Today was such a rich day! I began my commute to this new church (Word of Life : http://www.slovozivota.sk/about/) at 09:00, and finally arrived at 09:54, just a few minutes before the service started. The service was at the seedy looking shopping center that I described yesterday, but this time there was a cute elderly man with thick, black glasses, greeting people and directing us upstairs to the meeting hall. Upstairs, I was met by round 2 of greeters, a man named Tomas, who, after trying to speak to me in Slovak, asked a ton of questions (in English) about where I'm from, how I found the church, why I'm in SK, etc., then immediately introduced me to Viera, who asked all the same questions. They were so excited, you would think they had never had a foreign visitor at their international church! Viera showed me where to find the translation headsets, then introduced me to her husband, Hanse, who's from Germany. The service commenced with singing in Slovak. Of all the songs we sang, I recognized three of them: two that I know in English and one that I know I've heard before, but my mind could only fill in Dutch lyrics without an English translation that fit the music. (That was weird.) The service was generally louder and more charismatic than I'm used to at Flagstaff Christian Fellowship, and even a little more "wild" than the services at Christlijk Centrum Groningen that I was able to adjust my taste too. The feel of the headset on my ears reminded me of being at CCG; that was definitely a comforting feeling to have, even though a few times I found myself listening to the songs, looking around the room, and thinking to myself, This language is weird, this service is weird...
I think the preaching was pretty good. Nothing set off my "doctrinal error" alarm, at least. Of course I want to be discerning about where I choose to go to church because I don't want to get brainwashed with any funky (ie,wrong) ideas, but I think it's hard to say for sure if there's anything that will be problematic after only one visit, and I'm expecting to need to adjust to a new style of church anyway... So, I think I'll go back next week.
After the service, I met an American guy who's been here for about 11 years and he was able to answer the question that I wanted to ask the embassy- that is, do I need to have my FBI background check apostilled? And the answer is a grand NO! Apparently they annulled that requirement a year ago! Perfect, especially since my not-apostilled rap sheet is on its way to Slovakia right now.
After meeting a few more people, I went to lunch with Viera and Hanse and a few others at an organic Slovak farm. It was a pretty legit cultural experience...we drove out there on one of those roads where you always have to pull off to the side to let cars coming from the opposite direction pass. The farm consisted of brown wood buildings, and goats, sheep, and horses, and tons of people eating authentic Slovak food and drinking Kofola (a famous Slovak soft drink that tastes kinda like black liquorish). I ate pirohy with meat and cabbage...it's kind of like ravioli, but it's made with potato flour (I think) and has a meat/cabbage filling, and is topped with a cheese (I think) that tastes like sour cream (kind of), and there's fried pieces of bacon fat on top. Very delicious and filling! Besides the good food, I especially enjoyed the conversation. Viera and Hanse told me about several other foreign people in Bratislava who chose to move to Slovakia because (like me) they felt like God wants them to be here. It gives me the feeling that I'm part of something bigger than I can see right now.
I meant to go to the evening service at the City Light church (where I went last week), but their service starts at 16:00, and I didn't get home until 16:30. So instead I worked on the puzzle a bit more, but I'm not going to post a picture because I'm too lazy to run upstairs to get my camera (and anyway, how nerdy is it to post pictures of puzzles on a blog?).
Using some creative communication methods, and having some background information and things to point at, my housemate's mother and I managed to fill in the blanks on my rental agreement. Pfff, who needs a common language when you can email documents across the backyard and cut and paste them into google translate? And now I'm another step closer to being a resident of the Slovak Republic!
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