"...from every tribe and language and people and nation."

These words, which complete the preceding thought of the song in Rev. 5:9 in praise of the Lamb, "you are worthy because with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" come to mind so often in our services. This morning, in our English services, nearly all our resident English members were away...there were 8 of us in attendance: 2 Americans (that's us), 1 Brazilian, 1 Portuguese born in the Congo now living in Senegal doing mission work, 1 Madeiran who lived in the US and is a naturalized American, 1 Madeiran who grew up in Rhodesia and later got an Australian passport, and 2 British tourists visiting the island. We normally have two Russian sisters (mother and daughter) who attend in English, as well, but the mother was sick today. Not a bad representation of countries in a small group! But, today our Russian-language group was larger than the English-speaking congregation.

Russian Service

Besides the 5 Ukrainians who normally attend, we had a surprise visit from a family of tourists from Riga, Latvia! (The three to the left in the picture.) They had found this blog and noted the time of service in Russian, which isn't their native language, but they were so excited to find our group. So we left out Ukrainian choruses and hymns today and sang only Russian songs. I'm sure they noticed that Russian isn't my native tongue, either!



Back in October, a similar event: two sisters visiting from Estonia dropped into the Russian service. "...from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9-14) Worthy is the Lamb, indeed!