Hallelujah!

Literally, hallelujah! One of the biggest challenges we have faced as we've moved all over the U.S., and now around the world, is finding a home church. In our 14 years of marriage and eight cities, we've only had two churches that we felt were true home churches. We've always managed to find a place where we liked the preaching, but in many places, we've just never felt welcomed into congregations. We came here with a small list of potential churches here (one of which, coincidentally, is pastored by missionaries supported by my aunt/uncle's home church in Alabama). A friend in my language class mentioned her church one day, and it was one on my list, so we made it our first visit to a church off base. Thankfully, we both really enjoyed it. A band provides music in the form of contemporary songs that we like. In addition, both the singing and the sermon are dual language. We sang one verse in English, then repeated in Italian, and so on. Same for the sermon. There are several preachers who take turns. Today, one of the Italian preachers gave the sermon (a good one) while an American preacher translated. As it turns out, we knew several people in the church, three or four of whom work with Nathan, as well as a lady I've befriended who is moving (with her family) to a house that is just up the street from ours. We felt very welcomed, loved the music, and heard a great sermon, so...hallelujah!