Worshipping in Hungarian

I moved to Hungary in November of 2019 and the first few months of my time here are still mostly a blur―especially most church services. My husband and I attend a Hungarian international church that both worships and preaches primarily in Hungarian. The sermons are preached in Hungarian and simultaneously translated into English, thus making what is normally a half-hour sermon closer to an hour. This new process was a lot for my brain at first. To add to the translation confusion, the worship songs sometimes include translations, but often are fully in Hungarian.

Actually, what I remember most about my first church experience here was trying not to fall asleep because my brain was so overexposed and tired.

But I also remember singing this Christmas carol, and immediately falling in love, even with my limited Hungarian knowledge and zero translation on this particular song. I felt the Holy Spirit as the congregation worshipped around me. I didn’t need to fully understand to be able to worship along. And that was a first for me.

Now, fast forward a few months, as I’m sharing this song (yes, well after the Christmas season ended) with friends back in the States, and they explain to me that this song is in fact an English worship song, written by Hillsong, no less.

I quickly went to YouTube to listen to the original, and found myself underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great song! But every time I listen to it, there seems to be something missing.

I realized I had gone from simply trying not to fall asleep to enjoying many worship songs more in Hungarian than in English, NOT because I am great at Hungarian (definitely not!) but, I believe, because of God’s love and faithfulness to transform my heart. He took my small act of simply trying not to fall asleep at church and showed me a tiny glimpse into the incredible beauty of his global church.

There is something very sweet about being reminded of the global church and how God is alive and active everywhere, not just where I am and not just in the language I speak.

Even though I’m sure most of you don’t speak or understand Hungarian, I hope that hearing this carol sung faithfully by Hungarians encourages you as much as it does me.