came to visit. This is me and Hybe! Don't we look cute together? Hehe.)
It has been amazing to be part of a church community again for the past four months, but in the past month or so I admit I have been especially frustrated. I love being in worship services, and I really enjoy singing the hymns, following along in the Spevnik (like our Lutheran Book of Worship), but the language barrier has been a roadblock lately. My Slovak understanding and speaking ability are coming along, slowly but surely, although I still don’t understand enough of the language to really get anything out of the sermons, Bible studies, hymns and songs, youth group discussions, etc. My frustration sort of goes in waves, like for a few weeks I will be content and just attempt to understand what I can with a good attitude, and then other weeks I get so frustrated and stop listening and trying to understand all together, assuming I won’t get much out of it. I hit a peak of frustration during the Easter season. As wonderful as it was, I felt especially irritated that I could understand almost nothing from the 5 services I attended during the week. A friend of mine told me, after one of the services, “Oh, Pastor did such an amazing job today! The sermon was so wonderful, I almost cried, and I really wish you could’ve understood it.” Very frustrating. For this special time of year, I really wished I could’ve understood more, but I just need to have more and more patience for dealing with the reality of my situation.
After the Easter season, I was quite excited to meet up with my fellow friends and volunteers in Secovce. We stayed together with Mary for the weekend, caught up, and had a great time! One of the highlights for me was going to church…an ENGLISH service in the city of Kosice! Yay! Although we got a bit lost trying to find the nursery school (where the small service was held), we eventually made it, and it was great! It was smaller and informal (so small that the Pastor actually took time out during the beginning of the service to call us and make sure we could find the building), and great! We saw the good ole’ green LBW’s again (who knew this could be so wonderful?!) and we were given…..BULLETINS! Wow, this was quite exciting too. Bulletins do not exist in Slovak church services, so this was a nice piece of home, and we appreciated being able to actually follow the service. There were about 15 of us present, and after the service we met for fellowship time, met each other and ate great cakes and other desserts. I think I forgot how much I enjoy meeting new people, when you can understand them and there’s no language barrier to deal with! Almost everyone there was volunteering through ELCA programs (not necessarily Young Adults, but just the teaching program for all ages as well). I had the chance to meet many cool people, volunteers of all ages, and I even met a few from the Midwest (including a woman who graduated from the University of Wisconsin too! From Steven's Point. Small world.)
This past weekend I had another opportunity to attend a service in English, and it was so great! I met up with my friend Zuzka at a church in Bratislava, and while the service was in Slovak, there was an English option available to me. In a small window booth in the corner, a man sat and translated the entire service into English, live! It was very impressive, because the ideas in the sermon were quite difficult to translate, especially on the spot. So me and maybe 10 others wore a headset to tune into the radio station he broadcasted from, so we could listen and understand along with everyone else. This service was more of a contemporary one, which is a change I was welcome to and excited about! The pastor used a projector to project self-illustrated sketches onto the wall that coincided with his sermon, and they were quite good! It was very interesting, and the Pastor put out many good questions and ideas, in regards to Heaven and eternity, and what that means for us, here and now on Earth. The youth choir (ages 9 to 18) sang 3 separate times, one song in English, one in Czech, and one in an African dialect. Very cool! It was a really different atmosphere, and a unique experience, I think. I also had the opportunity to meet some great people here too, among them were Zuzka’s friend Ellen (who she worked with in Canada for a year, as an au pair), her husband, and their two children, Hanka and Filip.
I’m thankful to have had these really great opportunities, along with the Hybe church experiences that I love! It was a breath of fresh air to be able to attend English services, and to have new adventures. :-)
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