Zgrad Baptist Church

Today I attended the Baptist Church in Zgrad, Russia. It is a fairly nice church, especially for Russia. According to my standards it is fairly large with a usual attendance of around 150 people. (Although this morning about 40 of them were absent due to a church trip to Israel). From what I hear they are a highly evangelistic church. Evidently the pastor keeps reminding them that while they do have over a hundred members, for a city the size of Zelenograd (3,000), they are small. I haven’t met the pastor yet. Last week and this week he is in Israel. Next week he will be at the international evangelism conference in South Africa, and the week after that he will go to Ghana. My translator at the church ---- is another Language Link teacher. She came here ten years ago as a missionary through world help (which coincidentally was founded by a man with close connections to Liberty U). However, since her missionary visa expired she had to get a job. She ended up working at Language Link, which works out very well for me.

I was greatly relieved to find that I recognized the tunes to the music portion. Among the songs sang were "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and "Great is the Faithfulness." Everyone in the church was very nice, and all of the old ladies grabbed me to give me a kiss and hug. A few times I caught the word "Americanka" or female American a few times, which amused me. A few of the younger women who felt comfortable tried to speak English to me, and we got on quite well for two strangers. I really enjoyed the Church and the service.