The photo today is of Josef and Camille Kløven, our dinner guests this evening. Josef’s dad was pallbearer at Kory’s dad’s funeral in 1968 – long before Josef was even born, but his father was a good friend to Halvor (Kory’s dad). Josef’s parents left Norway and moved to Seattle in 1960. Josef moved here eight years ago to attend Youth with a Mission in Ålesund, and ended up staying on and working for them. He met Camille, who is from Kory’s hometown of Langevåg, and they were married last year. She’s currently going to school to be a nurse but they both work at the café that is run by Youth with a Mission. Josef also has his own coffee bean roasting business on the side so they are two very busy people and we were lucky to find a time they could fit us in their schedule. We just met Josef for the first time briefly last year when we were here visiting, as we’d heard there were some other Seattleites in town so we called him up out of the blue and had coffee with him. Tonight was a quick dinner but it was still great to get to know them and cross generational friendships and it’s always good to meet folks from home. It’s funny that Josef just turned 30 and Kory is soon 65, and their father’s were friends. Josef’s mom celebrated her 75th birthday today and he felt a little sad he couldn’t be home to celebrate with her. (He is a “late in life” baby like Kaleb.) We had a nice visit and we hope to meet up with them again. We did a quick check of the family tree and at this point anyway, it seems Kory isn’t related to either one of them – a rare thing in this neck of the woods.
We double dipped on church today – we went to Filadelfia this morning and to Agape tonight. Agape folks were still recovering from the big concert last night so they delayed their service so they could get the concert hall cleaned up. I wish we could go to both churches every week as we like them both so much but now we have to flip flop back and forth. And therein lies the worst problem we have these days – having to pick which church we go to every Sunday. I actually feel like I have survivor’s guilt or something over how great our life is. This week I’ve gotten e-mail after e-mail from people back home about tragic situations unfolding in their lives and here I sit with nothing to complain about. I’m talking death, cancer, divorce, job loss… big stuff going on with people we love right now and, not that I could do anything about it, or that I have control to fix any of it, but it still feels like it would be nice to be more available. So all I can do is pray. Fortunately, it’s not the LEAST I can do, it’s the MOST I can do, but I still feel guilty that we have it so good. It’s like a little bubble of bliss and it sure is nice. Thank you, Jesus! (It’s not like I haven’t had my share of grief in life. Maybe I’ve just had so much that it’s hard to get used to The Promised Land.)
We double dipped on church today – we went to Filadelfia this morning and to Agape tonight. Agape folks were still recovering from the big concert last night so they delayed their service so they could get the concert hall cleaned up. I wish we could go to both churches every week as we like them both so much but now we have to flip flop back and forth. And therein lies the worst problem we have these days – having to pick which church we go to every Sunday. I actually feel like I have survivor’s guilt or something over how great our life is. This week I’ve gotten e-mail after e-mail from people back home about tragic situations unfolding in their lives and here I sit with nothing to complain about. I’m talking death, cancer, divorce, job loss… big stuff going on with people we love right now and, not that I could do anything about it, or that I have control to fix any of it, but it still feels like it would be nice to be more available. So all I can do is pray. Fortunately, it’s not the LEAST I can do, it’s the MOST I can do, but I still feel guilty that we have it so good. It’s like a little bubble of bliss and it sure is nice. Thank you, Jesus! (It’s not like I haven’t had my share of grief in life. Maybe I’ve just had so much that it’s hard to get used to The Promised Land.)
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