Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving has come and gone without any notice from this part of the world. I dare say that it would be impossible to not notice it in the states and it took a bit of concentration to remember when it was from this side of the world. Thanksgiving night we had dinner in homes. The home I went to was of a widow and she made a traditional dish from lamb ribs. Tricky for an American to get the meat off when I am not used to the European eating method where a knife and fork are used in unison. I made an effort though it was obvious that I am not proficient at it (yet). The last two weeks of teaching have had an impact on most of us. One week on spiritual warfare and one on the Holy Spirit. Lots of thoughts and information to process. It has been really cool seeing God answer prayer. The Greenland team prayed that we would be able to obtain affordable transportation. The staff had been searching for several weeks and it was really expensive. The day after we prayed, they were able to get the tickets for half price going and for free (plus taxes) coming back. This weekend we are hosting a youth camp and tomorrow we are leaving for Sweden for 2-3 days of skiing. We went to the library in Ørnes to rent skis and they let us have them for free because they weren't waxed. So cool.

A week in Træna

Instead of an "outdoor week" this week we had a "mini outreach week". The 15 students were broken up into groups of 3 and assigned an outreach location. We were given a budget and we had to plan travel and what we wanted to do while we were there. I went with two female students to Træna. Træna is the second smallest Kommune (county) in Norway. It is contains over 1000 islands but only four have people living on them. It is fairly far out in the sea and we spent 3 hours on a ferry to get there. Most of the people (about 300) live on Husøy, the island we went to. Husøy has the school, church, store, bank and post office (the last three are all in one building). The primary industry is fishing. They have a processing plant there where the fish are gutted and frozen in big blocks and sent off in big ships (mostly to Russia). We stayed at the Grendahus which had an apartment downstairs and a kitchen and hall upstairs. The hall is used for meetings or movies (they showed Shrek 3 while we were there). We spent quite a bit of time with the 10-12 year olds at the school. They were getting ready for a fund raiser on Thursday night. They were making cutting boards and butter knives to sell and practicing dances to perform. It was interesting to be immersed in Norwegian small town culture. One of the days I was supervising the wood shop class (I don't think that would have happened in the US). I felt pretty good that I was doing well at dances that were being taught to fifth graders. The dance teacher was just there for the week. He travels around to different schools teaching dance when he is not digging graves. He did such a good job. We had the kids over one night for games and pizza in the hall. We went Thursday to the gym at the school to see the dances and eat dinner with everyone. We also went to the old folks home to spend some time with them. Friday night we had an overnighter in the gym with games and a movie. That was chaos. None of us were very good at controlling 30 kids that were hopped up on Christmas soda and candy. Somehow I managed to survive and I didn't even kill anyone. They have church once a month (the priest and the organist travel around to different churches) and we were lucky enough to be there on the correct Sunday. One of the old ladies said she wanted to go with us if the weather was nice and it was a really nice day Sunday. We went in the morning to get her and pushed her in her wheelchair over to to the church. The priest left on the same ferry as us so we got to talk to him some on the way back.

Rain, Wind, Sun

The Monday after the outdoor trip was like a brick in the face. During weekdays at the base breakfast is at 7:30. The "early morning" + shorter days + crazy dark stormy weather meant that we were waking up in the dark now. The night we got back from the outdoor trip was windy and rainy and it just stayed that way. On Thursday we heard that it was supposed to be sunny Friday. That sparked a conversation about that last time we saw the sun. The consensuses was that it had been 10-14 days. I thought back and I had only been outside three times since we got back and it totaled less than three minutes. Thursday night the wind and rain ceased and there was a full moon in a starlit sky. It was time for a walk and even the northern lights made an appearance. The next day everyone was ecstatic to see a sunrise in the clear sky.



















It was so hard for everyone to be in class with it being such a nice day. Class ended at lunch and you couldn't have kept people inside with a pack of rabid lemmings. It was like the last day of school in sixth grade. It was so nice to bask in the sun again. In Mexico and California it was so easy to take a sunny day for granted. People just deal with the weather here. When it rains in California people freak out and it is "Storm Watch" all over the news. It doesn't seem to phase people here. I met an old lady walking back from the store in the rain. The cold rainy day didn't seem to make any difference to her. She has lived here for 56 years and loves it. I was all hunkered down in my rain pants and parka and she was just wearing kind of normal clothes. Rain or shine if there is work to be done outside it gets done. Teaching last week was on relationships and next week is on Evangelism. I found out that I am on the team to Greenland. I am a little disappointed that I am not going to Tibet but there is a much better opportunity to really get to know the people in Greenland since we will be staying in the same town for almost the whole time. I am psyching myself up for eating blubber since they really love it there.
Sunrise 7:45 - Sunset 3:45

Troglodyte Adventure

We are back from the caves! We had to drive about four hours to get to the area where they are. If the roads were straight it would only take an hour but since all the roads go around the fjords it takes forever. There are some nice long tunnels through the mountains so that saves some time over what it could be. We stopped at a small shopping area in Ørnes on the way there. There is only one small store in our town so we feel the need to follow our shopping instincts when we get out to a bigger town. Since the Norwegians are adamant about the benefits of wool over synthetics I picked up a set of wool tops and bottoms while we were there. So far I like them quite well. We then stopped by a cave club house so that people could rent gear if they wanted. I got some spiffy red coveralls and a helmet with light. We set up camp in a birch and pine forest nearby. I made camp with a Norsk leader and another Yank student. Two tarps, some twine and a small fire made for quite a cozy place. Eight of us went with some big candles to a shelter cave over a river for a time of reflection. It was fun tromping through the snow filled forest in the dark to get there. We set up the candles all around the cave and listened to the roar of the river. Warm dinner, worship by the fire, a good night sleep and hot porridge for breakfast. We packed up camp and headed for a cabin and more caves. The cabin is beautiful. There is a lot of Norwegian pride in building cabins. The wood work is simple, practical and beautiful. It even had electricity and a wood fired sauna with a grass roof. Water had to be brought up from the river in pails. There was a wooden yoke which made it really easy to carry two pails full of water; very practical. After getting settled at the cabin and packing a lunch we set out for the caves in a cold rain. The caves were fun if a little cold and wet. It actually felt warmer in the caves than outside but the water was cold. One of the caves required crawling in a river up to your eyes to pass through one section. There was only a few inches of airspace at the top and required tipping your nose up if you wanted to breath. I opted to go with one of the leaders to set up a rope on the exit side to help people get up the waterfall at the end. We got to that room just as the first person emerged from the crawl. The room was like a washing machine with water from three directions colliding in a turbulent vortex. One of the girls was so cold she couldn't grip the rope and had to be boosted from the bottom while we pulled her up from the top. The sound of the water was so loud that even shouting wasn't really an effective means of communicating. It was a cool experience. The sauna at the cabin was very welcome after a day of caving. The morning we left the cabin it was snowing fairly hard. Huge fluffy flakes drifting down from the sky; it was so beautiful. The road and everything else was white so the only way to tell where the road was were the black snow poles lining both sides of the road. I got to see quite a few Lemmings on this trip. I had thought that they were just a mythical character, the stuff of cliché and video games but it turns out they are real. They look somewhat like short-hair hamsters. About every four years the Lemming population explodes and there are thousands of them roaming around in herds searching for uninhabited space. They can reproduce when they are only a month old, they have six to seven in a litter and can have a litter every three to four weeks under favorable conditions. When cornered they get very nervous, vibrate and squeak.
Sunrise- 7:19AM, Sunset-4:22PM

Snø!

Sunrise- 6:45AM, Sunset-5:01PM
The snow has arrived. There is about an inch on the ground by the base and the mountains opposite the fjord from us are sufficiently dusted. We put studded winter tires on the two vans since it is likely to stay cold from now on. We just finished up two weeks of teaching and we are excited for our next outing. We are going caveing and it is about a four hour drive from here. We will be camping part of the time and staying in a back country cabin the other part. We found out that the outreach locations are Tibet and Greenland. I think either would be fascinating in it's own way but I have requested to be on the team to Tibet. There is a great group of people here. For the students there are three Norwegians, one Dane, two Latvians, two Germans (one west and one east), one Australian and six Americans. For staff Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and USA are all represented. It is always fun picking up new words, foods, traditions and culture from the people here. I figured out that gas costs about $7.70 a gallon here and this is an oil rich nation. I haven't seen any Hummers or any other obscenely huge cars here. Last night we ran a hose out to the hot tub to fill it up. It was nice sitting out there looking at the stars. Normally it has a wood stove that heats it but someone broke it before we arrived. Word is that we are picking up a new one in Bodo on the way back from caveing. I am so excited for that; it will be so nice to sit out in the hot tub and watch the northern lights dance in the sky around all the stars. I do have a mail address here if anyone wants to send something warm or yummy or whatever.
Don Harvey
UiO, Nordtunveien 5
8170 Engavaagen
Norway
Our Christmas break starts on the 15th of December and everyone will be leaving the base and not returning until after outreach in mid March. For Christmas I have been invited to Denmark. I think there are about six students going. We have an Easter break the week right after that so we won't all be back here until after the 24th of March.

Back at base

We are back at the base after an amazing five days in God's country. We took a 45 minute ferry ride over to an island called Bolga that is in the same fjord that the base is on. Bolga has a small community of farms and a school. We hiked out of town to an area right by the water that had lots of trees on it. There is a small back-county cabin there but it is far to small for all of us. We set up three lavvos (Norwegen tee-pees) for us to sleep in. Then we went on a hike through a hole in the side of the mountain and then up to the peak. It is called Bolgtinden and is 338 meters high. The views on the way up and at the top were really great. There were parts of the trail on the way up that were really steep and sometimes the wind would almost blow me over. The second night there we were given a 3 x 5 meter tarp, some rope and some matches. We set off in separate directions to be alone until 4PM the next day. It was a really cool experience and the weather was fairly good for it. Back at the main camp the leaders had to take down one of the lavvos because it was so windy. The place I picked for my little camp was fine though. I stared a small fire and after a while I went to sleep in my little tarp bivy. I explored around the next day before going back to camp the next day. The third night we were back in the lavvos. The next day we packed up and took a private boat to another island called Meløya. We hiked around through the farms and then up into the forest. About halfway up the mountain there is a huge lake and a back-country cabin called Fjellheim. We put our packs at the cabin and then continued up to the summit of Meløtinden at 582 metres. The sky was so clear and bright. I could see all of the islands all around, the YWAM base in Engavågen, the snow covered mountains and way out to sea. We sang some worship songs and prayed out over Norway. We went back down to the cabin for some great dinner and a warm night sleep in a real bed. At noon the next day (Friday) we headed back down a got the ferry back. Friday night the Northern Lights were out but I missed them. I told everyone to come find me next time they saw them. Saturday evening the most amazing sunset I have ever seen happened. I could see it out the window so I grabbed my camera and ran down to the boat dock as fast as I could. It was changing so fast I was worried that I might miss it. I spent about 15 minutes down there being awestruck by how beautiful and vivid it was. Truly an amazing experience to witness.

Week 2 of teaching

We had our second week of teaching. The subject was the Bible and our teacher was very passionate about it. It was a ton of information and I am glad this next week is an outdoor week. As part of our time here we have a schedule to read through the Bible in the nine months we are here (in chrono- logical order). Yesterday we went to Glomfjord where my team is doing a local outreach. We spent the day painting at a state church. Oil base paint = fumes = nausea = open windows = frozen hands. We are packing up for this next week. We are going island hoping in the fjord. We will be camping out and one night we have a solo on an island by ourselves. The last night is in a back country cabin. The leaves are changing on the trees and it is so pretty everywhere. Some of the staff and students went out fishing and caught enough for dinner for everyone. They prepared it Greenlandic style and it was really good. Since today is the Fall Equinox it might be a fun time to point out that since I am so far north the day is seven minutes shorter every day.