Mini Outreach

I am currently in the vehicle heading back home to Nordtun from our very successful mini-outreach. We spent a week in Øksnes which is a small community in northern Norway. I was the leader of my 3 person team and we were given a small budget and one contact person. We have had much teaching on the Holy Spirit, intercession and prayer in the last weeks and all three subjects were integrated heavily into our preparation and events during the week. We left Nordtun Tuesday morning and arrived late that evening after a long drive and several fairy rides across beautiful fjords; one of witch we were late for which delayed our trip by over an hour. After arrival we met our contact person who was the pastor of a local church and he brought us to our gracious host families. We split up into to homes, Åge from Norway in one home, and Jan from Germany and I in another. We had a nice evening meal with our minimal english speaking hosts, Ellen and Tore then were shown our koselig (cozy) sleeping arrangements. Wednesday we had a meeting with the leader of the Free Workers organization to get an overview of our activities for the week and possible ministries we could participate in. The lady we had the meeting with was very kind and she invited us to a Bible meeting she and her husband were apart of that evening. We attended the meeting and right off the bat we got along great with the people there and the night was filled with great fellowship and some amazing prayer. We could really feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and we didn’t go home that night until 2 a.m.! We really felt like God had opened a door for us for the whole week by bringing us to the people at that meeting and through the connections there we stayed busy for the duration of the week. Thursday (Thanksgiving) was a particularly eventful day with an invitation from the local school to come and teach english to the 10 year olds. This door was originally closed to us when we asked to come into the schools before arrival. We had free reigns when talking to the kids and they spoke impeccable english for being only ten years old. They asked all kinds of questions and we got to share why we were in Norway and about some of our experiences at Bible school. We walked through the school halls like professional sports players walking through the grocery store. I believe we planted some good seeds in the lives of the kids there and received random positive reports from parents throughout the week of our influence on the children there. That evening we went to a local youth group and there leader wasn’t there so we put on the whole night and it went great! We showed some videos and talked to them about Jesus and how He wants to be apart of more and more of our lives. Friday we climbed one of the peaks overlooking the town and prayed over everything we saw. That evening we went to a local club for teenagers and got connected to a wider range of kids. I ran into a guy in his mid twenties from Nebraska who has been living in Norway for several years. He found out the hard way that his American drivers license is only good for a year after entry into the country and as he was laying in the hospital bed after a car crash he read in the paper, “young American without license was in a car accident yesterday”. I found myself in a great conversation with a girl from Hungary also a few other locals. The club was extremely influenced by American culture, from the music, to the games to the dancing. It was slightly comical to watch. I was talking to this girl for a long time, probably an hour or so, and when I went out to where Åge and Jan were when I left they were no where to be found and I heard they had left about a half hour ago. I figured they left without me and one of my new buddies was going to give me a ride home when they both came back in with big grins on the faces and they told me they just led a girl to Christ! But they held the whole story from me until we got in the van. It was prayed for us that we would lead someone to Christ during our trip and it came to past. It was an awesome experience for our team and makes for a good testimony, but I believe we were used by God in many more situations then that. Saturday afternoon, we utilized our few hours of daylight to have a BBQ on the lake with a few families we met earlier. When I say we had a BBQ “on” the lake, I really mean “on” the lake. The lake was frozen over and had another few inches of snow atop of that. It was a phenomenal afternoon, we ate sausages and they had a good laugh when i tried getting towed behind the dog on ice skates. We also drilled into the ice and caught about 15 fish. Very different from a BBQ back in the wild wild west. That evening was going to be with the school at an open gym but it was cancelled because of Christmas decorating. We were invited by the girls in the youth group to hang out so we spent some time with them. We were told later that they were more alive in the last days then in quite awhile. We are a crazy team and I think we brought them out of their box’s a little bit. Today, Sunday was spent at church were we gave an account of the week and Jan played some worship songs for them. It’s always fun to talk with a translator and get the delayed laugh and other reactions from the audience. I am now on the fairy and think I will try and get some sleep before our next road journey, so until next time readers, God Bless and thank you for your prayers.

Alec