The Breidenbach AC Church

Well, I'm writing from the train again. It's 10:00 in the morning on Monday and we're currently about an hour into our three hour train ride from Frankfurt to Paris. Earlier this morning we completed the first leg of today's journey with a short trip from Marburg to Frankfurt. We left the Kovacs' house to drive to the Marburg train station at 6:45 this morning. Hold on........you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. We've been without wi-fi again for about two days, so let me bring you up to speed on our most recent adventures.

In my last post we were winding down for the night on Friday at the Euro youth hostel in Munchen. We got up early in the morning on Saturday and spent several hours walking around. Munchen is a huge city and you get a very impressive feeling just roaming the streets. Similar to Vienna, there are many huge ornate sculptures and fountains. However, it also has a much more modern feel as well. The highlights of our morning in Munchen were touring a huge cathedral with a tower that overlooked the entire city and eating an early lunch at an outdoor restaurant that was founded in the 14th century!

Most likely do to our poor time management skills, we ended up having to book it to the train station to catch our 11:55 train to Frankfurt. We got there with several minutes to spare but our train had either left early or was never there in the first place. We ended up getting on another train about a half-hour later, but the delay caused us to miss our connection in Frankfurt.

We eventually ended up with a connection from Frankfurt to Marburg and were met at the Marburg train station by Grant's connection that he knew threw a friend in the Akron AC church, Roby Kovacs. Roby and his friend Kevin picked us up and drove us the 45 minutes from the train station in Marburg back to the Kovacs' home in Breidenbach.

I'll use this paragraph to formally introduce our gracious host family in Breidenbach. Momma and Poppa Kovacs (don't know first names) are Hungarian immigrants who speak both German and Hungarian but not a word of English (though there hospitality shone through in actions greater than would have been possible with words). They have 5 children who speak German and Hungarian fluently and also have a very adequate grasp of English. Balint (22), Linda (21), Roby (18), Arnold (15), and George (14) all were extremely welcoming to us and we enjoyed the short time we got to spend with them.

When we pulled into the driveway of the Kovacs' home at 6:45 on Saturday evening, Roby informed us that everyone was at church for their 6:30-8:00 Saturday night hymn sing. Not wanting to miss out on any of the action, we quickly got changed and headed out to the Breidenbach AC church with Roby and Kevin. We got in on about the last hour of the hymn sign......and it was awesome! I recognized some of the melodies but of course none of the words. Although I attempted to sign along in German, I probably got the greatest joy out of just sitting back and listening to the German singing! It really is a beautiful language to hear sung.

When we returned to the Kovacs' home after the hymn sing, Momma Kovacs made us a fantastic dinner! We had a Hungarian goulash dish that had pork and noodles and vegetables in it. We also had bread, which went great with the goulash and an amazing raspberry cheesecake desert. After first desert, she pulled out the ice cream for second desert!

After talking around the table for a while, we headed off to bed. They had graciously provided us with bedrooms and our own bathroom in the upstairs.

Our Sunday morning began with breakfast at 8:15. We had a classic European breakfast of bread rolls with meat, cheese, and butter. They also had jam, cream cheese and nutella on the table for a truly fantastic breakfast dining experience.

After breakfast, we walked to church with Roby and Linda. They live very close to the church and it was a beautiful day! Church began at 9:30 and was very similar to every other AC service I've been to in the states......except it was in German. (Oh yeah, for the small percentage of readers who may not be familiar with the term, AC stands for Apostolic Christian). However, the language barrier was bridged through modern technology! Up in the balcony of the church they have several soundproof translation booths. Someone from the church sits in the booth and translates the service into another language (They commonly have visitors that speak English, Hungarian, and Romanian). We were given headphones, through which we could listen to the guy in the upstairs translation booth translating the service into English for us!

The morning service ran from 9:30 to 10:45, after which we headed out into the foyer while the members stayed behind for a members meeting. We found all of the people in the Breidenbach AC church to be extremely friendly and willing to talk to us. Most of them even spoke English well!

at 11:15 we all headed back into the sanctuary for a singing. We sang until noon and then everyone dispersed to their own homes for lunch.

Of course the lunch that Momma Kovacs had prepared for us was incredible! She started us out with a Hungarian soup. When we had finished that she went back into the kitchen and emerged with salads. While we were still working on the salads, she disappeared again into the kitchen and returned with chicken, fish, fried potatoes and a hot vegetable dish! By the time we had finished a plate of that, she brought out a strawberry cream cake! When we had polished of the cake, she once again brought out the ice cream (banana, mixed berry and chocolate) to round out the meal. That woman sure knows how to feed a guy!

After a relaxing afternoon around the house, we returned to church for the 3:30 afternoon service. The service ran from 3:30 to 4:45, after which we took some pictures out in front of the church and went for a walk with most of the young men around our age. The demographic of this church is very young. There were many young families with small children and lots of people around our age as well. While they did have the older experienced members that are vital for any church, they were greatly outnumbered by the early 30's and under crowd. There were probably 300-400 people in the church.

The walk we took after the afternoon service was incredible! The church is out in the country up in the hills. There are trails running around the church that lead further up into the hills with breathtaking views overlooking the houses down in the valley bellow. It reminded me somewhat of a scene I'd expect in a Norman Rockwell paining, with scores of small children running around in the grassy hills outside of a picturesque church set in the beautiful German countryside.

After our walk, we returned to the sanctuary for the 5:30-6:30 singing. This was followed by a short fellowship break (during which most people again headed outside). We regrouped again in the sanctuary at 7:00 for the 7:00-8:00 singing. These people really love to sing! If I had eaten a normal lunch I would have been pretty hungry by now (but if you've read this far you'll know that I had no normal lunch!)

When the final singing of the day ended at 8:00 all of the families went home, but the entire group of high school and college aged kids went to someone's house (his name was Edwin) to hang out and eat! We had turkish kebabs at Edwin's house (a classic sandwich that the Kovacs' had been building up for us all weekend). It didn't disappoint! The turkish kebab consisted of lamb meat, copious amounts of onions and cabbage, and a creamy vinegar based dressing on a hot kaiser roll. It was my first ever turkish kebab, but I sure hope it's not my last!

We didn't leave Edwin's house until a little after 11:00. The entire group was very lively and they all had fun and gregarious personalities. There were even some visitors from Canada (who had cousins in the church) that hung out with us as well. Grant provided one of the highlights of the night by telling one of his classic Grimm Brother's fairy tales (Gambling Hansel), complete with German accent! If you've never heard Grant tell one of his fairy tales before, it's an experience I highly recommend you make sure you have at least once in your life.

This morning Poppa Kovacs drove us to the Marburg train station and saw us off to our 7:30 train to Frankfurt. Looks like I've now come full circle and I'm back at the part where we're sitting on the train heading to Paris. Grant is sleeping in the seat directly across from my and he keeps bonking his head on the window as he nods off. This is providing Phil (who is on my left) and I with all the entertainment we need on the way to Paris.

Until next time this is Ben signing off from........actually by the time I'm posting this (5:00 on Wednesday) I have no idea where I was when I wrote this.