The Joy of Worship in Community!

Sunday, June 15, 2008 (Father's Day)
Walking along Lake Geneva to stroll among the perfectly pruned rose gardens of the Parc de laGrange. Yellows, pinks, reds, peach, and verigated roses lifted up their heads to worship the Lord this morning with their beauty, each leafy green stem lifting it high, dew poised on each petal as ifto weep with joy at the begining of a new day. Statues & fountains contribute to the serene scene. Downing a late we walked the winding cobblestone streets to Calvin Auditory to go to the Scottish Presbyterian church. This is what heaven will be like! Color. That's what struck me first. Asian, Indian, African, American, European maybe even South American peoples were all represented in the pews. A beautiful older African woman sat two pews in front of us and she had the most gorgeous ebony skin, wise eyes behind green pearlized glasses, a pink, yellow and green head scarf and matching traditional dress. She carried herself like royalty, but not arrogant or haughty, more like an assurance of her worth in the Father. Two couples were baptizing their boys and one couple the dad was from Switzerland & the mom from Sri Lanka, their son Naim; the other, dad from France & the mom from Nigeria, their son Ivon. Man, sooooooooooooo beautiful! I get teary at almost every baptism! I loved that before the baptism the pastor in his Scottish brogue talked about the children and then brought them around to the congregation so that we all could see the babies before they were baptized and the church promised to help bring them up in the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ! So great that the pastor took the time to show the importance of these children to the Church. I just got to meet, hopefully, two new members of the body of Christ. Wow! The prayer the pastor gave was for our world-wide community. For peace, for the United Nations, for diligence in each of our jobs to do the work Christ has called us to. Amazing. There was a guest speaker this morning, Rev. Dr. S. Wesley Ariarajah, who was actually the grandfather of Niam. He spoke on Matthew 9:35-10:8 about Jesus speaking to the crowd and upon seeing them he had compassion. Pastor Wesley asserted that this wasn't the first time Jesus saw this crowd but he saw them in a new light and had compassion on them. He had an 'ah-ha' moment. Not that he wasn't aware of their suffering or how they were 'like sheep without a shepherd' but it appears like this was a deep ache in Jesus' heart when he looked upon these people. Dr. Ariarajah is a professor of Theology in New Jersey and every year takes students to Southern India to orphanages and outcast communities and many of the students have never been outside the US. And the moment that they grasp that there is a lot to our world and a lot of that includeds suffering and those in desperate need they have a moment of life changing compassion. Pastor Wesley likened it to this moment Jesus had for these people, a new love of them and a newly broken heart for them. Wow! I loved worshiping in my language this morning. It gave me a new appreciation for what the reformers did for our faith. Instead of hearing mass in Latin, for the first time, Luther brought the people the Word of God in their own language! I love being able to understand and to join in worship actively! It also makes me miss church at home. Being away you can feel the distance from those you usually worship with. I never understood this so acutely. After church we went to a very French restaurant that only served 'le menu de jour' salad, bread, steak, and french fries (ironic huh). Such yummy steak! They keep bringing around more steak & fries too till your full. Ernie...this is your kinda place! We were packed in with ALL the locals, which made it much more fun, and we enjoyed the food, atmosphere & the FOOD! The French do the food well! After lunch we rolled out the door to the Museum of the Reformation...winner of the 2007 Museum of the Year for Europe. It's a tiny little thing and kind of new. They have interactive displays and videos to watch. It's more about the cultural and political ramifications of the reformation than about the theological side of the reformation itself. We attempted to find Calvin College & get Amy's picture in front of the school that was her alma mater's predecessor but when we finally found it, it was undergoing MAJOR reconstruction and you couldn't even really see around the barricade to keep people away from the construction. Amy climbed a little wall and leaned over to get a picture of the net shrouded building. We walked back through the Parc des Bastions to get to our hotel & put on the packs again (oof!) and took the tram back to the station to catch our train to Biel/Beinne then another to Basel and in Basel we caught the night train to Berlin. The train to Berlin was 15 min. late and then we sat at the platform for another 15-20 min. The Swiss may make watches but I don't think they're very good at using them, at least as far as the trains go. We found our sleeper compartment "couchette" six tiny bunks crammed into a 6.5'x6' cubicle. Fortunately we only had 2 other roommates, a couple a little younger than us from Bern. They only had tiny over night backpacks so they let us shove our HUGE packs under the beds, otherwise we would have had to shove them above the 3rd row bunks in a small luggage compartment. Our beds were too close together to sit on the bunks so it was stand in the hall (with barely enough room for a person to pass when you are pressed flat against the wall) or lie on your bunk. Amy & I didn't get dinner and bought snacks int Basel so we went to the dinning car to eat and journal. We couldn't see in the dining car because of the 'mood lighting' and there were no seats at all except this weird long bar- bar stool thing with no table. We opted not to buy overpriced sodas and sit in the bike car on the astroturf and eat. We got some weird looks from people but we were enjoying ourselves and could actually hear ourselves talk. Very nice. We decided since there was nothing else to do, change in the nasty train bathroom, brush our teeth in the non-potable water and go to sleep in our 6.5'x2' beds. I was terrified, because we were on the second level that I would fall off the bunk if the train lurched or I rolled over. It had a side rail that came up about an inch above the bed but I figured it would be more like a speed bump if I was rolling off. With the aid of my sleeping mask & Tylenol PM I slept though the night and didn't even fall off the bunk!
Monday, June 16, 2008
We woke up to the trains' PA system saying "cock-a-doodle-doo" kinda cute. And it was like college, roll out of bed and see everyone in the hall with their jammies & bed head racing to get to the 3 bathrooms on our car. We arrived in Berlin 30 min. late but our dear, sweet Kristen meet us at the tracks! It was like being a local having someone greet us!!! Coming back to John & Kristen's is like being home or at least home away from home! Kristen certainly has the gift of hospitality (and so does John). We're going to the grocery store here soon & I'll let you know more as our days in Berlin unfold! Be home in 5.5 days. Wow!