Day 27 & 28

Bob’s Sabbatical

Day 27 & 28, September 26 & 27, 2009

 

            Saturday
was the Heidelberg Herbst festival – people everywhere.  Beer, brats, bands, etc.

 

            Sunday,
9/27

 

            Election
Day in Germany.   No coffee early in the
morning.  Cleanup after festival is
almost over.

            Decide
to check out of hotel early so we can go to Church up the street.  Turns out to be “Inter-cultural” Sunday.  There are 28 congregations represented, and
taking part in the service.  It lasted 2
½ hours, but was wonderful.  Pastor of
the Church (Lutheran) is a woman.  Church
is very old, but many of the appointments are modern, and the organ is really
something.  Procession is with organ
only, and organist pulls out all the stops. 
Service is basically “Morning Prayer.” 
After opening sentences we sing “Morning Has Broken” in German.  African choir sang an introit, Psalm 8 was
read in six different languages, with a piano and string quartet from a Korean
Church playing inbetween.

            Tears
came to my eyes at this point.  Here I
am, sitting with my family in Heidelberg, Germany, in an old Church, with
people from 28 Christian congregations, as the sun is streaming through massive
tall windows, and 7 hours from now, St. Paul’s, Franklin will be starting its
Sunday.

            The
organist taught us a simple tune, that we then sang as a 2 part round, then
again as a 3 part round.  A reading from
Philippians 2:1-4 in German was followed by 
“How Great Thou Art,” with the first two verses in English and the last
verse in German.  This was followed by 12
children, who looked younger than eight-years old playing African drums (they
got a standing ovation).  We had hoped
for Communion today, but we got even more!

            We ate
lunch and hit the road for the Rhine Valley, and the magical Schoenburg
Castle.  We celebrate the eve of our 35^th
Wedding Anniversary with a wonderful dinner, in a wonderful place, with our
children – what more could we ask?

  Peace,

    Bob

P.S.  We have not had great internet access, so my
blogs have not had pictures inserted.  I
have put pictures in the albums that coincide with the day numbers of the
blogs, so at least you can see a  little
of where we have been.