Church

Today was the first time that I have been able to go to church since I've been here. There is an American family that lives in Marburg that I was put in contact with through some missionaries (who I happened to run into downtown one day). Their names are the Rytings, they're from Kansas, and they have 3 young girls. They couldn't give me a ride this week, but a 27 year old girl named Bianka, who is studying literature at the local university, gave me and another girl Lena a ride to church. Our church is about 30 minutes away and starts at 9:30… its in a town called Wetzlar. Bianka is very good at speaking English and traslated for me a bit today. Once a year, the little kids in the church do a presentation and it happened to be today... it was very cute. A missionary translated for those who speak English and I wore some headphones during the speaking parts… It was fun being able to recognize the songs that they sang in German, from singing them when I was little.

For Sunday school, I attended an English New Testament class that is taught by an older missionary couple. There were only a few people in the class… I guess the local military base in Geisen is being shut down and some of the American soldiers and families that came to church here have been leaving the area gradually. There was a guy who is part of the U.S. army from Indiana in the class who was visiting his girlfriend. He was recently released to go home for now, from Iraq…. I'm still not really sure how they know each other, but it was cool having someone from a framiliar place in the class.

About 45 minutes after church there was a baptism of a girl named Jenny. I think she's 19 or 20. She has been attending church here for 7 years now, but has not been able to be baptised until now, for some reason which I'm not sure. I don't think that her family agrees with her choice, but she has a lot of support from the people here… Almost the entire congragation was at her baptism. It was great to see her joy and realize her spiritual strength…It was a very nice service.

Anyway, overall I had a very long, but very good first experience at church here. It was a bit frustrating at times not being able to understand some things in German, but it was fun to talk to a few American missionaries and hear about their experiences and where they're from. I am looking forward to getting to know people better, and hope to be able to communicate better with them eventually.