good morning & blessed sunday. this may be long so sorry in advance.
I've been attending a local Orthodox Church for around 5 months (regularly for 2 months) after being interested in conversion/orthodoxy for the last 2 years. so far things have mostly been great, but I'm starting to feel a bit "stuck". I don't understand this service because it isn't in English (no OCA near me) and there's been no growth socially. I understand you shouldn't go to church to socialize, but I hoped that generally people would at least be friendly & welcoming to me.
So far, only 2 people have been kind to me on a regular basis. They typically help by bridging the gap between others and I by introducing me to people, making space for me to sit at lunch, telling me about the service/translating what was said, etc. They're super kind and I appreciate them. Today I attended and neither of them were there. I sat through service not really understanding anything, but that's okay, I enjoy the reverence. the small children (like 3-6) have gotten used to my coming so they were very nice, they spoke to me, said hi, shook my hand, etc. After service let out though, all I got were looks from adults my age & older.
When I'm there with the 2 people who typically speak with me, people are kind, they ask me questions, they tell me about their faith/culture, they ask the other 2 questions about me, they say they hope to see me again... but when I'm there on my own it's like.. crickets. I don't understand... you can say hello to me, I just don't get the staring. I smile, I say hi to people, but it's like with the younger adults my age the interaction ends there & with the older adults I don't even get acknowledgement back. I understand orthodox communities can be very insular, but it's so uncomfortable for me to be there that I feel like it's a hinderance at this point. I also don't want to solely be attending when I know someone else will be there.
I think I need prayer. The priest doesn't speak English so I haven't been able to speak with him yet, but yea. I just need someone to pray for me. It's hard to show up when I feel so out of place.