Photos

A few photos to set the stage:

Kaleb and Tante (Aunt) Ruth. She lives in our condo in Aalesund.

Kaleb at Fjellstua in Aalesund, overlooking "our" city on a rainy day.

Some of the cousins and two aunts gathered for a 17th of May BBQ at Axel and Kari Wikanes' house (the cousins who were the witnesses at our wedding - they are on the far left in the photo).

The building photo is our condo at Moa in Aalesund. Our unit is on the top floor, second balcony from the right corner. Tante (Aunt) Aslaug lives one unit to the left of ours and Tante Kari lives one floor under Tante Aslaug and one more unit to the left. All 3 sisters live in the same building!

This is the view from Sunde, about 10 minutes from our condo. It's a view up Stor Fjord and it takes my breath away everytime I look at it.

We Have Housesitters!

We’ve had two beautiful spring days this weekend so it was tough to be indoors packing. I opted for yard work and I THINK my body is glad, but it’s been moaning a bit more than usual. I have 5 yards of beauty bark to get down in the next several days in preparation for Kaleb’s big half birthday party on June 7th. Uff da.

I talked with Ryan today, the guy who will be house sitting for us. He and his (soon to be) wife are thrilled. I called his cell phone the minute I hung up the phone from the Norwegian Consulate and they gave us the green light to go. It seems that Ryan was sitting in a restaurant in Chicago with his fiancé and soon to be in-laws and they were just asking him about his plans for the next year and just where he would be living. So many things in their life have also been in the realm of the “unknown,” so God’s timing was impeccable as his phone rang just in the nick of time. He said he wouldn’t normally answer his phone while out with his in-laws, but he saw it was me calling and thought he just might want to get it. He sounded quite relieved when I told him that we’d gotten approval to move and he could live in our house for 14 months. (He’s been waiting since last November to know FOR SURE if we were going…). So he’ll be moving in on the 9th of June and we’ll have a few weeks to go over things with him before he takes off to the mid-west to get married – and then he’ll come back just before we leave for Norway so we’ll have a few days with his wife to go over things with her.

We really wanted to just bless someone with our house while we were gone, so he fit the bill. He’s a worship intern at our church and is well loved, so they extended his contract a second year. We just asked them to keep the yard up and pay the utilities so we know the house will be in good hands while we are gone. And it’s not a bad place to spend your first year of married life either!

Banking

Two months and counting… I got an e-mail this morning from Turid that we were overcharged for our condo dues at Moa so the association is sending back roughly $800 – so that will pay for most of our tabs for a year for the van (the registration is over a thousand dollars a year!). God is good.

They have an interesting banking system over there – far more advanced than ours. No one writes checks – everything is done over the internet and they just do direct deposits into the account of the person they owe money to. When you pay a bill, it gets to the company instantly. When you send someone money – it just posts that second. So, now that we are getting a refund – they will just deposit the money directly into our account at Sparebanken Møre. I need to learn that system when I’m there so Turid won’t have to pay all our bills anymore.

We got an e-mail from Lars, the one who is selling us the van. He is getting something fixed on the steering, but he said the brakes will soon need to be replaced. Good to know.

I packed up 4 boxes last night – so I’m ¼ of the way done. It’s amazing how much I can get in a box with the vacuum sealed bags! I used it for bedding and Kaleb’s clothes and coats. I’m glad we don’t get charged for the weight of the boxes because they are all stuffed to the brim and weigh a ton.

The First of Many Miracles to Come

We bought a car yesterday in Norway – via the internet! Kory really wanted a mini-van and I really didn’t want to spend more than $5,000 but I relented a bit on the price and found a 1997 Plymouth Voyager, 5 seater with lots of cargo space for 38.000nok (about $8k). We had that much in our account over there so at least we don’t have to send any money to buy it. Our account is now empty, but at least we have a vehicle the day we arrive – Hallelujah!

It seemed like it was meant to be – the van was being sold by a neighbor 2 doors down from Kory’s cousin, Rune. I called Rune and asked him to go look at the van. He thought it was fine. I e-mailed the other cousin, Turid, to tell her to give Rune the money and she knew the seller of the van very well so she trusted that he wouldn’t sell us a bummer of a car. He even wants to fix a few things on it before we arrive so it’s in tip-top shape. Those Norskes do things right. So all our concerns about transportation are over and worst case scenario – we can live in the car. Ha.

We were in Oregon this week doing a lot of tax-free shopping getting clothes and shoes and bedding for Norway. Got lots of bargains and I picked up my new laptop too. It will become my new best friend, I’m sure. Now to just get it all packed… therein lies the next challenge.

I finally heard from a shipping company today and am trying not to freak out about the cost of shipping! Each box that’s 24”x18”x18” is about $125 to ship – which means one palette full of 16 of those boxes will cost $2,000 – just to get to Oslo – then we have to pay to have it brought to Aalesund, which honestly, could cost another $2,000. I wrote to Rolf-Inge (a guy we know with a trucking company in Norway) to get an idea of that expense. But still… to buy any of that stuff is outrageous so I’m just planning to pack the things we can’t really borrow from a cousin or it’s too expensive to buy over there – i.e., a printer I got for $50 here but would be probably $500 there… stuff like that. And I’m pretty sure we can get everything in 12-16 boxes so that won’t be too bad. And most of it won’t come home with us – we’ll leave a lot of things over there.

So, that’s the latest this fine May day. We leave 2 months from tomorrow and much has yet to be done – but the shipping has to be ready by mid-June and sometime between now and the 7th of June I have to work on Kaleb’s birthday party. Yikes.

Tensions Mount...

I am still trying to get bids on the cost of moving boxes to Norway. Nothing is easy. No answers consistent. Even within websites about moving things to Norway some say you can’t bring in any vitamins, others say only some are outlawed. Finding the truth is daunting and I have fears about spending money on a year’s supply of vitamins or some other commodity we can’t get over there – and then have them throw it out at the port of entry. It happened once going to Australia. We brought along a lot of beef jerky, and it ended up in the trash. $40 down the drain. It was such an assault to my pocketbook and sense of what is good and evil. What’s the point? Wouldn’t the beef jerky do less harm to their environment being processed through my body first, rather than ending up in a garbage dump? Weird. So… flashbacks are happening and it sets the stage for a bit of tension.

WE GOT APPROVED!

WE FINALLY GOT APPROVAL TO LIVE IN NORWAY! We actually got notified by the consulate on Thursday the 8th, but it’s been a whirlwind of activity around here since then so I’m late in recording the monumental news! It’s a bit of shock and awe at this point. Kaleb is devastated and cries every time it’s mentioned. Kory and I are relieved mostly, just that we know what the future holds for now, but also trying not to freak out about the details.

The good news is that they issued us work permits! This takes a huge amount of pressure off trying to live on the deflated dollar. And I called social security and Kory can make up to $13,560 this year and not lose a dollar of his benefits and next year he can earn over $35,000 and then after that – it’s unlimited. So that’s cool. I can earn up to $13,560 each year… so if we both get part time jobs over there we should be just fine. Then we have to find a car for around 5 grand (nearly impossible, but with God, all things are possible)… and an apartment for around a thousand a month – another seemingly impossible task since there are so few available… so I’m full of anticipation as to how God is going to provide for every fork and knife we will need as we aren’t bringing a thing but clothes and a few household items. And I know it will be a good story when we get through this next chapter.

To Ship or Not To Ship, That is the Question

A few years ago when we were visiting Norway, I talked with a woman from Canada that had married a Norwegian and moved there. I remember her words ever so clearly – her biggest frustration in living there was asking questions of Norwegian officials and getting different answers each time she asked.

Norway is only a country of four and a half million people. They don’t get the same questions too often and people probably do their best in answering, but no one bothers to look it up in the book. I have concerns in this regard, too.

As I contact all the different shipping companies about the car being sent over there, it seems they believe I’ll pay the import tax the minute it arrives. Norwegians have told me there will be NO import tax (to the tune of $10,000) until the car has been there for more than one year. So far, none of the information I’ve gotten from anyone about what can and can’t be brought in and how the process goes – matches up. Another reason for that disconcerted feeling I have about it all.

But our God is a God of miracles and working out details and if I were to sit and stress about all this I would certainly end up with health related consequences… so I will just let God work it all out – however he sees fit.

I just checked the classifieds for Norway and it seems we can get a used car for around $5,000 – which seems like a bargain at this point, so maybe that’s the route we’ll take. All the fees would have been paid already and the car can remain in the country. Now just figuring out how to get household items and clothes over there….

The Cost of Shipping

I’m still getting quotes to move a few things overseas. We want to bring a car since cars are also crazy expensive over there (with 100% sales tax on them). Our Lexus, at this point, is almost a disposable car since it has over 260,000 miles on it, but it keeps going strong. The ideal would be to leave it there so we have a car every time we go for a visit.

We were hoping to get a shipping container – 20 foot – and put the car and a few household items and clothes in there, but I’m sitting here trying to get over the shock of the first genuine quote I got - $8,000! (Apparently the first quote I got was an internet scam.) The car isn’t even worth that. If we just ship the car it’s only $2,000 (nothing can be inside it), but we have to drive it to Long Beach, California and pick it up in Oslo. How much the boxes are is still a mystery. Each day, something new to think about, plan for… but NOT stress over… this HAS to be stress free or else we shouldn’t be going.

Money woes

I watch the exchange rates daily. At one point, a few years ago, you could buy 10 kroner for a dollar. When we bought our condo you could buy 8.5 kroner. Now, you can’t even buy 5 kroner -- it’s in the 4 range. Norway was super expensive when it was any price, but now it’s over the top crazy expensive.

A few years ago when we were visiting Aunt Ruth she mentioned she needed a new toilet seat. It was just a plastic thing, but made in Norway. The exchange rate was about 6.5 to the dollar and still the toilet seat cost $125! Today’s rate would make it $175. For a toilet seat! That’s the scariest part – even little thing costs more money than is conceivable. I am sooooo trying NOT to worry about money, but even in America we’re having a hard time each month just making it on $4,000 a month. The price of gas in Norway used to be about $4.50 a gallon when it was only $1.50 here. Now it’s closer to $4.50 here and about $12 a gallon in Norway. Hard to imagine. But in Norway, people don’t drive the distances they do here, so the gas does last longer. And we still need to keep up our auto and medical insurance while we’re gone or we’ll lose them. So many things about American policy are completely insane. I think there should be a country where everything makes sense. I’d like to be President of that place.

The Unknown

I’m beginning to set up on-line bill paying and taking care of the smallest of details. I fear as the days grow nearer, I’ll be in a panic and not thinking about the little things.

Our friends left yesterday and 2 new dogs arrived today, along with an old friend for lunch. She brought a friend. Kaleb is so behind in his school work and I was hoping to make big progress today but we didn’t. At least we got The Weekly Puppy published (but not delivered). My list of things to do before we go keeps growing, and the days keep passing.

If we could live in our condo in Norway, we would all be tickled pink we are going - couldn’t be happier. But the fact we are not living there makes us all want to stay home. We want the familiar – to some extent. We love the location – right next to the other aunts; attached to the mall; across the sidewalk from the swimming pool and movie theatre; right next to the library; across the street to the church. Everything we would ever need is within arm’s reach, and it would be furnished (if Aunt Ruth was no longer living there). But as it is, we face the strong possibility of moving into an empty apartment in an unknown neighborhood.

In Norway, when tenants move, they even take the light fixtures and heat registers and often the appliances. We cannot possibly afford to furnish an apartment, nor do we want to ship furniture over there, so the old “what will we do?” question keeps popping in my head. I trust God that he has the ability to provide a house sitting opportunity, or even a furnished apartment, or even our own condo… but it’s all a big unknown right now and it’s kinda scary.

Where Do I Start?

For the last several weeks I’ve had it on my calendar to start cleaning out closets. For some reason I think this is the first step I need to take to prepare for our move. Getting rid of junk, making space for our housesitters, deciding what to bring and leave behind. But, as with all good intentions, life gets in the way. Last week my step-mom’s sister died and my two days off from schooling Kaleb were spent in Renton with my step-mom. The evenings of my days at home were spent preparing the funeral. Last week we had guests in our upstairs apartment – family of friends of ours in town for a big birthday celebration. All beds were full at the families homes so we provided for a lovely retired couple so they could spend time with their family in from Alaska. I couldn’t get to the closets that need my attention the most so I used the time to pay bills and take care of a million details life often provides (pricing new tires for our van, finding shipping companies, dog sitting the neighbors dog and feeding the goats…). This week we have a family of six living upstairs as they sold their house and aren’t ready to leave the area for a few weeks. We love this family though so we wish they would never leave, but still, no access to closets. At least I’ve made a list of things I think I need to do before we go and things to buy and stock up on for our year abroad. It’s a good thing we’ve gone to Norway as often as we have so we know what we can and can’t get there and how expensive everything is. I’ve purchased a year’s supply of clothes and shoes for Kaleb – the next size up – as one pair of jeans can cost over a hundred dollars in Norway.

The dollar is at the all time lowest it’s ever been against the kroner. I think we are nuts to go live there at this time with such a high cost of living. But one day when I was praying to God about it I felt him remind me of how scared we were when we bought our condo initially. We thought it was only going to cost $50,000 and it turns out, after it was too late to back out of the deal, we discovered the condo cost $150,000. We nearly cried. We panicked. We drank much wine and stayed up late talking about it with the cousins in Norway. But in the end, God provided every penny we needed, every time, and now the condo is paid for and God was asking me, “You’re worried about money?” I know it’s one of the easiest things he can do so I had to let it go and let him work out the details. And a part of me hopes the details include closing the door to Norway! The thought of spend $7 dollars on a head of lettuce or $12 on a gallon of gas goes against every fiber of my being… especially the fibers that like to get a bargain.

I got our first bid for moving the car and some boxes – around $3,000 – about what we expected. It will be so nice to have our own car over there and hopefully we can keep it there. We’ll see.

Extreme Home Fellowship

I’m going to miss our home fellowship group the most. I have often felt like I don’t belong to things or fit into groups, but I have come to love each and every person in our Sunday night Home Fellowship group and I appreciate their tolerance and acceptance of me and it will be hard not to connect with that every week. I belong there. At last and for once, I know I belong.

Today we did a service project – just showing a woman we don’t even know the love of Jesus by doing a lot of work to her yard and in her house. All of us gathered over at Shelter Bay for a beautiful spring day of sprucing up her place and I’m so tired now I can barely type a word, but it felt good. We were all proud to be part of being the hands and feet of Jesus today.

Here's the article I wrote about it for our church newsletter:

Extreme Home Fellowship

We have been blessed the last two years to be part of the BEST home fellowship group Bethany has to offer (OK, I’m partial because I’m part of it, but still… it is a good group!). We meet every Sunday night for soup, salad and bread – all 14 of us adults and 15 kids. Jason and Benita Rozema host the event and we all chip in for a babysitter so we can have uninterrupted adult conversation revolving around our relationship with Christ. We always start the evening off with a “getting to know you” kind of question, even though you’d think we’d know each other pretty well by now, but we always learn something new every week, so we keep doing it. One week the question was, “What kind of volunteer work have you done?” and in hearing some of the surprising answers, someone suggested we should do a volunteer project together. There was a hearty round of agreement and in minutes the Thulens suggested a single mom they had heard of that could use some help around the yard and needed a few small home repairs done. We picked a date and the deal was done.

On Saturday, April 26th, we set aside the entire day to bless this woman that none of us knew (her daughter was good friends with Debbie Thulen’s niece). God gave us a wonderfully sunny day to carry out our task. Besides massive yard word, the list of tasks involved repairing some door hinges, minor plumbing repairs and replacing wood damaged by a leak. My ever-so-handy husband, Kory Slaatthaug, took care of the inside jobs. While he was busy with that, the good-with-details members of our group - Gail Williams-Martin, Susan Lange, Anne Clark and Denise Hanstad (on loan to us for the day) were busy in the living room painting it a new color, tidying up a bit and washing windows. Outside the house the total yard makeover was in full swing. Up on the roof were the not-afraid-of-anything people – Debbie Thulen, Benita Rozema and Dave Clark – scraping off clumps of moss and tree debris that had managed to cover the entire surface of the house and clog every inch of the gutters. In the front yard were the Martha Stewart’s of our group - Windy Hindman and Carol Annema, busy planting flowers in a flower bed and creating planting strips where none had been previously. Supplying our group with the latest in “cool boy toys” (I mean, “tools”) was Jason Rozema on the chainsaw with his willing-to-do-anything handy side-kick Terry Annema, removing what seemed like half a forest that surrounded the house. Tough guys Avery Hindman and Ian Lange were in the back of a very large farm dump truck as they helped stack up two full loads of yard waste and branches. On the ever-so-fashionable John Deere riding lawn mower was dear John Thulen (looking a lot like he’d done that before). Smiley faced John Hanstad (another loaner for the day) worked the pressure washer (with a grin, no less) that cleaned up the house, deck and sidewalk. Buffed-out Ahmik Hindman came with a load of soil and unloaded it in the planting beds before the beauty bark was put down. And I spent most of the day wresting a nasty patch of blackberry bushes (a task similar to getting a comb through my hair). Even cutey boys D.J. Clark and Carter Annema helped haul things to the dump truck when they weren’t busy catching snakes, picking up snails or petting the local puppy dog’s tail.

What amazed me the most was how much we all got done in a matter of six hours. When one person was done with one job, they looked around and grabbed a rake and started cleaning up, or helped someone else with another task. There were no slackers. There was no chit-chat. We were putting our hands and hearts to work to show this woman the love of Christ in a way I have never experienced before. The house came alive and had Jesus’ love shining through. At the end of the day a neighbor walking his dog yelled out at the homeowner, “Is this what a miracle looks like?” And she responded, “Yes, it’s a miracle!” Indeed it was - one that we were all so very happy to experience together. And then we all went back to the Thulens for a Bar-B-Que (including the home owner and her daughter).

It gave the term “Home Fellowship” a whole new meaning.

The Countdown is On

Three months from today we will leave. There is much to do, yet I find myself procrastinating. We haven’t even gotten our official green light from the Norwegian government to go. We applied the first of January 2007. They said it would be a few months. After five months, I called the consulate in San Francisco and they said it could take up to 8 or 10 months. So, we missed our window of opportunity last year to go as we wanted to line our arrival up with Kaleb’s school year. So we waited patiently. We have a six month window to occupy the country once we’ve been approved. I waited until February 2008 and then called again. The consulate was shocked it had been so long. She assured me this was not the norm. Isn’t that the way it is with God’s timing? When good things happen that aren’t the norm, we know God is at work. When things don’t make sense, even when they are perceived as “bad” – we still know it’s God at work. God’s timing - not ours. We planned last year to be the best year to go, and it didn’t happen. Now we face another summer, another potential window of opportunity to go and get all we can out of a year abroad. But we wait on God.

It will be challenging enough to have Kaleb move from America to Norway – homeschool to public school – but to have him arrive once school has already started is a bit much. So we wait. This is the year God planned this to happen – we assume. I do pray he closes the door hard if for any reason this is NOT a good idea.

I had a dream about a month ago. We were at Sharpe’s County Park and there was a platform built out over the edge of the rocks so you could look straight down into the water. Some daredevil guy was going to jump off it – assuming he wouldn’t be killed in the fall. Everyone tried to talk him out of it but I was there with a video camera, capturing the attempt. He jumped. We all watched him fall and in the dream the drop was much longer than in real life. As he was about 2/3 of the way down a wind came and blew him dangerously close to the face of the cliff and we were all aghast that he might be dashed against the rock face and splatter his brains all over the place. Then another wind came from seemingly behind the cliff and pushed him out away from the rocks as he continued his descent downward. Then, just when it seemed he would hit the water, another strong wind came from the right and blew him completely parallel to the water’s surface – all the way across Deception Pass and he landed safely near the beach at the park. The coast guard had to rescue him as he was unconscious but not hurt. And then I woke up.

I told Kory I had a dream and explained the details. First thing he said was “What does the wind represent to you?” And the fact is, in Greek, wind and spirit are the same word, so I said it could mean the Spirit. It then occurred to me we were planning to take the plunge, as it were, and move to Norway so this dream was about Norway. And after much prayer and consideration, it seemed that God was saying to go ahead and plan the move, and the permission would come at the last minute. The dream also came at the end of the week after I’d gone for prayer at church asking if “this week” I could hear something about moving to Norway. We were expecting to hear from the Norwegian government, but instead, I heard from God.

Basically God is saying to get ready to go, and at the last minute, the permission will come. So that’s what we are doing, but it’s new level of faith for me as I usually wait to hear from God before taking the first step, but now he’s asking me not only to take a step, but to jump off the cliff, and he’ll come and rescue me on the way down. Talk about faith!

The Beginning

I bought tickets to go to Norway yesterday. Normally I can’t wait to click on “purchase”, but yesterday I stalled. I read all the fine print. I looked for excuses not to buy them, but the price made me commit. The fact is, it seems, we are moving to Norway for a year, and I just couldn’t help but be a little sad about leaving the comfortable life we now have. But that’s what it’s like when you sign a blank paper with God and say you will follow where he leads.

True enough, I asked for this. From one of the first times I met Kory, I joked with my cousin that “someday I was going to marry that man and run off with him and live in Norway.” And it happened – almost 20 years after saying it. But life is so good now. Our house is the best. I love everything about our life. Kaleb is doing well in school. We have a groove. We are all involved in different things and feeling useful. And it’s spring – and there’s no better place to be in the spring than in the Skagit Valley with our view over the blooming tulip fields and the golden plum blossoms in our yard. Out every window is a scene I could stare at for hours. We have great neighbors. We love our church and all that we do there. Kaleb has great friends and wonderful enrichment activities. Life is good. Maybe too good. Maybe our faith needs to be stretched and we need to find God on a closer level.

After I finished some quiet time tonight I went “Bible dipping” – where I just opened up the Word and read the first thing I saw. It was in Isaiah 43 and this scripture stuck out: “This is what the Lord says- he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters… Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me and the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.” I get it. We are blessed. Norway has lost sight of the God we know. They need to hear about our God, our Savoir. They need to know people who know this God. They have lost him. The government has provided for all their needs and their need for God is no more.

But I like snuggling in bed with Kory and Kaleb in the morning. I like this time in my life. I worry that everything will change and when we come back, everything will be different. Maybe a neighbor will die or a tree will be cut down. Maybe Kaleb will be too old to snuggle and he’ll be roughed up a bit by school kids and lose his innocence. Maybe….

But God is promising a New Thing and I do know God well enough to know that a New Thing is not ever a BAD thing. So my focus will shift from one of sadness over what we are leaving, to excitement over what is yet to come.

The details will work themselves out and my worries over the fallen dollar, the high cost of living in Norway, the empty apartment we may encounter, the long dark winter… will all fade as God reveals his perfect plan because he has promised a New Thing. And I have promised to follow.