Palmesondag

Kaleb wasn’t feeling too hot this morning so he stayed home from church and slept.  He had a stomach ache, sore throat and headache all day, so he was pretty much bedridden and had to cancel a sleepover with Andre, who also didn’t feel so well today.

Philadelphia Church had no service today.  It’s fairly common for churches to close their doors during Easter break and in July because so many people are gone on vacation. I think it’s crazy, but at least Agape Church was open, so we went there, and were blessed. 

I noticed Pastor Mark used his I-pad for his sermon notes – how hip.  It created a little glow on his face because the church is otherwise, very dark.  Agape appeals to the younger crowd so they even do their announcements using “Agape TV” where they obviously use someone’s gifting in the area of media production to make a stimulating visual presentation each week.  It reminds me of my friend that loves to entertain but hates to cook. She serves Costco Lasagne on the most decked out table I’ve ever seen, so it makes the food taste even better.  It’s all about presentation.

We saw a few more people after church that we hadn’t seen since we arrived and we had a chance to visit with them in the café afterwards, so that was nice.  The church was packed out, but I think it had more to do with the baby dedication they did, than the fact it is Palm Sunday.  Many people were dressed in their traditional bunads (National Norwegian costumes), as is customary for baby baptisms.  Agape is a Pentecostal church so they don’t baptize babies, they just dedicate them, than let the kid decide when they are older if they want to be baptized or not.  The parents still throw the traditional baptism party afterwards, which requires everyone to be in formal attire, so it was exciting to see all the family members dressed up.  I just love those bunads!

It rained the entire day, but I came right home from church and started making dinner, so it didn’t matter to me.  We invited Kory’s cousin, Rune and his “samboer” (living together person), Sol, over as a thank-you to Sol for helping us get our license plates back.  We also invited an old childhood friend of Kory’s, Helge, and his wife over too, as another thank-you since last year when we were here he gave us a nearly new set of tires for our van (he owns a body shop).  We didn’t know until tonight that Helge and Rune spent a year together in a Kabutz in Israel when they were young, so that was a fun to learn.  Small world.  (see photo)

I had way too much stress making the dinner though, but in the end, it was all OK.  I made rice with a shrimp/apple/sugar pea topping (sautéed in wine, mustard and crème), and that same warm salad I made the other night with the butter lettuce.  That was all OK, but we stayed too long at the café after church and the dinner took longer than I had to make it all.  I also made pecan squares for dessert and unfortunately, I thought we had enough honey for that recipe, but Kory’s been dipping into the honey pot just a little too much lately and we were down to near nothing.  I panicked, as that was the only dessert option and stores are closed on Sundays around here.  Kory went to Tante Kari, but she didn’t have any honey.  He got some from Tante Aslaug, but her’s was old and solid so I put in the microwave to liquefy it again and it bubbled all over inside the oven so there went the ½ cup I needed. 

Then I remembered that just two weeks ago, thankfully, a “Sunday market” opened up not far from here.  There’s been quite the discussion by store owners as to why stores can’t be open on Sundays, when a few select gas stations are with little mini-marts in them.  Well, the store owners won out and just last week the first “Sunday” store opened down the street.  By law, it can’t be more than 850 square feet, so the items for sale are limited, but Kory ran down there and they had honey!  It saved the day for me.  He said the entrance was on the side of the normal market entrance and the area that was open was blocked off from the rest of the store because of the size limitation for Sunday sales.  The place was PACKED as everyone was buying a thing or two they also probably needed for Sunday dinner.  I hated to resort to shopping on a Sunday because I do like the day-of-rest thing, but I was in a pickle, and the Pecan Squares wouldn’t have worked without it.  The dessert was divine and everyone had a good time, so Hallelujah, for that. 

Everyone brings flowers when they come for dinner so our house is looking like someone died.  Tulips, roses, orchids (see photos).  It’s festive and sure brings color to the otherwise very gray days we’ve been having.  I’ve now got two more couples crossed off my “payback” list with only 13 more to go.  Good thing we’re here for a while.