Today was Sunday and I had decided to attend church at St Theodor’s Reform Church which turned out to be a 7-minute walk away. It was another cold and damp day, not actually raining but the air , was damp.
On arrival at the church the gentleman on door duty didn’t quite understand why I chose not to take a hymn book but he accepted it. Not long after I was seated an elderly woman came and sat next to me and I was interested to see that she was accompanied by her small dog, who was very well-behaved. After greeting me she tried to speak English, which sadly was very poor, probably a lot better than my meagre German, and she spoke really quietly. After a while I pretended that I was deep in thought and prayer. Then, throughout the service she was telling me what was happening. At the front, sat a man and a woman whom I guessed to be the leaders of the service. It turned out that she was the leader while all he did was read the lesson. I understood this sufficiently to know that it was the story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son, Isaac.
On the wall to my right was a board with what I believed to be 5 hymn numbers. I am still not certain that was what all the numbers were as, after a reasonably long introduction, the lady leader indicated that we would sing something but we remained seated. We sang just 2 verses after which we were addressed again. Then something more was sung, also while seated, and then the gentleman read the lesson. This was followed by, I believe, a fairly long sermon, some prayers and a final hymn, this time standing up. She closed the service with the Blessing, which I understood. The organist received an ovation and we were then invited to have tea or coffee and a slice of bread set up at the rear of the Nave.
After the service, as the 2 leaders remained seated at the front, I went forward to ask if I could take some photos and that was when I received a delightful surprise. Not only did the lady speak English, but she had also spent a year at the Department of Theology of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, after I had left my time of employment there. This was followed by a year at the University of Cape Town. She was very disappointed that she didn’t know that I was there at the start of the service. She explained that she was visiting from Bern, where she is employed at the University, as the local Minister was on leave. After taking some photos and a cup of coffee, I walked back to the hotel.
We rested for the balance of the morning and then went to get lunch from the local Coop Supermarket across the road and continued to walk around the area opposite to that where we had been before. It was mainly residential but saw large park filled with children and their families and a beautiful Anglican Church. I would have attended here if I had known about it but did enjoy the other service and was glad that I had been there.
We also saw some really interesting plants which included trees called Platanen. At the start of Winter they are cut right back leaving just branches and, what looks like nodules, on the ends of these. We learnt some days later that these are grown all over Europe and are very good for shade and privacy in summer as the leaves grow back thickly. In fact, they can be trained into a hedge.
Then there was a Wisteria which had a thick, twisted stem which grew upright on a wall to a reasonable height and then developed branches which grew to the sides and in Spring had lovely purple flowers.
There were many other flowers in the residential gardens and on the roadside and one of these was this beautiful flowering Fosythia.
And, of course, there was a fountain.
For supper, we walked down to a Turkish Take-Away where Trevor ordered a Doner and I ordered a Wrap. They were both filled, and I mean filled, with Lamb shavings and salads of choice. There were at least 8 salads and one could have all or any as desired which meant that the end result was a large dinner. Even though they were delicious, neither of us could finish our order so, it was wrapped in foil, and we decided to find a homeless person who might appreciate a meal. Believe it or not, in almost 20mins we could not find even one! Not in the park or lurking in a corner. Eventually, there was 1 man who said that he would love to eat it, so we handed it over.
We had another early night as we had to be on a train to Zurich at 07:30 next morning. An exciting day lay ahead.
