Around the world in Churches

Today I (Steve) went to church in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is the 79^th country I have visited in my life and the 21^st country where I have attended a Catholic service. Going to mass in a foreign country is kind of fun – the masses are almost identical (you gotta love the brand management capabilities of the Catholic church), but there are small differences that are interesting. There are 3 masses here in Tashkent on Sundays – each in English, Russian and Korean. Yup, no mass in Uzbek language! I had the wrong schedule, so I ended up at the Russian one – which was really interesting, since it is almost the same as Ukrainian, so I could follow along. 1 priest, 2 deacons and 10 alter boys – the alter boys basically seemed to be there to trip over each other. At the sign of peace, everybody grasped each others hands by pairs. The old lady in front of me smiled and said “Devai!!” which is both Russian & Ukrainian for “Give me” or “Hand ‘em over!!” so I gave her my hands & she gave them both a squeeze. Back home we just shake hands & wish each other peace. Fantastic music – a full blown 24 pipe organ and voices from angels. The church had been started over 100 years ago, but was only finished 12 years ago – little things like the Russian Revolution kept getting in the way of building completion.

Yup, the nuns were from the Missionaries of Charity, the order started by Saint Theresa in Calcutta.

Last week in Korea (already part of the 79 and also one of the 33 countries that I worked in, but I had never been to church there) they gave each other a kind of yoga style “Namaste” greeting with templed finger, a little bow and a wish for peace. Everything in Korea, including church, is CUTE – think Kpop, boy bands, sailor moon, little animated animals with HUGE eyes. At church in South Korea, instead of altar boys, they had these three cute little girls who would get up during every song (and there were LOTs of songs – seems like there was a pre-entry hymn before the entry hymn!!) and do a little dance routine with big arm movements. Not everybody in the congregation sang along, but EVERYBODY did the arm routine.