Last days of holliday

This summer has been such a blessing to us from God. The weather has been nice and warm week after week, only interupted by a few showers of rain, just enough to keep the grass green. It has also made it easy for us to get a lot of work done and successfully finish what was planned.

But having time off, is also doing things like fishing, trips by boat, walking, going to the city just to walk along Bryggen, looking at all the boats and eating icecreem. Staying home and still be on vacation, is just as good as going away.

Here's some photos from - some days ago. I don't remember when! Someone told me that a good holliday, is when you forget what day we have.

Visiting Poland

I've never been in Eastern Europe until now. My wife and youngest daughter have visited Warsaw this week. It's been an exiting and good experiance. The weather has been good. The temerature wonderful, the air is clean and the food is tasty and served in bigger portiones than even I can easily consume.

It's been a relaxing time, even though we have done a lot of sightseeing, swimming, walking and shopping. I have never in my life spent so much time walking the streets of a big city, hunting a special type of shoes that my daughter wants. And I hate shopping. But when you love someone, there's nothing better to do. So we have really had a good time here.

Today it is rainy. But we are believing for sunshine again. Our plan was to go to the Zoo and some of the russian market.

Warsaw is a nice city. It is difficult to read the names of the streets. But with a good map and a little time to study the time time-tables on the busstops, it is actually easy to move by busses and trains.

Beside moving, I have had a good time reading the book of Exodus and the latest book of my friend Erling Thu; The Dream from the Heart of God. I've seen new things and been refreshed in wat we've always seen. I suppose we all are by reading good stuff.

More photos from the summercamp

Summercamp for children

Cycling in the water, was just one of many activities on the summercamp at Gullbotn.

The children are very active and love to swim, play football, wolleyball, ping-pong and to entertain one another by performing drama or music. Most of them are nine or ten years, a wonderful age, so open to God, so willing to listen, so honest, and easy to work with.

And our wishes for them was that they would respond to the Gospel and really experiance Gods presence and power. And they did. More than ten of them clearly opened their hearts to Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. Some was baptized in the Spirit. All of us had a good time. We did a lot of biblestudies together, we listened to testimonies, one of the small girls brought a strong profetic word one night and everyone sang the camp-song with great energy. Nobody got seized by homesickness.

We want to glorify God for the work he did in eveyone and also express our gratitude to all the leaders who invested their time and resources. We are all blessed!

Back to Sacaba

I'm so happy to receive good news from my friends working in Sacaba, Bolivia. Sacaba is a city so close to Cochabamba that you would think it was the same city. But it isn't. Sacaba was dusty in May when we had our visit there. We had no building to stay in. But we had the meetings in open air on an open and dusty ground. The teeth was chewing on sand after a night in the Sacaba-dust, and we felt dirty. But it felt good to be dirty because it felt like beeing one of those wonderful children living all the time in the dusty place. It's only on the outside. Inside we are all clean, knowing Jesus.



My greatest longing this year have been to come back to the field in Sacaba and see what has happened to them since last year. And I was not disapointed. The smiles was bigger, and they had matured in many ways. I said to them: (mostly children) "I think your smiles are bigger than last year?" And they all shouted: "Siiiiiiiiiii"!! I think Jesus has grown inside you? Siiiiiiiiii !!!"



Oh, I love this people. Most of them are children. God is doing great things here among children and youths. Last year we had the first meeting here. 63 people gave their life to Christ. That was the beginning. During the last 12 months they have grown to about 150. The last night we had together with them on May 7th , more people came and 36 more gave their life to Jesus, children and adults. On the mothers day recently, many mothers were invited to the field for a "mommy-meeting". 46 of them received salvation. And when we visited the schools in May, 750 youths responded to the gospel of the kingdom of God. That's when we knew that there is a lot of work ahead. How can we do it? Well, I strongly believe that the Lord know what he's doing and will lead us.

I find myslf saying "us" like I was still there. I'm not, but feel included and responsible anyway. I can pray for them. Our bolivian friends are doing a great job, and it is so good to find that the Lord open doors on the schools, and lead a way to take care of all this young men and women, who within a few years, will be the fathers and the mothers of the nation.

Working on the garage.

Last summer I started to build a garage by the help of my father and a good friend. My plan has been to finnish it this spring, not only the building itself but the place around. It's a lot more work to be done than just the raising of the building.

The last weeks we have been blessed with the most wonderful weather, which has made it a joy to work, and aspecially made it easy to do the painting. Yesterday was saturday, and a good long day to have a lot of things done. I also had the opportunity to give a hand to my nabours, cutting down some trees in their garden. They are selling their house these days and are about to move to a new place. I'll miss them.

There's still a lot of work to be done on the garage -project. But we're getting closer week by week now. Next week there are many afternoons occupied in my scedule. But the nice weather is going to last, and my father, even in his 78th year, is still going strong. Work, is a blessing to him. And his work is a blessing to many.

May 17th

May 17th is our Constitution Day. The weather is nice but not too warm. Wind from north moves all the flags.

For about 400 years, we were ruled by Denmark, until we got our own constitution in 1814. Up to 1905 we had to share the King and some important political departments with Sweden. But since then we have been a free nation, exept five years of German invation during the second World War. (1940-45)

Freedom is a good reason for celebrating. We have to pray for our nation that freedom will last, all kinds of freedom. And we have to pray that freedom will come, some kind of freedom. Freedom is more than absence of war. Freedom is more than staying out of jail. It's more than a freedom to express one self in writing og talking. All these things are so good.

Freedom is for a greater purpose. Freedom is for the purpose of the Creator. For His purpose have we been set fri to love and to serve, to go and to tell, to bind and to loose, to know and to forget, to untie and to sacrifice. To His purpose are all kinds of freedom.

But we don't forget the world around us. The attacks yeasterday, the earthquake in China, the unstable political situation in Bolivia, the hunger following raising prices all over the world, the need for solutions and for salvation.

Two weeks ago in Bolivia, a great violent riot was expected to take place in the city of Cochabamba. All our programs were closed. Even footballgames were canselled. Busses stood still. Everyone stayed inside, in order to take care of their own security. Tens of thousands of visiters and supporters of the president was gathered. We heard words like "civil war, revolution and blod" used. Quite unlike the normal for us norwegians to bee in the midst of this. But the world is not that big.

But there is one who overcame the world, who listen to prayers and who answered his children in Bolivia that day. He's the one who can bring the perfect peace, the real liberty and the most valuable freedom.

Have a nice May 17th.