A factory owner in a small village near Berastagi takes all of his workers out for a day of fun for Christmas every year, and he wanted Steve to preach at the little Christmas service he was putting on for his employees.
It was great! This year they travelled two hours from Berastagi on big buses the owner rented. Some of his church put together a service in a church at the park area where we went, and then he provided lunch for everyone. The rest of the day the people could spend relaxing at the park. I don’t know the exact translation of the name, but our translator said the closest he could guess would be called the Faith Garden. It was really pretty. There was a rather large area for Christian-related things, but there were also monuments and buildings for other religions there too.
Here are some pictures of our day:
This is the church where the service was held!
Here it is up close....
Best tree-topper ever.
I so badly wanted Steve to have to preach way up top....
He didn't.
"haha. I'm so charasmatic."
I can't help but be reminded of the Backstreet Boys....
Look! Noah's ark! So here is it's resting place! Look! Even the dove is there on the bow.
...Rather well-preserved. Maybe this is why it wasn't found really...scientists have been wasting time looking for mere broken pieces of wood. Psh. Didn't they know the ark was designed by God? D'uh!
Here is Steve on Noah's Ark.
Great view from the ark.
Hmm... I'm no expert on the topic... but I seem to recall some sort of ...commandment... about NOT having large bronze graven images....
Ironically enough, the ark is starting to take on water....
Here is Moses, with the Ten Commandments.... again, can't say for sure, but this large, golden statue seems to be on the borderline of acceptable for one of said commandments....
Look! It's Jesus!!
Here is Jesus doing two miracles at once! To the left, you can see the multiplied loaves and fishes. And up front to the right, he is healing a man!
Here is Jesus walking on water.... Steve however, is clearly sinking. He's such a Simon Peter.
Here I am in the Garden of Gethsemane. I would *not* have been so chummy with that hook-handed guard if I knew what was coming next...
Also, given the situation, this happy pose seems somewhat inappropriate.
I was just excited to get my picture taken with Jesus...anyways, He went willingly. 'What's the worst that could happen?' I naively thought....
This doesn't look promising.
(I wanted Steve to pretend to be in the crowd, yelling for Barabbas. He refused, pointing out I would probably put it on the blog.)
I don't like the looks of that.
Oh dear.
At this point I would like to say I'm not even showing you pictures of all the scenes of Jesus' life as depicted through large golden statues. It took forever to walk through this place!
Well. There you have it.
The End?
...not by a long shot. But they don't actually have any good statue scenes of Resurrected Jesus... oh! Just scroll back up to Christmas Tree Topper Jesus higher up. Ascending Jesus.
This 'Golden Statue Life of Jesus' walk was made possible by our friends at Bank Sumut.....
Other religions' carvings are way cooler/more detailed. I'll give them that.
AND more colourful.... (this is a tomb! I don't know who for, but there is a grave in there!)
Amazing detail.
Gateway into other religion zone.
...I still don't completely understand these "Tourism Police"
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