Church and a Crash!

It is Sunday night here, so we thought it would be appropriate to send out a little blog about church. The picture shows us in front of the church we go to in the mornings. The church is called "Vozrozhdyeniye" which means "Rebirth". We continue to pray for the church here to live up to that name. That there would continually be new life in the church. This is the most established of the churches here in Ulan-Ude and is a place where we feel like we are able to learn about the culture, particularly about the church sub-culture, here in Ulan-Ude. We also attend a small church in the evenings that is just over a year old and is meeting in a home. The second church is less traditional, but still is fully connected to the "Rebirth" church. Here are a few interesting things that exist in the church here that you don't normally see in churches in the states. Some of these are less strict in the newer church, and some of them we aren't quite sure what we think about yet.

-There are usually 2-3 sermons by different members of the church.

-People buy and bring their own hymn books.

-The service is usually 2 hours or more.

-The bathroom is an outhouse (but it does have wallpaper).

-The heat comes from a wood stove that doesn't get stoked until just before the service.( it's freezing cold!)

-There is always a time in the service where people stand up and share which churches or family members who aren't there say "hello".

-Communion is taken from a communal cup that's passed around

-There's a lot of poetry

-Old ladies love to kiss Jami

After church today, we took a marshrutka home, as usual. A marshrutka is van that travels along a bus route. (Keep your eyes peeled for a future blog about the joys and perils of marshrutka riding!) Anyways, we were riding along happily, and then the marshrutka stopped to let a person off... and BAM! A car slammed into the back of us! Leif was in the far back seat with another adult and a small child. We weren't really sure what to do, so we waited. A minute later, our driver asked us all to get off and he returned our money to us. There was a huge section of the back of the van that was smashed in. Thankfully, we're safe. God is taking good care of us! We feel a little sore afterwards, but we're not sure if it's real or if we're just making it up in our heads.

We're surprised accidents don't happen more with the crazy driving here and the constant layer of ice on the roads. There's so much to be thankful for.