Hey there again!

Don’t worry, this is not the last time you hear from me. I still have some stuff to do the next week, for example getting home. But I guess that you’re here to read about the last week, so here you go!

Sunday started, as usual, with a service. This time we switched the roles with pastor. I did the liturgy, he did the sermon. After the second service we had a lunch with pastor’s family and Terry (the audio guy from the church), then we went to a coffee shop and a tea shop.

On Monday we had a youth group meeting, this one was pretty unusual. We invited the whole church to come (not only the young people) and I did a coffee cupping. We got eight different samples, seven of them were good ones and the last one was Maxwell House, just so that people can compare fresh roasted, fresh ground coffee with a below-average, stale, ancient stuff. The favorites were Ethiopian and Kenyan, just as I guessed.

On Tuesday we spent most of the day setting up the sound system for tomorrow’s art event, then I did the evening service, because pastor had an emergency. I wasn’t prepared much, but with God’s help I managed even the sermon. Fortunately, it was the Catechism, more precisely the third article of the Apostle’s Creed. Bruce had a birthday on Thursday, so after the church we had a cake and people congratulated him.

Wednesday was more of a day off, so Bruce and Beth took me to meet their friends who have a winery and a wine and beer making supply store. They recommended me to visit two local churches (Roman Catholic ones) with beautiful murals, so the next day we went to see them. We visited St. Anthony’s chapel, but unfortunately St. Nicholas church wasn’t open. Then I had a meeting with pastor and Cory about tomorrow’s event, I was assigned to do a background for each artist, which will be projected on a screen. Since Bruce had a birthday, I got to meet his brother, who stopped by on a way home from the retired military reunion.

On Friday we went downtown (or as they say here, daahntaahn) with Bruce and Beth to see an art gallery. Some of the paintings were nice, I really liked a few of them, but some were awful. I don’t mean to insult anyone, I enjoy even abstract art, but if something looks like my five year old brother could do it better, it’s not an art. Fortunately, there were only three such paintings out of, perhaps, thirty. Then we had a lunch and went shopping, after that we went to have a dinner with their friends.

Today we went to see the St. Nicholas church. They have a pretty extraordinary murals in there. Since a part of them was painted during the WWII, there’s for example a fresco of Jesus on a cross with a Nazi soldier piercing his side with a bayonet instead of a Roman soldier with a spear. After a lunch and we accidentaly stumbled by a car show with a lot of beautiful historic pieces. On the way back we stopped at the Hartwood Acres Park, unfortunately they didn’t give tours of the historic mansion today, but it was impressive even from the outside. Then, when we got back, I finally did the presentation for tomorrow’s event and sent it to the pastor. Hopefully he’ll like it!

So that was my almost last week, or the last full week here. Just a few days left. Still, there’s a lot of stuff to do during those days! Have a nice, blessed week, see you later!