Christ is our unity

This last Saturday was a special one at the Christian Advent Center. It was a Russian-German Sabbath with a huge influx of local Russian Adventists coming to conduct the service. I am not sure on the details of the set up yet, but they come once a month and the whole service is conducted in Russian-German as opposed to English-German. The added complexity comes with the existence of some fellows like me who speak neither Deutsch or Russian. So at one point during Sabbath school, there was a Russian host being translated to German and English by two others. In my nineteen years of age, this has not been a regular sighting.

"If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret." (Photo by Beau Gilmore)

Having rarely experienced such a diverse setting for church, I greatly enjoyed to be part of the multicultural worship service. I also had the added privilege for this to be my first time in the back helping run the live stream, which kept my mind pretty full and focused throughout the day. However, I did not let the precious experience of being in that room pass me by. I cannot stress enough how refreshing this past Sabbath was from the many one-language services I have been to. It is nice to see brothers and sisters make efforts to worship together despite culture and/or language barriers recognizing that there is one faith we share. Moreover, we recognize this commonality supersedes the fact that we have to communicate through translators and body language and on last Sabbath, chose to worship together, eat together, fellowship together, tire out together, and close together.

Several Sabbath schools classes formed around the center.(Photo by me)

By day's end, nothing but joy remained as I broke Turkish bread, with Croatian, Russian, Ukrainian, American, German, Bulgarian, and Brazilian friends. Cultural barriers be gone, for Christ is our unity.