I know I haven't been on for a while but I have been super busy with classes and exploring more of Bratislava. For the last few days our group, or at least a part of it, go out and shop or go out to dinner. Each time we have gone out since the first few days has been without a Slovak student or adult. Fortunately, each excursion has been very successful.
A quick side not about the food here: It is Amazing!!! For breakfast we either have cold cuts or cheese and bread, lunch is the biggest meal here so we have a bowl of soup, meat and rice or potatoes (if there are not potatoes on the plate they are in the soup), and dinner is on us so it is usually a sandwich or bread and cheese. The various meals we have had for lunch, and dinner when it was being provided, have been as follows: pork and potatoes with bean soup, chicken and potatoes with sour potato soup, spaghetti with ketchup and cheese, pork with mushroom sauce potatoes and sour mushroom soup, steamed dough with plum jam filling and coco powder on top, and spicy chicken and pork with veggies and rice and garlic soup.
On Sunday, we went to an International Lutheran Church and listened to the service and were greeted by fellow Americans and others who speak English and are living in the area. The Church where the service was being held was beautiful and the service was very pleasant. However, it felt like it was lacking something in the way the congregation echoed the priest. I asked Richard, one of the Slovak students who went with us if this service was like the one we would be attending on Wednesday at the seminary (theology school). He replied that this service was nice but it was different. When I asked how he said I would see on Wednesday.
I now understand what he meant by the services being different. Today at the Lutheran service in the seminary, I was totally amazed and left breathless at the beauty of the service. The area it is held in is very modernized and is like a very small auditorium (150 seats approx.) and at first I wasn't as impressed as I had been at the international church mostly due to the arcitechture. However, once the service began and the congregation began to sing back to the novice pastor, who was, surprisingly yet not, Richard. (Richard is one of the students who welcomed us the second night we were here) I was held in awe of the obvious devotion of the congregation. The whole service was in Slovak but that didn't matter, the feelings that poured out of the people and the presiding priest were enough to be moved. I have never felt a unity as strong as strong as the unity of that congregation. I am at a lost of words and expressions to describe the service. In summary, it felt whole, right, and true.
I wonder if I will ever experience something as beautiful as that outside of Slovakia.
A quick side not about the food here: It is Amazing!!! For breakfast we either have cold cuts or cheese and bread, lunch is the biggest meal here so we have a bowl of soup, meat and rice or potatoes (if there are not potatoes on the plate they are in the soup), and dinner is on us so it is usually a sandwich or bread and cheese. The various meals we have had for lunch, and dinner when it was being provided, have been as follows: pork and potatoes with bean soup, chicken and potatoes with sour potato soup, spaghetti with ketchup and cheese, pork with mushroom sauce potatoes and sour mushroom soup, steamed dough with plum jam filling and coco powder on top, and spicy chicken and pork with veggies and rice and garlic soup.
On Sunday, we went to an International Lutheran Church and listened to the service and were greeted by fellow Americans and others who speak English and are living in the area. The Church where the service was being held was beautiful and the service was very pleasant. However, it felt like it was lacking something in the way the congregation echoed the priest. I asked Richard, one of the Slovak students who went with us if this service was like the one we would be attending on Wednesday at the seminary (theology school). He replied that this service was nice but it was different. When I asked how he said I would see on Wednesday.
I now understand what he meant by the services being different. Today at the Lutheran service in the seminary, I was totally amazed and left breathless at the beauty of the service. The area it is held in is very modernized and is like a very small auditorium (150 seats approx.) and at first I wasn't as impressed as I had been at the international church mostly due to the arcitechture. However, once the service began and the congregation began to sing back to the novice pastor, who was, surprisingly yet not, Richard. (Richard is one of the students who welcomed us the second night we were here) I was held in awe of the obvious devotion of the congregation. The whole service was in Slovak but that didn't matter, the feelings that poured out of the people and the presiding priest were enough to be moved. I have never felt a unity as strong as strong as the unity of that congregation. I am at a lost of words and expressions to describe the service. In summary, it felt whole, right, and true.
I wonder if I will ever experience something as beautiful as that outside of Slovakia.
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