Skip to main content

Chinese Church

This past weekend my daughter and I visited a Chinese congregation in a nearby town. We'd been wanting to do this for a while and the timing was never right. The English service was set to start at 9:30 so we arrived about ten minutes early and went inside. Before entering the sanctuary we visited the bathroom.
I've since been told that this building used to house a Christian school and I suppose that those were the folks who painted the ladies bathroom to look like this:

  Is that not lovely? I melted when I saw it. What an excellent reminder for young women (and old ones...)

After finding a seat we were surprised that there weren't many people there. Right before the service began the white pastor came up to us and welcomed us, mentioning warning that they ask visitors to stand and introduce themselves. When the time came I stood and gave our names and where we were from. Soon we were greeted by almost every person in the room, which had filled up over time. People kept arriving for the service until 10:10 I'm not sure if they were late or were just early for the 10:45 Chinese service.

These were the warmest, friendliest people. We loved worshipping with them and want to go back.

Now for the part of the story that you're expecting. They had communion. The cups were filled almost to the top (my church fills halfway, which I am so thankful for because honestly, grape juice makes me gag). They ran out of cups and one lady across the aisle from me raised her hand in protest. The pastor said that they didn't have enough for everyone. I felt really bad. Like, here I was just visiting and she really wanted to take communion. I leaned over and gave her my cup. I then told my daughter we would share because there was enough in there for both of us. She handed it to me, I sipped and handed it back. Our hands collided and the juice spilled all over her brand new dress. I felt so bad. Told her to run to the bathroom and douse it with cold water. I waited until the service officially ended and then went straight to the bathroom to assist. 

We then quickly snuck out and left. I felt like we bolted. I wanted to explain and hope that they didn't think we were offended in any way.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at Trader Joe's, Plato's Closet, had Thai for lunch, shopped downtown, checked out a Chinese grocery store, and then went to a friend's surprise 40th birthday party.

That was our weekend adventure. Did you do anything fun last weekend?  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kitchen floor woes

I spent a better part of this afternoon lamenting how much I hate my kitchen floor. It puzzles me as to why anyone would install such flooring. Not only is it ugly, but also impractical. It also puzzles me as to why, after nearly nine years in this house, I still have this floor. Well. It doesn't puzzle me that much ($$$). I clean it only once a year.  Don't judge,  I Swiffer and spot clean in between. And I have a dog who does her share of, ahem , cleaning it.  But see all of those deep grout lines? Scrubbing around each brick tile and into those lines is beastly. It's much harder than getting foundation out of the lines on my face. Douse with cleaner. Scrub with rough sponge. Wipe with cloth rag. Rinse with rag. Rinse again in between each brick tile until it's done. Roughly two hours of scrubbing and rinsing. Similar process to removing makeup, but much more labor intensive.  Yes, I could use a mop but scrubbing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sweet Zoey

 Zoey - August 10, 2020 When we found her I didn't realize I needed her. Sure, she needed us, she was living in woods, alone, surviving on whatever she could find. She was nine months old, the vet later told me when I took her in for a check-up, still unsure I wanted to keep this undernourished mutt. We'd been on vacation in southwest Missouri, near the Arkansas border, in the middle of the woods. I was on the porch when I saw her trotting down the dirt road. A little brown dog. I whistled and she stopped to look at me from across the lawn. Then she continued on her way. Later that night, the family was watching a movie we'd brought (no cable service out there!) and suddenly this furry face popped up in the window, scaring my husband out of his seat. We fed her some people food and went to bed.  She was still there in the morning. We asked around and no one knew where she came from. We fed her some more and she stayed. The next day we went and bought some dog food, f...
5 comments
Read more

Front Row Seat

  If you've been around me any length of time, you'll know I love having a front row seat when possible. Church. Concerts. Comedy shows. Auctions. I want to be front and center, where the action is, so I don't get distracted and miss something. I want to be part of the event and front is where it's at.  Lately I've had a front row seat to some things that I wish I could unsee. My mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis and the last year and a half of watching her slow and steady decline into a world of unknowns has taken a toll.  I tend to hold every emotion inside. Always have. I've learned -these past fifteen months or so- that this is bad for my health. Stress levels are impacting how I feel. Palpitations, and a diagnosis of "harmless" PACs, have left me trying to manage this stress. It's gotten easier but, I'll admit, I still have things shoved down inside. And then along came CDH. A diagnosis I'd not heard of before it was given to...
Post a Comment
Read more