Actually, not Catholic

I just edited the previous post to say "Christians" instead of Catholics. I confused the translation for the two words, which lead to my rare attendance at a non-Cathlolic mass this morning. In becoming friends with the family next door this week, they invited me to join them at mass.

At 8am, we met outside our building and caught a bus to the church. Within a minute of arriving, I knew it wasn't a Catholic mass. First off, the church was not named after a saint. Instead, it was named the Fulai Church. Second, there was a lot more singing than I'm used to and no priest. To kick things off, they opened their celebration with four consecutive songs. This was followed by a man in a suit giving a lecture and more singing. Fireworks and firecrackers rang outside, a sign of the ongoing New Year Celebration.

In between translating what I could in my mind, I began guessing which religion this was - Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Protestant? I am extremely unfamiliar with the other branches of Christianity. This seemed Baptist to me, solely for the reason of a guy in a suit lecturing.

I also learned the word for "pray," which we did a fair amount of over the two hour service. At one point, the congregation shook hands and briefly chatted with each other. It was a bit like the sign of peace, but lasted longer and occurred twice in five minutes. The woman beside me told me the things she appreciated in life, but the best I could do was smile and say "Thank you."

Towards the end, I correctly translated the phrase "If this is your first time attending our church, please come to the front." I joined a group of other first-timers and we were awarded with a CD and two small booklets, which I will spend the next six months translating. After the service, we were asked to complete an information card.

I gave them my name and number and explained to the pastor that I had never attended a service like this. It was then that I discovered they were Lutheran. When you know the language well, the distinction is clear. When you don't, well, that's just further confirmation that you're not in Kansas anymore.