Prayer answered. -again.
It's been long since I wrote. It seems like it becomes more difficult to find good things to write if it's been a while. -the longer between the posts, the more difficult...
Anyway, I just wanted to share something encouraging. Last night a friend dropped by to visit I.K (one of the girls I live with.) She (our friend) has had problems with her leg for a couple of years, and it's been impossible to sit certain ways or sleep in certain possitions. We prayed for her, and she became better at once. It was still hurting a little, but she could suddenly bend it far more than earlier. It is so great when God heals like that.
God also reminded her through me of the words in Luke 11:5-8 where this guy knocks on his neighbour's door in the middle of the night to borrow some bread, where the point is to be patient in prayer. She was reminded of this scripture the day before by different person as well, so we are sure her leg will become perfectly good!

I wanna go to Britain again...

Fish. Bread. Ovens. Chicken. Pork chops. Knives. Salads. Meat balls. Meat loaves. Soap. Dishes. Too much water everywhere. Custumers. Smiling people. Grumpy people. Colleagues. Nice colleagues. Jesus in the middle of it all. That is my life these days. Tomorrow is the last day of this working marathon lasting for twelve days. It is a little bit rough on a former student who is not used this kind of work, for this many hours, for this many days in a row. But I like it. I really believe God wants me to be exactly where I am. That is in my local grocery store right down the street, bringing His kingdom to my colleagues and neighbourhood just by being there.

We had our first gathering after the summer with all of our church tonight. I can't wait to see what this fall will bring! God is good. We talked about discipleship, fellowship, seeing people saved, God's plan for Oslo and other stuff that really gets me on fire. I'm ready to get rid of the remainders of my student life style, and get on with new things. I just feel like I need to change a couple of habits that I have gained over the last years, and get new habits that will help me follow Jesus in a better way.

New semester. New situation. Long time since last time on here.
Done with school, done with studies. For now.
Eventful summer. Both good and sad. Mostly good. The good was very good, the sad was very sad.

Rainy summer here in Norway. Everyone's complaining. But I've spent ten days in Kyrgyzstan, and that was an experience that marked me. In good ways. Mostly. It was my first trip outside the western world. Oh, how I enjoyed it! It will not be the last.

I'm working in a grocery store this semester. I'm surrounded by bread, chicken and fish. It's something I can like. It's a job, but I make myself find it interesting. And my colleagues -they're nice people.

It's interesting really, working in a grocery store. It's one of very few places where all kinds of people go at least once a week. Everyone needs to eat. I like watching people, and maybe have a little chat. Wondering who they are and what they're like. People make the world interesting.

"Alene spente han himmelen ut
og skrider fram over havets bølger.
Han skapte Løven og Orion,
Sjustjernen og sørhimmelens stjernebilder.
Ja, han gjør storverk som ingen kan granske,
og under som ingen kan telle."

Job. 9: 8-10.

Spring's around! And it's making me feel good. The weather is lovely these days, and it's warm outside. I make sure to enjoy it even though I'm busy with exams these days. I'm done with two small final exams, working on a large third one, and have three more coming after that. This coming weekend the great people from my church is going on a trip. I am looking forward to that! (Yes, I'll bring my lap top and work on my exam. :P ... But I'll almost be done by then anyway.) Well, now I'm off to go for a walk and enjoy the pleasant evening and the lovely green spring!

I’m inspired!

I’ve been to Bergen attending Kristent Fellesskap’s easter conference. It’s been great in every way! I was very inspired, and I got to know many knew people. I stayed with some very hospitable and wonderful girls. They were awesome. I did not know them before I came, but they let me stay with them, and told me to make myself at home and invite people over if I wanted to. That’s obviously how they live. They have an open home with an open fridge. ;) The first afternoon they had about twenty people over for dinner, and the day after there were also a bunch over for dinner. They also had people over for breakfast every morning. –whoever wanted to come. (This works great as long as the guests help out a little.) They simply take God’s word about hospitality and fellowship seriously, and it was truely a blessing to me, and I’m convinced it is a blessing for everyone that comes by their house!
The meetings were great. So inspiring. I think a Christian conference is good when it inspires you to go home and start living out everything that’s been preached and talked about. So many conferences feel great. They’re like a spiritual kick, and when you come home you realize that life is not like that. You just wish you could go back and experience it again. Well, this conference inspired me to go home and live a life lead by the holy spirit and in fellowship with other christians.

It was great to see the holy spirit move, people healed, and hear many testimonies about neighbours and friends that have been saved lately. If that’s how it is in Bergen, it can happen here in Oslo too!! God is awesome!

How can they not love him?

Matt Redman sings:
”If you know you’re loved by the king,
sing, sing, sing!
If you know you’re loved by the King,
live for Him, live for Him!"
I ask myself whether it’s possible not to love God if you have experienced God’s love. I know some people that call themselves Christians, that grew up in christian families and still keep some faith. They pray every once in a while, but show no passion whatsoever about the name Jesus. I ask myself how that is possible. How can they not love him if they know how much he loves them? God’s love is amazingly great! He, himself, died for my sake. And for your sake. If we know we’re loved by the King, we really ought to sing to him and live for him!

It also strikes me how his love is the only thing that can make me sing to him and live for him. My love for him is simply response to his love for me. I love him only because he loved me first.

We shine like the stars! (Phil. 2:15)

Today I received Matt Redman's newest cd in the mail. (It's so nice to get "oldfashioned" mail!! Anyway...) I really like Matt Redman's songs. There are some really great songs on there! The song "Shine" is just really expressing my dream! (It is not really my dream, but God's plan.) And I do believe it is happening everywhere there are christians! Things I read about, hear about and things I see prove that. It's just really powerful:

Lord we have seen the rising sun, awakening the early dawn,
And we´re rising up to give you praise.
Lord we have seen the stars and moon, see how they shine,
They shine for you,
And You´re calling us to do the same.
So we rise up with a song, and we rise up with a cry
And we´re giving you our lives.

We will shine like stars in the universe,
Holding out Your truth in the darkest place.
We´ll be living for Your glory,
Jesus we´ll be living for Your glory.
We will burn so bright with Your praise O God,
And declare Your light to this broken world.
We´ll be living for Your glory,
Jesus we´ll be living for Your glory.

Like the sun so radiantly
Sending light for all to see,
Let your holy church arise
Exploding into life,
Like a supernova´s light,
Set your holy church on fire;
We will shine.
So we rise up with a song, and we rise up with a cry
And we´re giving you our lives.
Jesus, we will shine.

It's awesome!

23 reasons for why I love my church

I love my church because:
They bring me closer to Jesus.
They encourage me.
They inspire me.
We talk about God, Jesus, the bible, and help each other to know Him more.
We’re a house church, and we actually get to know each other.
We’re a house church, and everyone participates and shares with each other.
We’re a house church, and we eat together.
We don’t necessarily meet only once or twice a week, because we know each other and love each other, and hang out anytime, any place, which means we can “have church” anytime, any place!
We worship God together.
We laugh.
We have fun.
We can watch movies or go for a beer together as well as praying or reading the bible together.
We bring words from God himself to each other. (Wow, that’s pretty amazing really!...)
We help each other live our lives with God, not only when we meet, but also during the rest of the week.
I can count on them when I need them.
We have dreams and visions.
I believe in them.
I believe we will grow in number.
I believe we will see many people saved, and great things happen to people.
We’re not only a social club. What we’re up to is a lot more important than that!
We’re spreading God’s kingdom and love in Oslo and everywhere we go.
They help me see with “prophetic eyes”. I don’t do things just to do them. –I do them for a greater reason. This makes everyday life and even boring things very exciting!
And last, but least: We don’t meet on sunday mornings! ;)

I'm so glad there is such a thing as cinnamon rolls!

-I think cinnamon rolls make the world just a little bit better. ;)

I've had a great weekend i Risør, a tiny and beautiful town by the ocean south in Norway. My wonderful friend Bente lives there, and this weekend I have been down there to visit, which was really nice! One of the things we did, was baking, and I ate many many cinnamon rolls yesterday. Mmmmmmmm!! Thanks Bente! :)

That summer feeling...

All of a sudden I felt a longing for summer.
Walking around my grandma's garden
watching all the blooming flowers,
listening to the bees buzzing
and smelling the earth.
Feeling the heat of the sun in a silent moment,
then to be refreshed by a cool wind.
Hearing my grandma calling my name
to tell me the waffles and limonade are served.
Later to ride my bike through the golden fields on my way home
thinking that I'm very blessed to have a grandma with a cottage and a garden.

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."
(Rabindranath Tagore)

New experience

It seems like half the population of Oslo are sick these days. I've just had my turn. It's so incredibly boring being sick! I hate it! Fortunately these harse colds don't last too long. I'm almost well again.

I had an interesting experience though. During the weekend I was on a trip with a nice bunch of youth leaders from the church at Jessheim. Among other things I was going to lead the worship. My only problem was that I had no singing voice whatsoever. A lot of the time I could only whisper. How interesting to lead worship without being able to sing! I was able to talk loud enough for them to hear me (barely), but singing was hopeless. Still I really felt like I was leading them in worship.
Again that reminded me about what's important when leading worship. It's not about the singing. Of course not! It's about reminding them of who he is and why he is worthy of our time, focus, and praise, isn't it? And about helping them to let go of distractions and other things that keep them from giving him their all.
It was a cool feeling standing not quite in front of them, sort of hiding behind the pianist, just trying to focus on God without being able to hit a note, and every once in a while I'd say something that I felt God may have wanted me to say...
I guess the best way of leading worship is to worship God yourself. Sometimes I feel like God says that to me before I am going to lead worship. I might be a little bit stressed or nervous, or maybe I really really want something exciting to happen, so I ask God how I'm going to do this. Then I often feel like he says "Just worship me!"
That's a relief.

Oh no! Not another blog about church?…

There are so many of the blogs I drop by that talk about church. House churches, emerging churches, church this and church that... Even though I find it important and interesting, I have also thought that I’m not going to be one of those "church bloggers". Mostly because there are so many wise people saying many wise things about the subject, and I tell myself I have nothing to add.

But now I’ve changed my mind! I have many different kinds of friends. Friends that read my blog. Some are christians, some are not. Some are christians that know a lot about the bible, and some are not. Some have good experiences with the consept “church” and some actually have really bad experiences. People have totally different ideas about what church really is.

Some of my friends believe the church is a building. Mere building. Some other people realize church is more than that, but still have some ideas of the building as something holy in itself. Others know that church really is the fellowship between christians, but still refer to some building as “the church”. I have had great experiences lately that church has got nothing to do with a building!

I belong to a church that owns no building. We meet in each other’s homes every week or as often as we feel like hanging out. I have not lived a more exciting life than after I became part of this church. That is because we function like a church is supposed to. We meet. We eat and have a good time. We catch up with each other. We praise and worship God. We read the bible. We encourage each other. We try to let the holy spirit flow. We don’t need a special building for this to happen! It can happen anywhere.

I want my christian friends that belong to other fellowships to feel free to have church anywhere at anytime. (Its very biblical!) And I want my not-christian friends to understand that being a christian is not about services sunday morning in some holy building. It’s about being changed and starting living the life God created you to live, among fellow christians. No building is holy. God doesn’t dwell in a building anymore (like he used to in Israel). He dwells in every person that received him! That’s why we can have church anywhere at any time! (And that’s how they did it in the bible!) Church is a great thing!

Sing a new song
to the Lord!
Let the whole earth sing
to the Lord!

Sing a new song
to the Lord,
for he has done wonderful deeds.

I will sing a new song
to you,
O God!


(Psalm 96:1; 98:1; 144:9)

I took the world's shortest personality test. Tell me, my friends, is this the truth about me? (I especially challenge Bente to answer this question.)

Your Personality Profile

You are funky, outdoorsy, and down to earth. While you may not be a total hippie... You're definitely one of the most free spirited people around. You are very impulsive - every day is a new adventure. However, you do put some thought behind all your actions. Still, you do tend to shock and offend people from time to time!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Kicking it every tuesday...

Yeah! That's right. I've signed up for a funk dance class. Who would've thought that! I've always had a dream of being a dancer. (Just not big enough to realize.) I used to dance around the living room at home when I was little. I would dance for hours...at least that's how I remember it. I've always loved watching dancers, and thought it would be so great to be able to do whatever they do. So this semester my friend Hanne and I are taking funk dance lessons at the Spin Off dance academy. It is so cool! Yeah, cool is the right word. I've never seen more baggy pants than on our sweet instructor this last tuesday! It looked like she had been flown right in from the backstreets of L.A. or something. And she was really good!! Tuesday nights are going to be a blast.




(Picture from http://www.urbanmyths.org/article.aspx?id=39.)