The Lord's Day

When we are in Norway, we switch off going to two different Pentecostal churches.  Philadelphia, the one across the street from us, is the one we’ve always gone to since we started coming here, and the one Kory’s aunts go to.  Agape is the one that lies in our old neighborhood and we could walk to from our house when we lived here, but is about four miles away now, so it’s a bit too far to walk on a Sunday morning.  We are by far the oldest people in that church, but it’s very much alive and full of the Holy Spirit, so we all love to go there.  Since we still don’t have a car, we planned to attend Philadelphia Church today. When we told Kaleb last night we’d be going there he got tears in his eyes and said, “Agape is the only church in Norway where God is alive, and we’re not going THERE?”  He much prefers Agape, but we have friends in both.  As we were having breakfast, my friend, Bente, sent me a text message that her husband was on his way to pick us up so we could go to Agape Church with them.  That pretty much overrode our plans, so Kaleb was thrilled.    

Pastor Mark, from Agape, greeted us in the parking lot when we arrived and said how exciting it will be to have us along on the trip they are taking to Israel next month. Many came and told Kory how glad they are to start hearing his HALLELUJAHs again and they sure weren’t disappointed today.  Kory shouted many, as the preaching was pretty hot!

We stayed and had coffee at the café afterwards so we could visit with people we know and a few we didn’t.  When we got home, we saw there were still plenty of cars in the parking lot at Philadelphia, so we walked over there to go to the café and greet our friends that attend that church.  I was in deep trouble with some of my prayer group ladies as they were waiting all morning for me to show up, and I didn’t.  Oops.  But Kaleb invited his friend Daniel over for the afternoon so the two of them sat inside all day and played Nintendos while Kory and I visited Tante Kari and did a little cleaning up from last night.

Our friends (and Kory’s old childhood neighbor), Ole-Petter and Unni, from Sykkylven, invited us to dinner tonight so we had to take the bus ($32) to the ferry terminal, then take the ferry ($27) across the fjord.  They picked us up on the other side and drove us to their house.  (Getting around Norway isn’t cheap – and that was with Kory and Kaleb both being half price!)  We haven’t been out much since we got here but with that little jaunt, I was finally able to take some photos of the mountains around us with my new camera, so that was an added bonus to the day. 

I thought we’d just be having dinner with Ole-Petter and Unni (so I didn’t dress up at all), but they were so excited we were in town they invited two other couples they are good friends with to also join us for a little dinner party (who were dressed up to the MAX – as is the norm for dinner parties around here – so then I looked like a real slob - oops.)  Ole-Petter wanted us to tell some of our stories about things God has done in our lives so their friends could hear it for themselves, so we had quite the attentive audience and we did a LOT of talking.  It was some dinner party.

One of the guys is an architect and his wife works for the local paper.  The other guy is a high end furniture designer and his wife is a Norwegian language teacher.  As it turned out, we both recognized each other since she was my “censor” (the judge) when I took my Norsk 2 exam – so she was the one that passed me.  She complimented me many times on how well I speak Norwegian (otherwise, why would she have passed me – tee hee.)  She also told me she was sure they speak Norwegian in heaven, since it takes an eternity to learn it.  Ha ha.

It was very fun to meet new people and they seemed genuinely impressed with some of the miracles we’ve experienced.  Ole-Petter and Unni didn’t mind a bit hearing the stories again, but I did have a new story to tell – the one about hooking up two long lost friends through the weekly article I write for our paper– one guy in LaConner and one in Aalesund who lost contact over thirty years ago.  The minute I said the name of the local guy, they all went “Ahhh” as they all knew him for various reasons.  That was funny. 

I gave a color copy of Kory’s first watercolor painting of Norway to our hosts as a thank you gift and they were most impressed by it, as were the others.  The two men, both artistic in their own way, analyzed it quite a bit and told him how incredible it was.  They were all sure we’d get rich off Kory’s talent and I don’t believe they were just being polite.  Last night Turid said she was sure we could sell his copies for 300 kroner each ($60), but I’d be thrilled with just half that since they only cost $2 to make.  We’ll see.  Guess I should have brought more copies.

The whole evening was very entertaining.  Unni made scallops and served them very fancy for an appetizer, then we had deer stew, which was the first time I’ve ever eaten deer, but it tasted pretty good.  She also made a delicious nut cake with fruit and whipped cream on top so we all moved into the living room and had coffee after dinner (see photo).  Kaleb even told a few stories in Norwegian and they were most impressed by him– even though most of the night he sat in the corner and read a book or played with his Nintendo.  We didn’t get home until midnight, but that’s a fairly normal bedtime for a lot of Norwegians.  We are far from normal, however.

Tracking Down Relatives

My good friend Paula Meredith, flew in from Colorado yesterday not only to visit us and see Norway, but to find “from whence she came.” Paula’s father’s mother’s parents both left Norway in 1893 for a better life in America, and Paula really wanted to see the area they left behind. A month ago, she only had their names and birthdates, but I spent several late nights tracking down church book records of deaths, births, and marriages, as well as finding her ancestors in census records. Luckily, she came from an area that had everything posted on the web, otherwise I might not have been so lucky. But as it was, I found the name of the farm where this set of great-grandparents were living for several years before they moved away, as well as the name of the farm where they both grew up (they lived on the same farm, but different houses.) Finding that information on paper, and finding it in person is a whole other thing, which was the challenge we faced today.

We left the city in a fog this morning – literally, as we headed southwest out of Oslo to the area called Vestfold. It was a two hour drive on narrow winding roads going past vast farmlands, waterways and forested areas. We stopped first at the churches where all the records were kept on her family for several generations, and we walked the cemeteries looking for familiar names. The first church we visited was built in the 1200s. (I only wish they were unlocked as the churches are so plain on the outside, but incredibly ornate on the inside.) We had a picnic lunch at the second church, built in the 1300s. We saw plenty of names from the farms her family was from, but had no way to see how they could be related. Most of the headstones in these old cemeteries are just for the latest generation of the “dearly departed.” Over a hundred years ago they used simple wooden crosses with the names and dates engraved on them, so none of the old information is around anymore. But interestingly enough, these small cemeteries often hold about 10,000 people, as everyone that has died in that parish will get buried in that cemetery – they just put them on top of the last body that was buried there, so in one spot there could be the bodies of a hundred people (a real bone-yard, for sure.)

After we visited with the dead, we headed out to see if we could find any living relatives, or at least someone who might point us in the direction of the farms. I had done my homework, but there is still no way to know exactly which farm or which building on which farm, each person lived. But thanks to the folks in the area that WERE home today and not up in the hills eating their oranges and Kwik-lunsj candy bars, we hit pay dirt. We got to the farm Nordby, but there is a North Nordby, a middle Nordby and a South Nordby so we had to ask a few people before we were sure which one was the place. One man that lived right on the farm where Paula’s great grandfather was born, invited us in, showed us the farm history book, made copies of the pertinent pages and let us look around his incredibly cool house full of family heirlooms dating back to the 1700s. I’m sure he’s related to Paula, but we haven’t connected the dots yet. He was so kind and full of good information. Then we headed off down the street to the place where Paula’s great grandmother grew up and we talked to a neighbor there that told us her house burned down a while ago, but we took photos of the house that stands in the same place. Then we drove several kilometers down the road to another parish where Paula’s great grandparents moved once they were married, and the spot where they lived before the emigrated. Before we were able to pinpoint that location, we stopped to ask for help from an old guy working in his yard. Turns out there is a good chance Paula is related to him, too. He invited his daughter Irene over (who lives across the street), and she was full of family history information and she too let us look at the farm history books so we could pinpoint which building was the right one. She made us coffee, served us a little homemade Danish treat and couldn’t have been any nicer. She very interested in family history and had written up profile information on everyone in her family, so she showed us the book and both Paula and I drooled, as we’d love to make something similar for our families. So after coffee we just went to the house down the street and went up the driveway to meet the man that bought the house of Paula’s greatest interest and he couldn’t have been more helpful either. He showed us the location of the old house where her great grandparents had lived (in the photo it’s up on the knoll just over Paula’s right shoulder between the Evergreen tree and the Birch tree). He showed us a photo he had of the house before it was torn down 15 years ago and he told us the stories of the people who had lived there. We couldn’t get to the exact spot where the foundation still stands because of the amount of snow still on the ground, but he promised to take pictures and send them to her when the snow melts. It was the kind of day that exceeded all our expectations and it just couldn’t have been any better. Dreams do come true.