Traveling in Denmark

On the 26th we went up to the very north tip of Denmark where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea collide. This results in very dramatic waves and currents. In the summer there is lot of people on the sand beach there (mostly Germans who don't have a beach of their own to go to). We also went to see a church built in 1787 that has been abandon because of coastal erosion. Some of the graveyard around the church has already fallen into the sea. Sometime in the next 10 years the cliff face will reach the church. The father of the family I am staying with drives for a trucking company on Saturdays. I got to go with him to take a load of frozen fish to the German border. It only takes about 5 hours to drive the length of Denmark. The truck cab was really nice and comfortable. When we got to the truck depot we had a little time so we went to a store in Germany that caters to Danes selling certain goods that are much cheaper there.

Glædelig Jul

Merry Christmas from Denmark. Denmark is really amazing. I really like it here. The people are friendly, honest and hardworking. Crime is low and the standard of living is high. For Christmas the festivities take place on the 24th. We decorated the tree with homemade paper ornaments, glass ornaments, gold tinsel and candles (no electric lights). Then a big dinner with potatoes, goose, bread and red cabbage. For dessert there was a lemon and cream dessert and one made with rice and cream. Kind of like rice porridge but with cream and served cold. It has a few white almonds hidden in it and if you get one of the almonds you receive a small gift. Then everyone but the father leaves the room and he lights the candles on the tree. Then everyone comes back in and sings Christmas songs while walking around the tree. Then the story of the first Christmas is read from Luke. Prayers are said and then the presents are opened. The 25th is spent with extended family. Such a unique experience to be immersed in the Christmas customs of another culture.

Light and Darkness

The last time the sun was directly visible was last Monday. It barely peeked out from behind two mountains. Before I came I somehow thought that the dark time would be dark. If the sun doesn't rise it must be dark right? There is lots of light before and after the sun is in the sky. And that light is really wonderful. That great pink-red-orange light you get at sunrise and sunset even before it rises or sets. That is the light we get. It starts to get light about 8:40AM and is dark at about 3:30PM. It is like sunrise and sunset in one event that lasts much longer with lot of really beautiful light. The day is shorter and you won't get a tan but it is really something to behold.

Today was really good. It is Saint Lucia's day. This means that at 6:30AM each of us were awakened to angels singing and offering us fresh baked Lucia buns. Eight Scandinavian women and girls wearing white and holding candles comprised the angelic procession. A complete surprise and a nice way to wake up. One of the girls represented Lucia with a crown of candles on her head and a tray filled with buns in her hands. After singing the traditional song they quietly filed out leaving a lit candle. On the old calender system December 13th is the shortest day of the year and Saint Lucia visits to bring light to the darkness. Today was also nice because some friends sent a package with all sorts of great stuff in it. So nice to have people thinking of me out here.

Teaching has been amazing this week. It is building on top of last week's teacher which is great. Much of the previous teaching has been theoretical but this week is very practical. It has really gotten everyone thinking. It is basically how to discover how we can be effective for God and this world and mapping out a plan for after DTS. Very practical for all of us (and anyone that wants to impact this world). This weekend we pack up our rooms and leave for Christmas break and then outreach. It will be strange to be away from the base for 3 months but it will be good and I am excited about it. I will miss the Tibet team but the reunion will be amazing and the stories will flow. I am anxious to see what God has to show us in Greenland and for the 3 months of teaching after.

Ski

We have been back from the ski trip in Sweden for a week. Skiing was "invented" here in Norway and the word ski is a Norwegian word. In English we pronounce it our own way based on its spelling. It is pronounced "she" in Norsk because the "sk" makes an "sh" sound and the "i" makes a "long e" sound. It was fun to go to Sweeden for the week. We took 2 ferries to make the drive shorter and it took about 6 hours to get to Tärnaby Sweden where the ski place is. There are places closer but they don't have enough snow yet. Traveling in the EU is very efficient and there was no border stop. The cabins we stayed in were really nice. The bathroom had a micro sauna that could hold maybe 3 people. From the toilet you could turn on the shower and the sink and put your feet in the sauna. It wasn't really cramped just efficient in a Scand- inavian way. The kitchen had a small dish washer the size of a microwave. There was a really great sauna in the main part of the hotel that had a 360° view from above the top floor. Defiantly the nicest sauna I have been in. There were 2 T-bar lifts running and it was my first time on a T-bar. I managed to only crash on the lift once when I turned to see if a recent crashee was ok. One more week of teaching and then we are off for Christmas break. Almost all of the Americans are going to Denmark for the break. After new years everyone, including all the students from the other bases in Norway, are meeting at a base near Oslo for a one week conference. Then I am off to Greenland for two and a half months of outreach. This past Monday a dead sea otter mysteriously appeared in front of the base. Since this is the outdoor DTS there was only one thing to do, skin it. That was lead by the female student from Denmark who lived in Greenland for three years and had experience with such things. She already has mittens, boots and a hat made from rabbit, dog and seal so the otter will make for something nice.

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