Psalm 84 or 85 in your Russian Bible

This Sunday I was at our home church in Steinbach (Emmanuel EFC) with Seth along (afterwards we drove over to Morden to visit Jessica and Jonah, since Seth was not working) We both enjoyed the mission focused Sunday (they have four each year) with some short term reports from church members who went on teams that recently went to Bolivia and Thailand, and full-time missionaries, what a wonderful way to hear what God is doing in other countries through missions. Seth and I saw Helen, whom we had met in Ukraine teaching English three summers ago, in some of the photos they were showing from Bolivia.

Even the sparrow finds a home

When I attended church in Ukraine three weeks ago, the sermon text was from Psalm 85 in the Russian- which means we and whoever is translating the sermon (our English teaching friend Lena that week) have to remember what it is in the English one- I have it down to subtract one in Psalms, but have never quite figured out why they have an extra one, or where it is added in, so we sometimes check with the translator that it makes sense with the Russian text... and if we don't happen to have a translator that Sunday (which happens occasionally, we try to catch words we know to check if we have the correct verse.... Garry is good at numbers so he can usually catch what verse they said, so if we can figure out the book of the Bible- some sound very different in Russian- we can at least figure out what they are studying.

84th Psalm 

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
    to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
    and the swallow a nest for herself,
    where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
    my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
    ever singing your praise! 
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
    in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca
    they make it a place of springs;
    the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
    each one appears before God in Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
    give ear, O God of Jacob! 
9 Behold our shield, O God;
    look on the face of your anointed!
10 For a day in your courts is better
    than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
    than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
    the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
    from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
    blessed is the one who trusts in you!

Our church service in Ukraine