Yesterday, Kory’s cousin, Linda Bondevik, called to invite us to go to their church with them today. Her two teenage sons lead worship. Rasmuss played the keyboard and Henrik played bass guitar. They were excellent. So was the service. Their church is a branch of the Vineyard Church in America so it had a more relaxed feel than other churches we’ve gone to here. Afterwards we went to Linda’s house for dinner and a nice long visit (see photo). It was a “full service” day. Not only did Linda make us dinner, but she cut Kaleb’s hair, too. Kaleb was more than a little uncomfortable with the fact I wanted to cut his hair again. The painful memory of my first attempt is still fresh in his mind and every time I told him he needed a haircut, he grabbed his head and shrieked, “NO!” So Linda was just the ticket, plus, she’s had about twenty years experience cutting her own kid’s hair. Thank you Jesus, as once again, God has provided for all our needs. (Kid’s haircuts here cost about $50!)
Tante Aslaug, Linda’s mom, was at their house too, so I had a lot of opportunity to speak Norwegian. It exhausts me, but I can tell I’m getting better. All of Linda’s family is fluent in English so the temptation is to just speak that, but it was more polite to include Tante Aslaug and stretch myself. I guess, since I didn’t spend any time studying this weekend, it’s my version of homework. We have a big test coming up on Tuesday and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.
(The other day I was looking at a website that gave global statistics on things and projected out where different countries will be 50 years from now in different areas. It showed the population explosion in many countries around the world, but for Norway, in 50 years the population is expected to be about what it is today. I’m thinking it’s because they made that law that says everyone coming into this country must learn Norwegian, as that’s a sure fire way to get zero population growth from immigrants, anyway. But actually, they made that law because all the Arab immigrants were forbidding their wives from learning the language.)
I see Linda’s kids almost every day at the bus stop at Moa when I change busses to go into town for my Norwegian class. I see someone Kory is related to nearly every day though. Some regularly, like the kids at the bus stop, but others just happenstance when I’m in town. I love that about living here – the small town flavor of everything. Even if we aren’t related to everyone, everyone we meet at least knows someone we are related to. (It helps that Linda’s husband, Lief-Eric [white shirt in the photo] is a radio personality here and his uncle used to be Prime Minister of Norway.) I have a feel of “belonging” here like I’ve never experienced before. Kaleb even said today, “If my friends from America could move here, I’d never want to leave, but I miss my friends and favorite dogs too much, so we can’t stay forever.”
We stayed so long as the Bondevik’s house (which is VERY nice, I might add) we needed “kvelds mat” (night food). Norwegians have an interesting habit of eating food right before they go to bed. Typically, most Norwegians have four meals a day, as they all must eat sometime late in the evening. Odd and Turid have their biggest meal of the day after 10pm, but other families just have slices of bread with things on top, or waffles before bedtime. I hate eating late at night as it makes me have bad dreams. There’s nothing I like more than to go to bed on an empty stomach and I’d prefer to skip dinner altogether. I never understood why Kory wanted late dinners, but now I know. Even though we’ve been married almost 18 years, I’m getting to know him more and more the longer we live here. I’m realizing that all his eccentricities aren’t so much unique to him as they are just the standard cookie cutter variety of Norwegian traits. These Norskies are all so much alike, it’s scary.
Tante Aslaug, Linda’s mom, was at their house too, so I had a lot of opportunity to speak Norwegian. It exhausts me, but I can tell I’m getting better. All of Linda’s family is fluent in English so the temptation is to just speak that, but it was more polite to include Tante Aslaug and stretch myself. I guess, since I didn’t spend any time studying this weekend, it’s my version of homework. We have a big test coming up on Tuesday and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.
(The other day I was looking at a website that gave global statistics on things and projected out where different countries will be 50 years from now in different areas. It showed the population explosion in many countries around the world, but for Norway, in 50 years the population is expected to be about what it is today. I’m thinking it’s because they made that law that says everyone coming into this country must learn Norwegian, as that’s a sure fire way to get zero population growth from immigrants, anyway. But actually, they made that law because all the Arab immigrants were forbidding their wives from learning the language.)
I see Linda’s kids almost every day at the bus stop at Moa when I change busses to go into town for my Norwegian class. I see someone Kory is related to nearly every day though. Some regularly, like the kids at the bus stop, but others just happenstance when I’m in town. I love that about living here – the small town flavor of everything. Even if we aren’t related to everyone, everyone we meet at least knows someone we are related to. (It helps that Linda’s husband, Lief-Eric [white shirt in the photo] is a radio personality here and his uncle used to be Prime Minister of Norway.) I have a feel of “belonging” here like I’ve never experienced before. Kaleb even said today, “If my friends from America could move here, I’d never want to leave, but I miss my friends and favorite dogs too much, so we can’t stay forever.”
We stayed so long as the Bondevik’s house (which is VERY nice, I might add) we needed “kvelds mat” (night food). Norwegians have an interesting habit of eating food right before they go to bed. Typically, most Norwegians have four meals a day, as they all must eat sometime late in the evening. Odd and Turid have their biggest meal of the day after 10pm, but other families just have slices of bread with things on top, or waffles before bedtime. I hate eating late at night as it makes me have bad dreams. There’s nothing I like more than to go to bed on an empty stomach and I’d prefer to skip dinner altogether. I never understood why Kory wanted late dinners, but now I know. Even though we’ve been married almost 18 years, I’m getting to know him more and more the longer we live here. I’m realizing that all his eccentricities aren’t so much unique to him as they are just the standard cookie cutter variety of Norwegian traits. These Norskies are all so much alike, it’s scary.
