I've been trying to go in order somewhat. Let's face it though, I"m never going to say everything I wanted to say about the trip in this blog. I admit defeat. It's been over a year. Maybe every now and then I'll still do a post about it but it's just not going to be like I wanted it to be, like I did for South Africa. I do have this post though!
In our second location, Emily and I, got the opportunity to go to a house church. I'm writing about this now without looking at any pictures or journals so details of the night may be sparse. To get to this house church we drove over bumpy roads and if I'm not mistaken I think we drove over a dried up river or creek. Maybe I'm exaggerating that bit, but I seem to remember a wide expanse perpendicular to the road and I'm pretty sure there were puddles still in it.
The church was at someone's house. Everyone crammed inside one dimly lit room. There were no chairs; we all sat on the floor. I believe there was music. Emily and I each gave our testimonies. There was a worker there who was able to translate for us. After we gave our testimonies the preacher talked about baptism (I think, that's what came to my mind, but I really should look that one up). He had handouts for everyone. So even though Emily and I couldn't understand anything that was being spoken, and it was far too much to be translated, we were still able to follow along. The handout had the scripture references so we were still able to follow along to an extent and read the same scripture they were studying.
What amazed me was how long church lasted. Now I couldn't tell you how long it was, but there was no set time. Here, at home, church has a start time and a finish time. No, it might not be an official finish time but it always gets done about the same time. Sermons are always about the same length, prayers are relatively short.
But there, there were no constraints. People shared prayer requests, what was going on in their lives spiritually, and the prayer. I don't know how long it was, but it wasn't just a minute or two, I know that much.
I know this post is seeming rather dull and uninformative since I don't really remember much but here is the meat of it, what I took away from the experience. We, as Americans, in a country free to worship as we please, don't appreciate that freedom. We don't realize how fortunate we are. We also are in a sense over-churched. (Was that the term I used them?). We have "church" available to us 24/7 pretty much. You can turn on a tv at almost anytime and find a church service. You can turn on any radio and find a Christian music station. Go to a library or bookstore, you can find an abundance of church books. Church is so available we tend not to fully appreciate it as much as we could. But in SE Asia, that time once a week, might be all they have. They can read the Bible on their own, sure. And yes, they can pray anytime. That one time a week at house church is the only time they get to fellowship with other believers and really have their faith challenged and have an opportunity to learn more and have spiritual growth.
I don't know what else to say. This is kind of a failure of a post but I tried.
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