St. Gallen

Today we went to St. Gallen, a village about an hour from Ebnat Kappel. Once again, the drive was absolutely beautiful. We drove through farmland up in the mountains, saw men with scythe in hand cutting the tall grass, heard the bells of the goats and cows as they echoed among the hills.





When we got to St. Gallen the first thing we did was to go see an old library. We walked in and several people remarked that it looked like the library on Beauty and the Beast. It was one of the most impressive libraries I have ever seen. They had several display cases in the center of the room. One of them contained a book with an ivory cover, another with gold leaf, and several with illuminated manuscripts.

They were very strict about photography being “verboten” so I do not have any images. They wanted you to buy their postcards.

After the library we went to a cathedral nearby. We had a discussion as to what style the cathedral was. I think that it is Rococo, because of the lighter colors, but it may be Baroque. Either way, it was very beautiful and I was told it is one of the finest cathedrals in Switzerland.




While we were there we asked them if we could “test their acoustics.” We sang “Gott leibt so die welt” (God so loves the world). The text is John 3:16,17. It is so neat to be able to go and sing the gospel in these places. It never gets old. We were able to do two other songs and give out tracts and invitations to the 20 or so people who were in the cathedral at the time.

By that time Greg had gotten the permission we needed to sing on a particular street corner. St. Gallen has quite a bit of tourism and the streets were busy. We passed out tracts as well as invitations to our concerts at the Ark for a while before we sang. While we sang a group of believers from an Ethiopian church in St. Gallen passed out the tracts and invitations. That church was not getting anything out of their efforts for their own ministry. The invitations were not to their church. But they were partnering with us to spread the Gospel and that is all.

The people seemed pretty receptive to taking the tracts. Two team members were late getting back to the vans because they had gotten into a conversation with a couple and were able to share the Gospel.



Walking out of the village, greg pointed out this statue. It is of a man named Vadian who was influential in bringing the Reformation to St. Gallen. I pray that we might have had a small part in brining another “reformation to this village.