A wonderful Sabbath in a foreign land

The 25th Apr 2009 was one of my greatest Sabbath's ever. I'd already been in Munich for a week attending a workshop at Nokia Siemens Networks. Throughout the week I had tried to find a church online but I couldn't succeed because all the websites were in German. I couldn't understand a word on the websites. On Fri, I decided to ask my colleagues at work to help me locate a church near my hotel - the Holiday Inn at the city centre. After googling (thanks to Google earth), we found a church about 30min walk from my hotel in town...

On Sabbath 9.20am, I started walking in the Erhardstr direction (westward) to church. Around tenish, I got to the street where the church was but I couldn't find it. The reason was that the pointer on the google earth map was not accurate to the last metre. It was pointing on the right street but on the other side. There was a street number on the map but I didn't understand how the houses are numbered....

In no time, a certain man appeared with his family, heading towards a play park. I stopped him to ask him if he knew of any Seventh-day Adventist church. Unfortunately, he couldn't speak English so we just didn't understand each other. But as I was conversing with him, an old man on a bicycle overheard us and stopped to ask me if I needed help. He was so kind. He told me he knows there's a church somewhere along the street and he told me that the odd numbrs are on the left while the even numbers are on the right. The church was at Istarltat 40...

So, immediately I started walking towards the direction the old man had pointed at. And in no time, I found the church. Somehow, I have a feeling that old man was an angel. He'd found me when I was almost giving up on looking for the church, seeing that I'd already spent 20 min walking up and down that same street without success...

When I found the block where the church was located, I rang the bell outside. There were two buttons - one in German and the other one in Portuguese. I pressed both but no-one came out for me. I tried calling the pastor's number displayed on the notice board but I didn't have sufficient credit on my phone. I stood outside there for another 15 min waiting and praying that someone comes. In no time, an African gentleman appeared heading towards my direction. He said something to me in Portuguese, but I responded in English and told him that I'm looking for an SDA church. He told me there are no English churches in the entire country but he said I could still attend the German or Portuguese service if I didn't mind. I asked him if he was Adventist and he replied to me that he is and he's originally from Mozambique but has been staying in Germany for 25 yrs. In fact, when he saw me standing outside, he thought I'm also from Mozambique or Angola, which is why he spoke to me in Portuguese...

So, I introduced myself to this gentleman (Emmanuel) and asked him if I could join his group - the Portuguese service. He gladly invited me and we started walking down the basement of the old block where the only Adventist churches in Munich can be found. The German service takes place in a small chapel inside the block - upstairs- while the Portuguese service takes place downstairs, on the basement...

We passed some beautifully dressed kidz playing by the entrance and when we got in, they had just finished the SS lesson discussion. Emmanuel introduced me to his wife, Rosa, and the church elder and pastor and invited me to sit next to him. His English is poor but he intended to translate for me the entire service from the Portuguese language. We sang a couple of songs and then his wife, Rosa, who was leading the song service, asked if there was someone who speaks fluent English or French well who can translate to me because she saw her husband struggling. The members started discussing then I think someone asked where I was from and Rosa shouted, "Tanzanie!". A tall, beautiful, shyful lady from the back shouted back to me in Swahili, "unaongea Swahili?" I was caught by surprise. I never expected there to be anyone in this congregation who understood my language. I immediately replied to her and she offered to translate the service to me from Portuguese to Kiswahili! Her name is Consulate and she's Congolese. So, I moved to the back, to sit next to my new interpreter and guess what? The service was awesome! The pastor preached about faith, endurance and the resurrection in the second Advent referring to the story of Lazarus in John 11...

At the end of the service, they didn't let me go. I was invited for lunch. It was one of the best Sabbath lunches ever. We had some Brazilian, Portuguese and Angolan dishes, desert, a birthday cake for the monthly birthdays and we socialized a lot. When I told the missionary youth pastor, Domingos, that I play piano and guitar, he immediately invited me upstairs to the piano room. As I started playing and as we were singing, slowly but surely more and more people joined us in the room. Therefore, Domingos decided to give me 30 min the following Sabbath to run a music program before the divine service. He also brought the guitar and there was some serious jamming! They love singing but unfortunately, don't have a musician at church. Domingos had just come from Croatia where he attended a church with six pianos and mega-singing.

What a wonderful Sabbath it was!

NB: On the left it's Domingos (the youth missionary) Phil and Consulate.