Today we had our main worship service on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles in the afternoon.

Wim Dekker is ready to lead the first hymn.

During hymn singing the Feast congregation is  accompanied by our talented musicians.

Services began at 2 p.m., and we have 240 people in attendance at the Feast. Eleven countries are represented at the Schluchsee Feast site: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Switerzland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Our song leader for today’s service was Wim Dekker, who will lead songs several times during the Feast. Wim is from the Netherlands and speaks fluent English and German in addition to his native Dutch, so he is an ideal song leader for our group. Since the German and Dutch hymnals have not been updated yet, we have to announce the hymns for the three languages (Dutch, English and German) on different pages for each of the three hymnals. We hope that this will be our last Feast with this situation, since we have the new United Church of God hymnal about half completed, and if all goes according to plan we will be using it at next year’s Feast. Today’s service was all in German, and we provided a simultaneous translation into English on FM radio at 99.5 Megahertz in the standard FM band. Kuno Pfeiffer gave the first message, a sermonette on our responsibility to look out for each other during the Feast. I gave the main sermon on the "peace dividend", a message about the positive results that will accompany the abolition of warfare during Christ’s millennial reign on earth. Our evening activity was the welcome party, where everyone comes and goes as they please and we all meet each other. Snacks and drinks were available, and our international guests and local members made use of the opportunity to renew old friendships and meet new people.