It was with great perplexity and acquiescence that I crawled into the van Sunday morning, April
1st, at 5:30 am. That we were going was certain. God had proven that this was His will for us, by overcoming multiple hurdles including finances, transportation, accommodation, etc… (At that point I had it in mind that if for some reason one of us wasn’t able to go, God might actually just pick them up and take them there Himself, seeing all the earthly “impossibilities” that He had gone through to make this work!)
1st, at 5:30 am. That we were going was certain. God had proven that this was His will for us, by overcoming multiple hurdles including finances, transportation, accommodation, etc… (At that point I had it in mind that if for some reason one of us wasn’t able to go, God might actually just pick them up and take them there Himself, seeing all the earthly “impossibilities” that He had gone through to make this work!)Our final destination was certain as well… we were headed to the Adventist Church in 
Malmö, Sweden. This was where the conference was going to be held, in collaboration with LifeStyle TV.
The thought that kept cycling through my mind, as we drove to Oslo that early Sunday morning, was, “What on earth are a bunch of English speaking WFL’s going to be doing to help with a Swedish youth conference!”… thus my perplexity concerning the whole situation.
Huldah, (a previous WFL, now working with LifeStyle TV), had been our main contact throughout the whole process; and it was she who was updating us concerning the conference. As of pulling out Sunday morning, I knew (a) the conference was in Sweden. (b) Scott Moore was going to the main speaker. (c) we WFl’s were supposed to help with outreach. and (d) our accommodations were going to be
in the church, on the floor, with one shower (a keen sense of adventure comes in handy every now and again… even in the “civilized” world!)… oh yeah, and (e) Huldah and the Swedes from ARISE would all be there! Thankfully along with that keen sense of adventure comes a certain thrill for the unknown (like… “nine days… that’s a long time... I wonder what the term “outreach” involves?...”), but seeing as it was 5:30 in the morning this appeared as only a passive compliance to the suggestions of my fellow WFL’s… i.e. “I’m going to Sweden because… because… because Huldah begged us to!... no no no… there was another reason…”
Anyhow, like it or not – we were going to Sweden.
We arrived at the bus station in Oslo, found our way INSIDE the building (that was a trick in itself when you ca
n’t find a single sign that says “Entrance” [we tried going in multiple exits, but the door never would open…] ), eventually found our bus, and started boarding. This was when God, through His awesome power, proved once again that we WERE going to Sweden! Unbeknownst to them, two of our WFl’s had accidentally purchased two sets of returning tickets; instead of one set to go, and one to come back, (this is understandable when you realize that the whole shebang was in Swedish! – the web site, the tickets, etc…) The bus driver looked at their tickets, handed them back, and told them to go ahead and get on… he would take care of things for them when we had to transfer to the other bus in Göteborg. Praise the Lord! Another dilemma solved.
The rest of the trip there was fairly uneventful… We somehow managed to not look quite so much like a bunch of bewildered American tourists… our bus driver even took us for a group of Swedish young people! lol It was a fun trip.
We arrived at the bus station in Malmö around 3:00 pm., and Huldah came to meet us about an hour later. Once again the adventure continued… The crew was busy filming at the church, so we had to haul all our luggage, through the bustling city, to the Adventist church… about a half-hour away. lol I’m sure we must have made quite the procession… eleven people with their luggage, more than half rolling suitcases… and those wonderful cobblestone streets… hehehehe… (I was glad for my faithful backpacking backpack. lol)
We arrived at the church just before Dr. Viriato Ferreira gave his last health lecture for the day. This was when I received a bit more insight into what we were going to be helping out with. In collaboration with the Ambassadors conference, the church was putting on a health expo in one of the local malls. That first afternoon some of us were trained to work at the various booths. I chose the Rest booth… and this involved giving back massages! (a process in which little to no Swedish is necessary for completion – just endurance! lol)
After training we ate supper, sat through an awesome sermon by Scott Moore, found our assigned sleeping quarters (the guys were upstairs in two rooms, and the girls were downstairs in the cafeteria.), pulled out our sleeping bags… and crashed!
We had been assigned a few chores for while we were there, so the next morning Allie got up to help with breakfast, and I went around making sure everyone had all their sleeping stuff out of the caf. and put away, and got the tables and chairs back in place. Breakfast was served from 6:45 to 8:00, and then at 8:30 it was morning worship. Despite the fact that they were nearly all in Swedish, I really enjoyed morning worships, seeing as they were preached by Dan, Roy,
Jonathan, and Nickolas (our Swedish friends from ARISE), and Michael (another ARISE’er). Thankfully they had someone in the back, translating it into English for those of us linguistically challenged, (after being here in Europe, I swear I’m going to learn another language some day… we Americans are plain sad!).
After morning worship we had more health expo training. Everyone was assigned a position either working at a booth, or passing out flyers in and around the mall. This was when I found out a bit more of what was going to be happening that week. One side of the flyer was advertising the health expo, and the other side was advertising the Total-life Seminars, or five public meetings that were going to be put on that weekend by LifeStyle TV. Their speakers would include Dr. Viriato Ferreira, Sebastian Tirtirau, and Scott Moore. Things were finally falling into place. :-)
After the training was finished, we had Bible Boot Camp with Scott Moore. This includes basically creating a Bible study on a certain topic such as The Sabbath, State of the Dead, 70 Week Prophecy of Dan. 9, etc… He gives you the key texts, and explains each one as you go along. This was what we had done our first few weeks at ARISE, but I enjoyed going over it all again, seeing as I didn’t pick up on everything the first time. ;-)
After Boot Camp was lunch, then we headed over to the mall for the health expo. (This was when I got my awesome, bright green LifeStyle TV shirt! ;-) Things were pretty hectic setting up, and we encountered a few problems, but five minutes past opening time we were ready. The store was in an ideal location, right at the top of the main escalator, (it was really a miracle how God had worked it out for them to use that spot… and for free too!) Right away people started coming in. As they entered, they were handed an evaluation sheet, and explained what to do. I thought it was nice in that, there was no designated order for visiting all the booths except for one - Trust (where they evaluate your health age and give counseling). That one they wanted you to do last. The other booths and their activities included Temperance (Body Fat Percentage & BMI), Nutrition (Blood Glucose & Total Cholesterol), Sunshine (Blood Pressure), Water (Two glasses of water), Exercise (Harvard Step Test), Air (Peak Flow Meter), and Rest (Anti-stress back massage) . 
As I mentioned earlier, I was working at the Rest booth giving Anti-stress back massages (sounds professional huh?). Needless to say, our booth filled up rather quickly, and all six of us were pretty much occupied non-stop until we closed that evening.
Through the course of the afternoon I discovered a few things… (a) God equips the called. (b) a good massage traverses any language barrier. (c) “tuk” means thank you in Swedish, and your welcome is “Vashagood”. (d) even big tough guys can fall asleep with their head on a table, in the middle of a noisy mall. and (e) four and a half hours of giving back massages is an incredible arm workout! ;-)
At six we closed, and headed back to the church for supper. Afterwards Scott Moore gave another sermon, and then it was chatting time or hitting the sack – whichever took greater precedence in your agenda that night. ;-)
The following three day passed in a similar succession of events, with the exception of the health training ending and Scott and the Swedes doing more Bible Boot Camp studies, and the Total Life Seminars beginning Wednesday evening. Every afternoon until Friday, it was back to the health expo for more back massages! Despite the soreness at the end of the day, I really did enjoy giving massages… most of the people were just so appreciative… you could see it on their face even if they couldn’t express themselves in English. This one lady in particular really sticks out in my mind…
She was an older woman and could barely speak a word of English. Someone had already given her a back massage, and she was waiting for her daughters to finish with the rest of the expo. She came over and motioned towards a chair, wanting to know if she could sit down. I said, “Oh, of course!” which I’m sure meant nothing to her, but seeing as she was already sitting down, I think she got the point. ;-) Then she motioned towards her head, and got this pained look on her
face. I said, “Headache?”, pointing to my head, and she shook hers yes. Then I motioned that I could try massaging her head to relieve the pain, and she said, “Oh yes!”, and came over and sat down in front of me. I sent up a quick prayer for wisdom, (seeing as I’m no massage therapist), and then started using the massage techniques that we had learned at Weimar, for headaches. After about 15 min. or so, her daughters were finished and ready to leave… and when she got up from the table the look on her face said it all. In her broken English she managed a, “thank you, oh thank you! much better!” But it was the smile that spoke a thousand words… it was priceless.
On Thursday afternoon, some of the group went out door knocking - taking surveys, while the rest of us worked at the health expo for the last day.
Then Friday morning we WFL’s took off on a little excursion of our own, walking around Malmö. It was a fun experience. We walked through the city, out to the coast… where you could see the bridge to Denmark, and Denmark itself not far off in the distance. They told us that the bridge goes from the Sweden coast, to an island between Sweden and Denmark, and then down under the ground in a tunnel under the ocean, and back up into Denmark! Pretty incredible huh?! We walked along the coast for a
while, taking pictures as we went, and then over to a dock. From there we walked past Malmö’s famous tower The Turning Torso. When you looked at the building from a distance it looked like it was slowly turning, but when you looked at it from right at the bottom it looked like it was falling! It was pretty cool.
Our next and last stop was a Swedish supermarket. It wasn’t too different from one of ours here in the states… just enough so to make it interesting. ;-) I especially enjoyed the bakery, and the sea-food section. Their pastries are pretty cool, and they had the most incredible crustaceans!
Kind of reminded me of a pet store, only these were prepackaged and ready to go! You could get a glass jar of the cutest little shrimpies that would jiggle and float around when you shook the jar!… almost bought one to bring back and set on my nightstand in my room here at EBS… And then there were these fish, all lined up in a row, that I swear were staring right through me!... those haunting eyes… (if they were fortunate enough to still have a head…) eeks! gives me the creeps just thinking about it… Anyhoo, they had an incredible four, or five lane candy aisle that went nearly all the way up to the ceiling! (Those of you that enjoy Chocolate would have had a heyday…) 
So yeah, it was fun going through there.
We came back around one, ate lunch, and then a bunch of people went over to the gym to play… (I wasn’t sure what…). I got to the gym and found a group of mostly Swedish guys playing basket ball, some other Swedish guys boxing and wrestling, and another group of Swedish guys playing floor hockey (with weird curved sticks, and a whiffle ball). hmmmm… so yeah, I commenced my gym time with a sensational round of observation from the bench. ;-) Then, to my complete surprise, the guys came over from playing floor hockey and invited me to join them! lol I told them that I’d never even seen a stick like that before, let alone used one; and that I had no clue how they played… but they persisted and said that they would explain things. They put me as goalie and told me what I could and couldn’t do. Well, needless to say… it was a blast! lol That is one fast game, and let me tell you… those Swedes are animals! I can’t remember the last time I saw a person move so quickly and with such precision! Afterwards they told me that I did pretty well, and how amused they were that my feet actually did more to block the goal then my stick. lol
That evening, for the Total Life Seminar, Sebastian Tirtirau gave part of his testimony. It was incredible! For the past 10 years he’s been working with the bushmen of the Kalahari desert, the Amazonian tribes, and the Arctic Inuit people of Northern Canada and Greenland delivering bibles in their native languages. This guy has really been places! Oh what I would give for a job like his!… ;-)
That night, after the meeting was finished, a group of us gathered around the piano and had an ARISE song service… it was awesome! We sang all our favorite hymns from ARISE, and a bunch more, for probably over an hour! What a blessing.
Sabbath morning, Scott Moore preached for Sabbath School… and then Sebastian gave the rest of his testimony for church. Then that afternoon we heard a bunch of mission reports on all that’s going on in Scandinavia, with the Adventist church… it’s incredible to see how God is working over here… He really is gathering up an army to finish the work… and it’s mostly young people! Praise God!
That evening was another public meeting, and then afterwards we all w
ent to the gym again. This time Allie joined me and the guys for another fast, sweaty game of floor hockey, (it was nice not being the only girl any more...) Then we went back to the church to hit the sack. (only I didn’t get to bed until like 1:00 because I was up talking with some people… oops! lol)
Sunday we got up and had breakfast at 8:30, Bible Boot Camp at 9:30, Q&A with Scott and Sebastian at 11:30, and then lunch at 1:00.
That afternoon there was a baptismal service. Six people were baptized, and I knew five of
them! There was a young girl from the Malmö church (whom I didn’t know), Roy’s younger sister, Roy’s girlfriend Helena, a guy named Leo (whom we got to know there), an EBS student named Tanya, and our very own WFL – Joliann! It was an awesome experience… I couldn’t contain my tears… it’s always incredible to see people committing their lives to God for here and eternity.
After supper that nig
ht, we had the final public meeting. Then we gathered around the piano again, one last time, and sang until we were all ready to fall asleep… I will never forget those song services… they meant so much to me.
We had to say goodbye to everyone that night, because our bus was scheduled to depart at 6:05 the next morning… and we had a ½ hr. walk to the station… and no one in their right mind would want to be up to wish us fair well at that unearthly hour… ;-) So yeah, it wasn’t easy, but we finally got to bed late that night.
Sunday morning dawned bright and early for me at 4:30 am. “yawn” After showering, packing everything up, and saying goodbye to those dear saints who were not in their right minds, (namely Huldah and Jonathan ;-), we headed out on our long journey through the city of Malmö.
Everything was strangely dark at quiet at that early hour… hardly a soul was to be seen… Yet in stark contrast with the black sky, brightly illuminated store-fronts lined either side of the cobblestone street… Scantily-clad models, sporting the latest in European fashions, seemed to glare at us through their glass showcases, creating the eerie sensation that we were walking through some bizarre museum… only, (strangely enough), we were the spectacle being gawked at… we with our conspicuous procession of pillows, blankets, and bags; rattling down the cobblestone street… it was a weird feeling.
We reached the bus station with a few minutes to spare, got on our bus (no dilemmas this time…), and took off at EXACTLY 6:05. (I don’t know how they did it, but they always left right on time… to the minute!) The rest of our trip was fairly uneventful… Our friends Nickolas (from ARISE), and Leo had come with us… so that made things fun. We reached Oslo around noon, and then
headed over to the train station to catch the train to the nearest town to EBS. We found our train, boarded, and arrived in Haukksond around 4:15. From there Werner picked us up, in less then half an hour we were back at school, where our journey had begun a little over a week before…
Malmö, Sweden. This was where the conference was going to be held, in collaboration with LifeStyle TV.The thought that kept cycling through my mind, as we drove to Oslo that early Sunday morning, was, “What on earth are a bunch of English speaking WFL’s going to be doing to help with a Swedish youth conference!”… thus my perplexity concerning the whole situation.
Huldah, (a previous WFL, now working with LifeStyle TV), had been our main contact throughout the whole process; and it was she who was updating us concerning the conference. As of pulling out Sunday morning, I knew (a) the conference was in Sweden. (b) Scott Moore was going to the main speaker. (c) we WFl’s were supposed to help with outreach. and (d) our accommodations were going to be
in the church, on the floor, with one shower (a keen sense of adventure comes in handy every now and again… even in the “civilized” world!)… oh yeah, and (e) Huldah and the Swedes from ARISE would all be there! Thankfully along with that keen sense of adventure comes a certain thrill for the unknown (like… “nine days… that’s a long time... I wonder what the term “outreach” involves?...”), but seeing as it was 5:30 in the morning this appeared as only a passive compliance to the suggestions of my fellow WFL’s… i.e. “I’m going to Sweden because… because… because Huldah begged us to!... no no no… there was another reason…”Anyhow, like it or not – we were going to Sweden.
We arrived at the bus station in Oslo, found our way INSIDE the building (that was a trick in itself when you ca
n’t find a single sign that says “Entrance” [we tried going in multiple exits, but the door never would open…] ), eventually found our bus, and started boarding. This was when God, through His awesome power, proved once again that we WERE going to Sweden! Unbeknownst to them, two of our WFl’s had accidentally purchased two sets of returning tickets; instead of one set to go, and one to come back, (this is understandable when you realize that the whole shebang was in Swedish! – the web site, the tickets, etc…) The bus driver looked at their tickets, handed them back, and told them to go ahead and get on… he would take care of things for them when we had to transfer to the other bus in Göteborg. Praise the Lord! Another dilemma solved.The rest of the trip there was fairly uneventful… We somehow managed to not look quite so much like a bunch of bewildered American tourists… our bus driver even took us for a group of Swedish young people! lol It was a fun trip.
We arrived at the bus station in Malmö around 3:00 pm., and Huldah came to meet us about an hour later. Once again the adventure continued… The crew was busy filming at the church, so we had to haul all our luggage, through the bustling city, to the Adventist church… about a half-hour away. lol I’m sure we must have made quite the procession… eleven people with their luggage, more than half rolling suitcases… and those wonderful cobblestone streets… hehehehe… (I was glad for my faithful backpacking backpack. lol)
We arrived at the church just before Dr. Viriato Ferreira gave his last health lecture for the day. This was when I received a bit more insight into what we were going to be helping out with. In collaboration with the Ambassadors conference, the church was putting on a health expo in one of the local malls. That first afternoon some of us were trained to work at the various booths. I chose the Rest booth… and this involved giving back massages! (a process in which little to no Swedish is necessary for completion – just endurance! lol)After training we ate supper, sat through an awesome sermon by Scott Moore, found our assigned sleeping quarters (the guys were upstairs in two rooms, and the girls were downstairs in the cafeteria.), pulled out our sleeping bags… and crashed!
We had been assigned a few chores for while we were there, so the next morning Allie got up to help with breakfast, and I went around making sure everyone had all their sleeping stuff out of the caf. and put away, and got the tables and chairs back in place. Breakfast was served from 6:45 to 8:00, and then at 8:30 it was morning worship. Despite the fact that they were nearly all in Swedish, I really enjoyed morning worships, seeing as they were preached by Dan, Roy,
Jonathan, and Nickolas (our Swedish friends from ARISE), and Michael (another ARISE’er). Thankfully they had someone in the back, translating it into English for those of us linguistically challenged, (after being here in Europe, I swear I’m going to learn another language some day… we Americans are plain sad!).After morning worship we had more health expo training. Everyone was assigned a position either working at a booth, or passing out flyers in and around the mall. This was when I found out a bit more of what was going to be happening that week. One side of the flyer was advertising the health expo, and the other side was advertising the Total-life Seminars, or five public meetings that were going to be put on that weekend by LifeStyle TV. Their speakers would include Dr. Viriato Ferreira, Sebastian Tirtirau, and Scott Moore. Things were finally falling into place. :-)
After the training was finished, we had Bible Boot Camp with Scott Moore. This includes basically creating a Bible study on a certain topic such as The Sabbath, State of the Dead, 70 Week Prophecy of Dan. 9, etc… He gives you the key texts, and explains each one as you go along. This was what we had done our first few weeks at ARISE, but I enjoyed going over it all again, seeing as I didn’t pick up on everything the first time. ;-)
After Boot Camp was lunch, then we headed over to the mall for the health expo. (This was when I got my awesome, bright green LifeStyle TV shirt! ;-) Things were pretty hectic setting up, and we encountered a few problems, but five minutes past opening time we were ready. The store was in an ideal location, right at the top of the main escalator, (it was really a miracle how God had worked it out for them to use that spot… and for free too!) Right away people started coming in. As they entered, they were handed an evaluation sheet, and explained what to do. I thought it was nice in that, there was no designated order for visiting all the booths except for one - Trust (where they evaluate your health age and give counseling). That one they wanted you to do last. The other booths and their activities included Temperance (Body Fat Percentage & BMI), Nutrition (Blood Glucose & Total Cholesterol), Sunshine (Blood Pressure), Water (Two glasses of water), Exercise (Harvard Step Test), Air (Peak Flow Meter), and Rest (Anti-stress back massage) . 
As I mentioned earlier, I was working at the Rest booth giving Anti-stress back massages (sounds professional huh?). Needless to say, our booth filled up rather quickly, and all six of us were pretty much occupied non-stop until we closed that evening.
Through the course of the afternoon I discovered a few things… (a) God equips the called. (b) a good massage traverses any language barrier. (c) “tuk” means thank you in Swedish, and your welcome is “Vashagood”. (d) even big tough guys can fall asleep with their head on a table, in the middle of a noisy mall. and (e) four and a half hours of giving back massages is an incredible arm workout! ;-)
At six we closed, and headed back to the church for supper. Afterwards Scott Moore gave another sermon, and then it was chatting time or hitting the sack – whichever took greater precedence in your agenda that night. ;-)
The following three day passed in a similar succession of events, with the exception of the health training ending and Scott and the Swedes doing more Bible Boot Camp studies, and the Total Life Seminars beginning Wednesday evening. Every afternoon until Friday, it was back to the health expo for more back massages! Despite the soreness at the end of the day, I really did enjoy giving massages… most of the people were just so appreciative… you could see it on their face even if they couldn’t express themselves in English. This one lady in particular really sticks out in my mind…She was an older woman and could barely speak a word of English. Someone had already given her a back massage, and she was waiting for her daughters to finish with the rest of the expo. She came over and motioned towards a chair, wanting to know if she could sit down. I said, “Oh, of course!” which I’m sure meant nothing to her, but seeing as she was already sitting down, I think she got the point. ;-) Then she motioned towards her head, and got this pained look on her
face. I said, “Headache?”, pointing to my head, and she shook hers yes. Then I motioned that I could try massaging her head to relieve the pain, and she said, “Oh yes!”, and came over and sat down in front of me. I sent up a quick prayer for wisdom, (seeing as I’m no massage therapist), and then started using the massage techniques that we had learned at Weimar, for headaches. After about 15 min. or so, her daughters were finished and ready to leave… and when she got up from the table the look on her face said it all. In her broken English she managed a, “thank you, oh thank you! much better!” But it was the smile that spoke a thousand words… it was priceless.On Thursday afternoon, some of the group went out door knocking - taking surveys, while the rest of us worked at the health expo for the last day.
Then Friday morning we WFL’s took off on a little excursion of our own, walking around Malmö. It was a fun experience. We walked through the city, out to the coast… where you could see the bridge to Denmark, and Denmark itself not far off in the distance. They told us that the bridge goes from the Sweden coast, to an island between Sweden and Denmark, and then down under the ground in a tunnel under the ocean, and back up into Denmark! Pretty incredible huh?! We walked along the coast for a
while, taking pictures as we went, and then over to a dock. From there we walked past Malmö’s famous tower The Turning Torso. When you looked at the building from a distance it looked like it was slowly turning, but when you looked at it from right at the bottom it looked like it was falling! It was pretty cool.Our next and last stop was a Swedish supermarket. It wasn’t too different from one of ours here in the states… just enough so to make it interesting. ;-) I especially enjoyed the bakery, and the sea-food section. Their pastries are pretty cool, and they had the most incredible crustaceans!
Kind of reminded me of a pet store, only these were prepackaged and ready to go! You could get a glass jar of the cutest little shrimpies that would jiggle and float around when you shook the jar!… almost bought one to bring back and set on my nightstand in my room here at EBS… And then there were these fish, all lined up in a row, that I swear were staring right through me!... those haunting eyes… (if they were fortunate enough to still have a head…) eeks! gives me the creeps just thinking about it… Anyhoo, they had an incredible four, or five lane candy aisle that went nearly all the way up to the ceiling! (Those of you that enjoy Chocolate would have had a heyday…) 
So yeah, it was fun going through there.We came back around one, ate lunch, and then a bunch of people went over to the gym to play… (I wasn’t sure what…). I got to the gym and found a group of mostly Swedish guys playing basket ball, some other Swedish guys boxing and wrestling, and another group of Swedish guys playing floor hockey (with weird curved sticks, and a whiffle ball). hmmmm… so yeah, I commenced my gym time with a sensational round of observation from the bench. ;-) Then, to my complete surprise, the guys came over from playing floor hockey and invited me to join them! lol I told them that I’d never even seen a stick like that before, let alone used one; and that I had no clue how they played… but they persisted and said that they would explain things. They put me as goalie and told me what I could and couldn’t do. Well, needless to say… it was a blast! lol That is one fast game, and let me tell you… those Swedes are animals! I can’t remember the last time I saw a person move so quickly and with such precision! Afterwards they told me that I did pretty well, and how amused they were that my feet actually did more to block the goal then my stick. lol
That evening, for the Total Life Seminar, Sebastian Tirtirau gave part of his testimony. It was incredible! For the past 10 years he’s been working with the bushmen of the Kalahari desert, the Amazonian tribes, and the Arctic Inuit people of Northern Canada and Greenland delivering bibles in their native languages. This guy has really been places! Oh what I would give for a job like his!… ;-)That night, after the meeting was finished, a group of us gathered around the piano and had an ARISE song service… it was awesome! We sang all our favorite hymns from ARISE, and a bunch more, for probably over an hour! What a blessing.
Sabbath morning, Scott Moore preached for Sabbath School… and then Sebastian gave the rest of his testimony for church. Then that afternoon we heard a bunch of mission reports on all that’s going on in Scandinavia, with the Adventist church… it’s incredible to see how God is working over here… He really is gathering up an army to finish the work… and it’s mostly young people! Praise God!
That evening was another public meeting, and then afterwards we all w
ent to the gym again. This time Allie joined me and the guys for another fast, sweaty game of floor hockey, (it was nice not being the only girl any more...) Then we went back to the church to hit the sack. (only I didn’t get to bed until like 1:00 because I was up talking with some people… oops! lol)Sunday we got up and had breakfast at 8:30, Bible Boot Camp at 9:30, Q&A with Scott and Sebastian at 11:30, and then lunch at 1:00.
That afternoon there was a baptismal service. Six people were baptized, and I knew five of
them! There was a young girl from the Malmö church (whom I didn’t know), Roy’s younger sister, Roy’s girlfriend Helena, a guy named Leo (whom we got to know there), an EBS student named Tanya, and our very own WFL – Joliann! It was an awesome experience… I couldn’t contain my tears… it’s always incredible to see people committing their lives to God for here and eternity.After supper that nig
ht, we had the final public meeting. Then we gathered around the piano again, one last time, and sang until we were all ready to fall asleep… I will never forget those song services… they meant so much to me.We had to say goodbye to everyone that night, because our bus was scheduled to depart at 6:05 the next morning… and we had a ½ hr. walk to the station… and no one in their right mind would want to be up to wish us fair well at that unearthly hour… ;-) So yeah, it wasn’t easy, but we finally got to bed late that night.
Sunday morning dawned bright and early for me at 4:30 am. “yawn” After showering, packing everything up, and saying goodbye to those dear saints who were not in their right minds, (namely Huldah and Jonathan ;-), we headed out on our long journey through the city of Malmö.
Everything was strangely dark at quiet at that early hour… hardly a soul was to be seen… Yet in stark contrast with the black sky, brightly illuminated store-fronts lined either side of the cobblestone street… Scantily-clad models, sporting the latest in European fashions, seemed to glare at us through their glass showcases, creating the eerie sensation that we were walking through some bizarre museum… only, (strangely enough), we were the spectacle being gawked at… we with our conspicuous procession of pillows, blankets, and bags; rattling down the cobblestone street… it was a weird feeling.
We reached the bus station with a few minutes to spare, got on our bus (no dilemmas this time…), and took off at EXACTLY 6:05. (I don’t know how they did it, but they always left right on time… to the minute!) The rest of our trip was fairly uneventful… Our friends Nickolas (from ARISE), and Leo had come with us… so that made things fun. We reached Oslo around noon, and then
headed over to the train station to catch the train to the nearest town to EBS. We found our train, boarded, and arrived in Haukksond around 4:15. From there Werner picked us up, in less then half an hour we were back at school, where our journey had begun a little over a week before…
3 comments:
Wow Shannon, you're quite the writer! I really enjoyed reading your perspective on the whole situation. You've got a gift with using words refreshingly and humourously.
Have a great day!
Matt
Hi Shannon,
you have really written a good summary for the week! It was very nice to have you WFL:s here in Malmö. I didn't think of that you don't play floorhockey in US until afterwards, and then I was astonished that you played so good! Hope you enjoyed the week, and hope to see you next Easter in Malmö.
Gods blessings from
Joel
Oh wow... sounds like you all had a fun week there in Sweden! Glad you enjoyed it. I tell you, if you could only learn to talk as well as you write... It must be a Taylor gift. I was reading yours and Michael's story from your school... impresive ;)hope all is well.
-Wezley
P.S.
are you going back next easter? (joel's comment)
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