In Harmony!

On April 23, 2006, all baptized brothers and sisters of Palmgrove were able to take the Lord’s Supper in peace, with reverence and joy. The days leading up to it were a learning experience for me. I was able to see how people can once again amend their ways and strive to live together in unity and harmony. It was a very lovely picture! We had a good three hour service, then towards the end all the baptized members were called to sit in front of the church. Paul Vetter held the service; I have included an audio clip of the ceremony. You’ve heard our Lord’s Supper sermon in German and some of you have heard it in English, now you also get a chance to hear it in Effec. In the clip you will hear Paul Vetter, then the translator. Ita is our translator, he must have had some good practice already, because at times he has to translate a few paragraphs at a time, all from memory. I don’t know how he does it! The choir sang while we were taking the bread and then the wine. It was special! The audio clip is poor quality, because I don’t have a very good recorder, also I have to really compress it in order to send it, otherwise the server times out when I try to send a file that’s even remotely close to 1 MB. The clip is also shortened and edited to get it smaller. After the service, quite a few of the young people told us how they long to be part of the next Lord’s supper. The sermon and the ceremony must have touched a lot of people. There are also quite a few outsiders attending the church services every Sunday, so maybe with that we can also light a small spark. Click here for clip (922KB, 3:56, Mpg) The singing is a treat, they have practice quite a few times a week, with the Children’s Choir and also with the Young People’s Choir. Every Sunday, at church, the choir sit together at the front of the church in full choir uniform, that is pretty classy. First, the Children’s Choir sing two songs, then the Young People’s Choir also sing two songs. Here I have a short clip of one of the songs that I recorded when they were practicing, this is the older children’s choir. The file got too big for me to upload, so I took still pictures of the choir singing and inserted music over it. I hope the final result comes through ok, you’ll have to give me feedback on it. Click here for clip (1.26 MB, 1:48, WMV) One interesting thing that the children do at church, when it gets too long, is go to sleep. Not very unusual really, but the way that they do it is. They crawl underneath the benches, stretch out on the hard tile floor and seem to sleep very well. Actually, sleeping on the floor is a good idea in general, everybody seems to do it around here. The reason is that the floor is the coolest place to be. Believe me, I’ve tried it myself, not in church of course, but at home, when the nights just don’t cool off. Unfortunately, I’m too used to a soft bed to really get used to it, but it is nice and cool.

#Easter