Sometimes, it’s nice to just do something exciting. Something you’ve never done before. And usually you end up getting to experience more than you anticipated.
Today we had the afternoon off. After a hard week of work, it was super welcome to be able to
have a day where we just could sit around and chat. We watched a movie, but as the day wore on, I got more and more stir crazy. Becca, Rachel and I were walking back from our flat, and up ahead, on the top of a hill, we saw a big pink and royal blue building. It was so strange looking, so bright and tall among the one-story, beige houses of the village.
We walked across the train tracks to the village of Cornesti that is situated on the hill. It’s kind of like the “suburbs” of the town we are located in. Most of the time we couldn’t see the building, it was hidden by trees, but every so often, we would turn the corner, and boom! there it was.
When we reached the building, we found out it was a orthodox church, beautiful, but forlorn. The doors were locked and there was no one around. There was a huge cemetery filled with graves. Everywhere you turned, there were mounds with blue pipes in the shape of the cross – these, we assumed were their headstones. The orthodox church is strange here. Almost all of Cornesti (and Moldova) is orthodox. I think the number is like 98%. But still no one is ever there. Even on a sunday. Religion here is just an identifying factor and something people have to give some of their money to – but it is not a way of life.
We decided to keep walking up a little more to the top of the hill, and what we saw was exquisite! We just turned a corner and found ourselves in a vineyard, where you could see everything! All of Moldova was at our feet and it looked like heaven it’s self was coming through the clouds.
Here we were, sweaty, sticky and breathing heavy, and God just gave us a place to stand and wonder at the beauty of his kingdom.
Later we told Vitalie about our trek to the church at the top of the hill. His response – “That’s not a church, that’s a building.” It’s so true. God’s church isn’t in buildings. It’s in people. It’s in the attitude we take, not what we do. We can worship God anywhere. In the garden while picking cucumbers, in the field while playing with the street kids and on the top of a hill after a long sweaty hike up the hill. God is everywhere. His church is everywhere. It is made of people, not bricks.
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” – Ephesians 2:19-21
