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And then church happened ...

What is church …?
In language school we are doing a homestay where we live with a Ukrainian lady who speaks Russian with us.  She is a sweet lady and a wonderful hostess, but she speaks very little English and at present, we speak even less Russian.  Our first week here she asked me what we “do on weekend?”  I told her our Saturday plans and said on Sunday, “We go to church.” 
“Schtoe Church?” (What is church?) She replied.
Umm.  How do you explain church when you can’t explain anything? 
“Gdeeya mui Slava Bog.” (Where we praise God) I said … exhausting my religious vocabulary. 
She didn’t get it. 
So after about 15 minutes of back and forth in English and Russian, I got as far as “place we Praise God … in a house … with friends?”  And each of those statements add a whole new level of confusion to her expression. 
I know church isn’t place, but I still wrestle with the question, “What is Church?”  It’s the Body of Christ, but what is that, really?  I plan on asking Jesus if he can show me a movie about what it was really supposed to look like. 
And then church happened …
Sunday we showed up at Safe Haven (for church).  We hopped the bus, and transferred to the subway, and got off on the wrong station, got back on the subway, got off again, and got on the wrong bus.   (We are doing a great job of learning where all the wrong busses go.)  In the end we showed up to Safe Haven about 30 minutes late.  But Anya let us in and said that very few people were around and so there wasn’t church today, everyone has different schedules in the summer. 
Janna and I went in and talked with Anya for a while, learning about the routine around the transition home. 
Some kids came in and I joined them in playing Rummy Cube, learning how to say “Your turn”, which I promptly forgot.
People drifted in for the next few hours; including Vitaly and Oksana.  Oksana is a young lady who graduated from Safe Haven and on the weekends comes home to Anya, Bogdon and her family at Safe Haven.  She and Vitaly have been married for a year and she will soon give birth to their first child.  It’s a scary time for her, and while she and Anya talked more people gathered around her. 
Then Anya said that we were going to pray for Oksana and some other needs in the church.  She said it in Russian so I missed it and kept playing Rummy Cube, but the kids stopped me and said, “You play later, now we pray.” 
And so we prayed.  Friends and family gathered around Oksana, praying for her and Vitaly. 
We prayed for 45 minutes. 
I didn’t understand anything that was said, but it was wonderful to be there, knowing God understood us all. 
And I thought, “This is church.  This is the body of Christ.”

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