First Sunday

I feel like I can start every post the first week with "First (insert name of day)," but I am more creative than that most of the time, but Sunday is a very special day and my first Sunday here couldn't have been better.

We started out the day with breakfast with the family at 9:30am. We had croissants with cheese/jelly/ham/etc and tea. We then finished getting ready for church and at 10:30 I had coffee with my parents as I uploaded my first batch of pictures to Facebook (check those out!). Wait, breakfast at 9:30 and coffee at 10:30? Did you skip church,  Jennifer? Nope! Church is at 11am for my family for the first 2 months. Evidently the congregation is about 1400 and so they split into 2 groups that are assigned a service at either 9am or 11am and then again at 4:30pm or 7pm. So at 10:40, we walked to church with our parents. Church is something I was a bit nervous about. I obviously don't speak or read Dutch. While I knew I had an English Bible, that doesn't really help much when it comes to the sermon, prayers, etc. However, one of the other host dad's that also attends our church took the liberty to translate the entire sermon into English beforehand. So on the left side, we had the Dutch and on the right, the English translation. It was hard to follow word for word, but at least it was better than just sitting there trying to look like we had a clue as to what the pastor's intonation was telling us in a language we can only understand a few phrases and words in.

Not only were we able to somewhat participate in the sermon, but we were also able to partake in the Lord's Supper. The way they do it is quite differently than what I am used to. The entire congregation gets up, one row at a time, and there are 4 elders: two holding bread, two holding wine, and then forms 2 lines, and each person takes a piece of the bread and eats it as they walk to the elder holding the wine. Then, each person takes a sip of the wine from the same cup, hands the cup back to the elder, and then returns to their seat. Meanwhile, the congregation that is seated sings hymns (obviously in touch, so we couldn't really participate). Regardless of the difference in style, it was a blessing to take communion with their congregation and be welcomed so kindly by our host family's church family.

After church we walked back home and were joined by Lauren and her host parents for coffee and lunch-- soup and brotjes (spelling?). At first, it seemed like filling so much time with conversation would be difficult, but we actually had a great time of fellowship with them. We looked through our family's photo albums of their 6 week vacation to the states to visit their various host daughters they've had thus far, got to know Lauren's parents a bit, and spent a lot of time telling stories and laughing. I love to talk and definitely did my fair share, but it's also great to just sit and listen to our hosts tell us their stories, customs, and such.

After lunch, Larae and I napped and then biked to Lauren's to join her and her parents for dinner. We had chicken, fruit salad, pears, and french fries. For dessert, we had a vanilla ice cream cake that was topped with chocolate and whipped cream. After clearing the table, we had coffee and stroep waffles and watched a movie on their 3D TV. Around 9pm, Larae and I biked back home and skyped with our families.

"We need worship for our spirit, fellowship for our soul and committed subservience for our body." --Larry Norman

All in all it was a great first Sunday and I look forward to more.