The Church Rejoices and Mourns Together

If you know me, you know I love going to church in other places, even if I don’t understand what the heck is going on! Worshipping in many tongues and styles makes me emotional every time because I just think of how it’s a glimpse of heaven :) And bonus this time! They even sang one song I knew the English words for!! The medical student working with us was kind enough to translate all of the verses we were studying so I had a microscopic idea of what was going on. We read a lot of scripture too which was cool. 

The part that I will treasure most though kind of generated the title for this post: the church celebrating and grieving together as one body. Church started by celebrating birthdays and anniversaries and maybe some other clap-worthy stuff I’m not sure. It was funny, the American doctor’s live translator said it was Anna the pig’s 2nd birthday so I don’t know what happened there 😆 we even celebrated members of the church who were living elsewhere or on the front lines (those people got extra loud cheers)

And after the celebrations, the church gathered into smaller groups around the sanctuary to grieve together and pray for peace and loved ones who were fighting on the front lines, those stuck in occupied territory, had been killed, or were currently captured. Many of these prayers were not in English, understandably, but the atmosphere did not need translating. 

It’s beautiful in one of those deeply sad, heart hurt, kind of ways. This is what the Church is called to do — dance together and grieve together. And in my head I know that our God is with us and hears all of our pain and all of that stuff that we speak about in church or when people are facing hard things. I even remember praying for the people here when I was in the US and when the war first broke out: that the people here would come together and that they would turn to God with all their pain and that He would bring peace. 

And yet here, surrounded by that very thing that I prayed for, I am in awe that these people are able to do that. I know I would be tempted to be mad at God or blame Him for letting this happen or maybe stop talking to Him. When facing the cruelty of the world, I think it can be easy to believe that God cannot possibly be good or care because why would He allow all of this if He was good. 

But my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, despite the atrocities they have been facing for three and a half years, still cry out to God and trust Him for comfort. 

I was doing a pretty good job of keeping it together until my national friend (who has been so chill about the war and the bomb when it went of and all the sirens and who lives in one of the scariest cities) started to cry. Then I lost it. And I think I will continue to literally and physically cry to God about this situation for a long time after I get home. It was one of those moments when it feels like the grief of the situation is going to rip your heart out of your chest. 

Then we drove to check out the clinic site for tomorrow and passed the town square where there were memorials of all the lost soldiers lining the walkway for maybe a mile. Both sides, and double sided: photos of such young men who had lost their lives. And the medical student said this is just this town’s casualties. Apparently every town started doing them in 2023. Ugh… war just sucks, guys. 

We had a calmer afternoon which I think was good. I might have had some trouble getting back to chaos after this morning but it was good :) we took some photos in a sunflower field together and went shopping for cookies and drank coffee out of a vending machine and really enjoyed each others company, even as the sirens continued to blare.

Mallory and Shawna

It was actually pretty good!!