The service was in German and they didn't have anyone to translate in English that day. They did have a Spanish translator and Farsi translator. Joe pulled up an app on his phone that translated and transcribed what was being said during the sermon and announcements. It did a pretty good job and we got the gist of the message which was about how we practically live out compassion to strangers in the city. Here are the three main points.
1. What does the Bible say?
2. How can we apply the Biblical principles in our society?
3. A practical example from Acts 3
Before the message there was singing, prayer and worship. I recognized most of the tunes, so I tried to understand what the German words meant since I was familiar with the English version. Here are some words I figured out with Zach's help.
Alles: everything
Gott: God
Jesu: Jesus
liebe: love
die: the
wie: how
preist: praise
After church, there was a time for fellowship where people drank coffee and tea and stood around and visited. Then a group of us ordered food from an Italian restaurant and went to Paul and Hanna's house. Paul is a good friend of Zach's who recently married Hanna who is also a GEM missionary. We spent a few hours hanging out and visiting. There were about a dozen people there. I had some great conversations with several from Zach's church. One of the worship leaders, Esther (another one from GEM), shared about her childhood as a missionary kid and how she ended up in Germany and speaking German even though her parents are Czech and were missionaries in India. She was very fun to talk to and her friendly spirit was heart-warming. I also got to talk with Jana a young woman who is in her second year at a university in Frankfurt. She is majoring in linguistics and may possibly join Wycliffe. She is still uncertain which path she will follow, but she knows that she loves linguistics. She's only been at the church for about a year and she shared her story of how she came to attend Mosaik Nord. One couple that was at this gathering were brand new to the church. This was their first Sunday attending in person. They had been watching online and had attended a small group, then decided to come to in-person church that day. I enjoyed talking to the husband, Johannes, who told us funny stories of his time visiting L.A. and Orange County. Zach appeared at home and very comfortable with his new church family. I am glad that he has found a group of friends who care for him.
This morning was a lazy Monday morning. I finished up some laundry and packed for our trip to Berlin. The train wasn't leaving until 6:15 pm so we had time to go visit the Frankfurt Zoo. The Zoo is in the middle of the city and people live in flats around the complex and since many buildings have 5 stories, people can see into the zoo from their homes. It's a nice zoo. Most of the walkways and enclosures are filled with trees and water. There are some buildings that appear older from when the zoo first opened. They are what you would imagine zoos from 60 years ago looked like. Not terribly animal friendly, but it also appeared that now they were more of a place to eat and sleep for most of the animals. We spent about 3 hours at the zoo and then headed back to Zach's place for an hour or so before we left for the train station. Our train was delayed, but now we are on it and will soon go have dinner in the dining car (if it is open). We should be in Berlin in about 4 hours.
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