Sunday

 Today is my third Sunday in Hungary. This week, I went to the other Baptist church. Both churches are less than 1/2 a mile from my apartment. This time, I was not so early. I debated between going back to the church I attended last week and the other church that I had found online. The door was open to the church that I found online and I could hear the worship team warming up, so I went in.

This week, the usher greeted me in Hungarian. I'm ashamed to say I still don't know the greetings in Hungarian. I think I will put it on the top of my list of things to learn with the tutor this week. I'll meet her tomorrow. She'll help me get my ATM card at the bank before we take a field trip to the botanical gardens. When the usher realized my Hungarian was worse than his English, he took me to a lady who could speak English.  We got acquainted, then she introduced me to a university student who "spoke perfect English."  I later learned that the student she introduced me to had been born in Maryland but returned to Hungary when she was 2.  Her translation skills were not as fluent as the special education teacher's translation last week, but she translated the main points. The pastor is very animated and engaging even though I would not have understood a word he said without the translation.

I recognized several of the songs that we sang in the worship service, but did not have the words memorized in English. For one of the songs, I could remember snatches of the lyrics, but not enough to put anything together until we ran through the chorus a fifth time. (We sang the song both before and after the sermon.) By the time I had the lyrics on my phone, we were on a different song. I took a picture of the lyrics. The Google translation is "My heart is calm." When I was watching the webcast of First Baptist Arlington this afternoon, they opened with the song, "Through it all, my eyes are on you...It is well with my soul." 

After the service, the pastor talked with me for a little while. He told me of a bilingual service at Golgotha (Calvary Chapel), which is about 2 miles away. He also told me about the membership of his church. He told me that of the 25 members, only three, including his wife, were believers before they started coming to the church. There were about 30 adults and 12 children in the service this morning. The children were all under the age of seven. The pastor invited me to join the agape fellowship after church, which I did. Four different people (other than the pastor and student who had translated for me) engaged me in English conversation. Two are biology professors, one business man, and the pastor's wife.  Before I left, I promised the translator that I would see her next week. It will be a special baptismal service. 





Comments

  1. MissLAugust 22, 2021 at 7:03 PM

    Hey Ms.Jonnie 🙌 you are still going abroad.. i thought you were in your hometown..

    ReplyDelete

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