23 May 2013
Kory really wanted to go visit his 90-year-old cousin this
morning at the old folks day care center where he spends his days waiting for
permanent placement, so Kaleb and I stayed behind at Slaatthaugen after Halvard
went to work. Kaleb got some schoolwork
done and I got a few more articles off to the newspaper. It was a relaxing morning actually, and nice
to not have to rush on out the door to some new destination.
Kory’s elderly cousin inherited the farm from Kory’s uncle (the
oldest son of his grandparents) and it’s now owned by the youngest son in his
cousin’s family, Halvard, because none of the older sons wanted it. The
Norwegian inheritance laws changed recently, so the farm will now be passed on
to Halvard’s daughter, since she’s older than his son. She has an interest in keeping the farm
going, even though they rent out the farmland to a neighbor for grazing
cattle. The laws around inheriting the
family farms continue to change bit by bit as there is one set of laws around
the farm if it’s being actively farmed, and another set around if it’s
not. Also, if a farm is under five
acres, it could be worth about ten million kroner, but if it’s over five acres,
it’s worth about three million. This is
because the larger farms have to remain farmland, where the smaller farms have
the right to divide up the land for building lots. Norway is losing about 1,500 farms a year, on
average, with now only 40,000 farms in the land versus a some years ago when
there were over 100,000 farms. A hundred years ago everyone was a farmer. It was good for Kory to touch the green green
grass of his homeland.
When Kory got back and we were ready to take off again, we
tried to find a shorter route to KragerΓΈ, our next stop, but we kept ending up on dirt roads, so we’d
turn around and head back to where we started.
We had several of these false starts so it wasted about an hour of our
time just trying to get out of town.
Ugh. Sometimes I really hate
GPS. At least I got to stop at a thrift
store along the way but their prices were too high.
When we finally decided it was best to stick to the main
highway, we made good time and still got to our destination smack on time. We were meeting with a couple that attended a
Bible study we held in 2008 when we lived in Norway. They are from Eritrea in Africa and he was
the pastor of a church there. Because
it’s a muslim nation, he was being hunted down to be put in jail, so they
escaped in the night and got out of there – only to end up in Norway as asylum
seekers. They are a wonderful couple and
we’ve kept tabs on them each year we come to Norway, but just by phone. They got transferred to southern Norway for
permanent residency just as we were leaving Norway in 2009. Since then they’ve had 3 children, he’s
gotten a job and she’s now attending Norwegian lessons. It’s been quite the adjustment for them these
past five years, but they are happy people, no matter where they are or what
they are doing. It was such a blessing
to see them and he kept saying, “This is a happy day for us!”
We thought we’d just stop in to say hello, but they knew we
were coming so they made dinner, dessert and coffee. We didn’t have as much time to spend with
them as we’d like, but we got caught up on the main things in their lives and
saw they are doing well. They were
curious about everything going on at Philadelphia Church and in Aalesund and
with us, so we had to talk fast.
Another hour drive east and we stopped for the night in
Arendal with Kory’s cousin (below) on his mom’s side – the only one that moved away
from Aalesund. All the other cousins’
we’ve been visiting have been from his dad’s side but this one was
special! We got to spend the evening
chatting with them, as well as spend the night.
I guess next time we come back we’ve been instructed to stay longer. He’s just been miraculously healed of a
ruptured disc, so it was fun to hear the details.
He’s been paralyzed from pain for several months from this
rupture and the doctors told him they couldn’t operate because it might
permanently paralyze him. He felt it was
worth the risk because his life wasn’t worth much in the condition he was
in. As he was in the hospital preparing
for surgery, lying on the gurney, the doctor left the room and he cried out to
God and said, “If I ever needed you God, I need you now.” He said the roof of the hospital appeared to
peel away and a bright blue light came shining down on him, shaking his head
and whole body rather violently. When
the light went away, he knew he was healed and he got up from the operating
table and walked out of the room, to the absolute shock and amazement of the
hospital staff. Talk about a hallelujah
moment. He’s totally fine now and can do
everything and anything he wants.
So it was another rather social day, but that was the
purpose of our road trip. It’s late and
I’m beat but we have a wonderful place to lay our heads for the night. Hallelujah, as each day is a miracle.
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