I had the opportunity to celebrate another semi-nearby Lutheran Church's 50th anniversary on Sunday. This is a larger church than the one that I am working with and it was interesting to see how a bigger Lutheran church functions in Argentina.
The Lutheran Church in Argentina (United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Argentina and Uruguay (IELU)) is small compared to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) (Main church my home church is a part of) in the US so it feels like a very close group. The IELU is connected to and is a sister church to the ELCA. Around Buenos Aires there are only about 2 handfuls of Lutheran churches connected with the IELU so I am getting to know some of the main people involved with the church.
I guess one interesting thing that has been happening to me while in Argentina is that no one really explains things to me. This trip to the other church is a great example of this. The only thing I knew going into this little excursion was that we were going to a church's 50th anniversary celebration of its existence that included lunch. I had no idea how we were traveling there, how long the trip would take, what time anything was happening, if I needed to pay for my meal or what the meal even was. In the past I would have been trying to find out all the answers to these questions but now I have learned to just go with it. I find the little surprises to be fun...it makes it more of an adventure. So we ended up traveling by bus to a train stop to catch the train to the location of the church. Then we walked an odd number of blocks arriving around 1 hour later at the church.
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| This is Allen (president of the IELU) preaching at the celebration service |
After traveling to get to the church in sweltering heat, we sat in on a very interesting service filled with people and music. There was live music consisting of a guitar, an accordion, drums, among other things (I was in the back and could not see the musicians) that I really enjoyed. The service ended up lasting from 11am to 1:30pm...I have never been in a service that long it was crazy! I came with youth from my church and they we SO antsy (and maybe I was a bit too...it was really warm and difficult to hear).
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| During the service |
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| Tango dancers at the celebration lunch |
So after the LONG but enjoyable service everyone flocked to the gym of the church's school (or what I assumed was their school?). It seemed to me that a lot of people appeared out of thin air and it was sort of a struggle to find a table. After establishing "our" table we decided that we needed to figure out how to get our food. As the youth hung out at our table we went to figure out how to get tickets and eventually our food.
Turned out that we had to wait in this INSANELY long line to get tickets. Then once we got the tickets we had to wait in an equally as insanely long line. Also we found out that we had to rent eating utensils and pay extra for drinks. It was SO hot in the gym and I was starving so waiting in the lines was a difficult task but in the end we did it and had some delicious chicken and empanadas with veggies. Turned out that they had some interesting entertainment planned.
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| Band of young boys (I know at least one of them is a member at the church that was celebrating its anniversary) to warm up the crowd. |
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| Our table |
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| Fake cakes for decorations (I wished they would have been real...I love cake) |
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| Traditional Argentine Dance and after this there were belly dancers but I did not get a good picture of them (sorry) |
After the celebration we decided to treat the kids to ice cream because it was so hot. We went to a local ice cream shop and shared a huge tub of ice cream. Man was it good!
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| Enjoying our ice cream before heading home |
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| A local dog also enjoying ice cream :) |
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