We chose a local Presbyterian Church here in Sturgis as our place of worship today. The church has about 300 member half of which were present on Sunday. What a lovely place and what lovely people!
This was the second Sunday that we have attended a service where we sang from a hymnal; no words projected on the wall and we both agree that it added an element of reverence to our worship experience – it didn’t subtract from it. As Byron says, there’s educational value in seeing words in juxtaposition and it supports reading more coherently. They followed a standard liturgical format in which the congregation read responsively during much of the ordinary parts. We also sang three hymns that were composed in the last half of the 20th century so the music was rather contemporary. The only “older” him that we sang was “This Is My Father’s World” and even it’s second verse was modernized in the 1990’s.
We still continue to find that it’s a small world in which we live. One of the couples we talked to at the church lived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at the same time Byron’s parents lived there, on a street within three blocks of Byron’s parents. The gentleman worked at the VA hospital there. Byron’s dad always played golf at the VA hospital’s course. Then, at the chuck wagon dinner show last night, the gentleman next to us is a chaplain at a hospital in Nebraska. He had grown up in Georgia and knew where Winterville (Martha’s hometown) was just east of Athens, Georgia. His grandparents had lived in Athens.
On our way to Fort Hayes for the dinner and program we went by Chapel in the Hills. The chapel itself is an exact reproduction of the Borgund Stavkirke of Laerdal, Norway. The chapel was built in 1969 as the home for the Lutheran Vespers radio ministry. Today, visitors from all around the world find the chapel to be a place of beauty and inspiration. According to information at the visitor center the structure is within ¼-inch the size of the original church building in Norway. It was in a lovely park setting at the back of a Rapid City neighborhood. Vesper services are held each evening at the Chapel during the summer months. The services are open to the public.
The “stave church” is made totally of hewn wood. On three sides of the perimeter there is a covered area where, in Norway, parishioners would wait in inclement weather for the doors to be opened. Christian symbolism is architecturally expressed in the interior design. A construction technique is that the foundation is made of stone with the base and four staves of Douglas Fir. In Norway another hard type of fir is used.
On the grounds they also have a log cabin that was originally built by a Norwegian prospector who came to the Black Hills in search of gold. It now serves as a one-room museum depicting the type of furnishing used 150 years ago in Norway. There is also a barn-like structure with a sod roof. This building was originally assembled in Norway. It was disassembled and brought to the US. It serves as the gift shop for the chapel.
Wood carvings of Ole and Lena await visitors to the small museum.
We were told that in Norway building similar to this one are used as barns. Note the sod roof.
Headquarters building for the Fort.
The Supply House used in the movie. Today it is — a gift shop.
Richard Milhaus Nixon as he appears in bronze on one of the street corners in “The City of Presidents”.
By the way, Rapid City is named after the fast-flowing creek that runs through it.
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