Pinsedag

Pentecost was in full swing this morning at the local Pentecostal church we attend across the street from our condo. It was an incredibly special day for us because both Pentecostal churches in town decided to join together for one service on this very celebratory day. I am sure part of their reasoning was because it’s a three day weekend and attendance would be very low at all churches in Norway, but it was a great idea, nonetheless. I joked with Kory as we looked around at the people in the sanctuary, when I said, “These are all the people in Norway who do NOT have a cabin.” About 42% of all Norwegians own a cabin, and most certainly, they were all at them this weekend.




Both Agape church and Philadelphia church were under one roof this morning – and since we split our time between the two of them when we are here, we had our whole church family together worshiping God. It was very cool and exciting to see everyone at once. Kaleb and I were elated the Agape worship team sang our all time favorite song “Uten deg” (Without You). Oh man, that song makes me cry every time I sing it. Translated, the words to the chorus are: Without you I am without hope, but with you, I have everything.” If that doesn’t encapsulate the Christian experience, I don’t know what does.



We invited cousin Axel (Tante Aslaug’s son) and his wife Kari over for coffee after church because there was no café time after the service (which is normal), being it was a holiday and all. They were heading out to visit Tante Ruth and didn’t want to go back home for a little bite to eat, so I informed them I had a little food at our house that needed to be eaten up before we are gone for the week. They didn’t hesitate to accept that invitation, so they came over and had this left over (but incredibly good) salmon/cream cheese spread I make and put on crackers, and Kaleb made waffles (the typical food served with coffee here in Norway.) After a nice little chat with them, I drove Kaleb over to Andre’s house for the afternoon so Kory and I could pack up and get ready for our trip to Spain while Kaleb had some extra play time with his pals.



We haven’t been in contact with too many people since we’ve been back in Norway this time because we’ve been waiting to have the condo done and ready for “viewing,” plus we’ve been pretty busy. But now when we get back from our week in Spain, we will only have three weeks left in Norway, so we need to book up as much time as possible for visiting friends and family. I texted one of Kory’s childhood friends to see about scheduling a time for them next week, and he called us right away, all excited we were in town, and wanted us over for coffee tonight! It was quite a push to make it there but we really wanted to get together with them, also. Getting to their place involved taking a ferry to cross the fjord, but they picked us up on the other side so we didn’t have to pay the $30 fare each way for the car – just the $15 for us. That ferry ride always provides jaw dropping views (see photo of farms lit up by the setting sun), but tonight they were a bit diminished by the low lying clouds in the area. It was still gorgeous.



We mixed a little business with pleasure on our visit with them, as Ole-Petter is one of the head guys at the biggest bank in Norway, so we inquired about all kinds of financial things to help us understand the system here a little better. Ole-Petter also owns one of the coolest cabins in the land, and Kaleb has a huge desire to spend the night in it, so we asked if we could borrow it for a night in a few weeks so Kaleb could have a sleepover with his friends there. They said “yes” before I even finished asking the question. They are the nicest folks. But now Kory is a bit worried about what may happen to their place with boys running loose. It’s not like they will be there without us. It’s also a little half-birthday bash for Kaleb. He otherwise LOST his big summer birthday party because of previous defiant behavior, but after that he made a pretty big turnaround so I promised him some kind of celebration. We otherwise don’t do much on his real birthday in December, so I felt a little guilty about pulling the plug on his summer one. This should do just fine and will cost a whole lot less.



Because we have to get up early tomorrow to drive to Oslo, we thought we’d try to get to bed by 8:30 so we had a few hours sleep before the alarm went off at 4am. That didn’t happen. We had less than three hours for our coffee visit with our friends before we had to go get Kaleb and head home. When we showed up at Andre’s house, his mom had made us a carrot cake, so she invited us to sit down and have coffee and cake with them! We didn’t get home until after ten. Kaleb went right to bed, but Kory and I still had a bit of packing to do so Kory was up until eleven, then I couldn’t sleep so I am now up until after midnight. It will be a long day tomorrow, but I’m excited about the trip. Now I just hope I can sleep.