All the teachers and students were to meet at the church at 12:30, and the students were all gathering in groups with their class teachers. We were greeted and ushered into a reception room with just teachers, administrators, pastors, and dignitaries, which we didn't even know about. The table was set beautifully with many kinds of fancy and delicious sandwiches and desserts. Everything was really fancy and elegant. Tim wore a sport coat and tie, and I wore a "church dress" and sweater, but we were both a little under-dressed! Almost everyone, men and women alike, was wearing suits. Even most of the students were dressed up really nicely.
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| Chocolate cake castle at the pre-church service reception. |
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| The array of food for the dignitaries and staff before church. |
The service was pretty much a regular church service, with the sermon addressing the school's calling as a Christian institution. One of our English department colleagues, Zuska, sat just behind us and translated, which was awesome to actually understand the message!
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| School administrators and clergy entering the service |
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| The bishop and pastors during the service |
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| The postlude being played by the organist in the balcony. |
After the service, we had about 40 minutes before the program at the city Cultural Center, so we walked over with our English department head, Katka. She suggested that we stop at a small cafe just around the corner for some hot chocolate on the way. Two other teachers joined us too, so it was fun. The hot chocolate was really different --- extremely rich and thick. It was seriously like eating a melted chocolate bar with a spoon!! Thankfully, we ordered a "small", because just a little was a great plenty!! YUM!!
The Cultural Center auditorium was a beautiful venue, and it was packed - we figure around 400 people, with some kids standing in the aisles. The program was delightful, with many groups of students performing, a couple of introductory speeches, flower presentations to former administrators (some of the most enormous bouquets I've ever seen!), videos, and a praise band of students. There were skits, dances, songs, and it was remarkably well done from start to finish. We were impressed!! We sat with Carol and Arden Haug, as a little Global Mission group. :-)
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| This class of young students had neat choreography to recorded music, spelling different things with their boxes. |
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| Sorry it's a little blurry - this is how the boxes ended up, ESS for Evanjelicá Spojená Škola |
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| Several of the dancers were our students! |
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| They did a lovely job with the choreography! |
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| Very nice!! |
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| These little ones were absolutely adorable and so energetic! |
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| The final song was with the praise band, with all the performers singing together on "Mighty to Save" - how awesome and moving to hear this praise song lifted up in English and Slovak here!! |
Then after the program, there was a reception for just the school staff and dignitaries from the church, town, and region. Just picture the most fancy wedding reception you've ever attended, and make it fancier ---- that's what this was like!! It was elegant and sumptuous beyond belief. We started with some formal presentations of certificates and flowers - we never did get all the translations for that, but it was impressive. Then everyone got beverages for a few toasts, and finally we started on the amazing food array. One end of the room had a hot food buffet - schnitzels, sausages, sauerkraut, vegetables, bread, Hungarian goulash, to name a few. The other area had incredible choices of salads, cheese trays, cold meats, fresh fruit cups, and desserts like you cannot believe. Beautiful cakes and other fancy creations were delightful to behold and delicious to taste! The beverages were served already poured in appropriate glassware of every size and shape - red and white wines, champagne in flutes, slivovica type drinks in small stemmed glasses, etc. We felt like royalty. It was fun sharing the celebration with our colleagues, and we really enjoyed spending some time with Arden again since we hadn't seen him since our first week in Bratislava.
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| The beverage table, ready for the toasts. |
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| The salads, cold hors d'oeuvres, and desserts table |
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| Another view of the cold foods table. |
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| Tim, Carol, Arden, Michelle at the reception |
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| Pat'ka, the Deputy Headmistress who was in charge of the program, and Jana, the Headmistress - super leaders of our school! |
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| Pat'ka and Jana |
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| Enjoying the reception! |
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| Zuzka, one of our wonderful English colleagues! |
We finally left the reception at about 6:30 because Arden's train left for Bratislava at 7:23, and we stopped by our flat so he could use our wireless to check his email before he left. We walked him to the train station, said good-bye, and then stopped by Carol's briefly. We will leave bright and early tomorrow morning on a bus tour of articulated wooden churches in eastern Slovakia, with the pastor and others from our church. It will be another new adventure, I'm sure!!
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