Sunday Mornin’ Meetin’ Time

Today as we were getting ready for church I thought, “Hey!  I should take pics of going to church today!”  So I did.  That’s how brilliant revelations come to me.  Isn’t it miraculous?

It’s not all that exciting, but I figured some of you out there might be interested in our Sunday morning routine here in Ukraine.  So, here ya go!

8:15am– I wake up and realize the time.  I wonder how my children can still be sleeping, and then remember they stayed up far too late last night.  Aha!  We need to leave for church at 9:30 if we’re gonna make it in time.

Let the Sunday morning rush begin.  You know it well.  Rummaging through piles of laundry for something presentable that doesn’t need ironing (because who has time for that?), scrounging up a quick breakfast to keep the ravaging wolves at bay, reminding everyone again to please brush their teeth, trying to find matching socks for the Littles, and then giving up and just putting on the closest two that semi-fit.  Are we the only ones who don’t lay everything out the night before like we should?  Yeah, we could, we should…but isn’t this way so much more fun?  Hehe…

Someone decided to get all gussied up in his Sunday best!

9:45am– We should have left 15 minutes ago in order to walk to the bus stop, catch the bus, and then walk the rest of the way to the church, but we didn’t.  Now we’ll need to catch a taxi along the way.  In the past when we were running late we would call a taxi to come to our house and take us to church.  Well, after multiple failures going that route, we found it’s much easier to just find a taxi on the way. Apparently, our street is impossibly difficult for taxis to find, AND there’s another street in town with the same name as ours.  Eight times out of ten they end up going to that other street.  So, we started asking them to come to the street by our street, but would still end up waiting a long time.  Finding our own taxi saves everyone a lot of Sunday-morning-church-prepping-sanity (which the other mommies out there know is in horrendously short supply).

Yeah, our street doesn’t handle rain all that well…

We walk to the place where a couple of taxis usually park and find a willing party.  For about $1.50 we get a quick ride to church.  Sweeeeet.

Jed, the taxi-wrangler

Seth always likes to sit in the middle so he can watch where we go.

Married women have to cover their heads at our church. Like the look? Haha! (Hava was mad because she wanted to sit next to Addy) 🙂

10:00am– Kids are dropped off in Sunday School class and church begins.  Havalah and Seth are trying out the 4-6 year old class this week since they like to be together and Seth turns 4 this week.  Woot!  Up till now, they’ve been in the 3-year-old class.  Addy and Ezra go to class together with 9-11-year-olds.

Church is mostly in Ukrainian, with a good smattering of Russian thrown in for confusion’s sake.  😉  Our pastor speaks Ukrainian in church, but the guy who preached today preached in Russian.  Our church here in Ukraine is VERY different than our church in Salem.  They’re almost as different as they could be.  Really.  It’s like a whole new world.  There is a choir, no clapping, lots of Babushkas, lots of special solos, lots of standing up and sitting down all together, and only a piano.  Every week different children sing or recite Scripture and elderly people recite poems or Scripture.  I really love how every age group is involved in every service.  There is much I miss about our home church.  MUCH.  But, we know this is where God has us for now, so we learning and we are content.  Today there was a baby dedication, so that was super cute.  🙂  Also, today a Babushka loaned us her hymnal (everyone has their own) to use during the hymns, so that was fun to be able to sing along.  We need to buy our own.  We just keep forgetting!

12:00pm– I leave the service to go pick up the Littles.  Church isn’t over yet, but if I wait until church is over to go pick them up they are the only ones left, so I’ve picked up the idea you’re supposed to pick them up at noon, even if the service is still going.

I take them outside to play and Addy and Ez soon join us.  Addy’s teacher said a few kids from their class are singing next week and she wants Addy to recite a Scripture.  Fun!

12:20pm- Church is out and Jed FINALLY comes outside.  (Some things never change, eh Salem Vineyard peeps?  Hehe)  Apparently, I missed out big time.  After I left to go get the kids the pastor introduced our family to the church.  Oops.  Welp, at least Jed was there to represent.  It’s fairly obvious that I belong with him, so it’s probably okay that I wasn’t in there…still, oops. 🙂

We walk to the bus stop and wait for the trolley bus to take us home.  And that is that!  Another Sunday morning come and gone.  Now I’m sitting here all cozy with a big ol’ cup of coffee, the kids are playing, and Jed’s on a date with Havalah.  I’m so happy to not have to think about the kids’ homework I’m almost giddy.

Happy Sunday to you!