Belonging…or not?.

What does belonging somewhere mean anyway, is my questions? The past month I’ve been pondering this concept. I’ve had days when I feel really a part of everything, and then suddenly it hits me and I find myself feeling like an outsider; a foreigner on the outside looking in, not part, not belonging, not understanding, and not knowing how long I’m here for and where I’m headed. Some days I feel so fulfilled. Other days I look at my life and I feel content in God. Yet looking at my life outside of God it’s like “what am I doing?” What is life all about?” I want to live. I don’t want to confuse life and ministry again…but then living is ministering, so how does that all work? I haven’t found answers to my questions, but I know it is part of the journey. The journey with God, where ultimately what is important isn’t where I belong, but that I belong to Him. And in this I find peace.

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last wrote on my blog. Time just goes, and sometimes when there is time, it’s hard to articulate thought processes and what life is all about. Being here at IHOP-KC is a good place to be. A good place to partner with God and see the world changed. A good place to discover what really makes my heart alive. So I was thinking about that…what makes my heart truly come alive? What is it that God has put in me that I was made to do? These past weeks I’ve found that standing in the place of intercession for those trapped in human trafficking makes my heart alive. Joining the inner city outreach here in Kansas City and meeting people I wouldn’t normally meet makes my heart come alive. Seeing people realise how God sees them and find freedom and see lies broken off and truth enter hearts, and people even getting saved through the prophetic makes my heart come alive. And ministering to people who need healing, be it physical or emotional, and seeing them leave healed or in the process of becoming healed makes my heart alive. I believe that God has placed within each of us things He made us to do; He created us with gifts and talent and things we’re good at, and when we walk in them we feel like fish in water. We feel fulfilled because we’re alive. And I am on a journey to discovering what those things are in my heart, and I am starting to walk in them more fully. I mean, life here on earth is too short to not feel alive and bring true Life to others.

Oh, and I also saw a hot air balloon, rode on a camel, and picked my own pumpkins at a pumpkin farm this month. And today (in November) I was wearing flip flops as we had 20 degrees temperature and sunshine, so bought winter boots. Kansas City is the place to be, at least in the autumn (fall).

Life is fleeting…live each day to the full!

Last Friday I got news that a friend of mine, Fofo, from Brazil and one of the boys I’d worked closely with in Fortaleza had both died. Fofo, a guy who worked on the YWAM base when I was in Fortaleza had died the day before after falling off a building. Daniel, not really a boy anymore but a young man, had been shot by the police a week earlier.

I cried as I read the news. My heart was broken. It still is. I know Fofo is in heaven. Daniel I don’t know. He took steps towards Jesus while I worked with him, but where he was at last week I don’t know. I breaks my heart that he didn’t get a chance to live longer and it breaks my heart that injustice is allowed to flourish. I know he made some bad choices and wasn’t living a perfect life, but knowing his circumstances and knowing that he had a rough deal from the start makes it harder. And knowing there are so many others in Fortaleza and the world who are in the same situation, yet still alive makes me cry out to God. Cry out to the one who is Justice. That He would bring justice on the earth.

These things are hard to process living so far away. It’s easy to forget until I remember.

Saturday I spent the day with some friends. We had a lovely time hanging out at the Plaza, a shopping area of town. As we were walking down the street we passed a man who was begging. My heart was touched and so I went and got him a cup of coffee and talked to him for a bit. His name is Vincent and he chooses to beg instead of committing a crime to support his wife and children. He knows God loves him and I prayed with him for a job, knowing God is a good God. Later on we gave him some food…I don’t know Vincent’s full story, but I know God knows and is fighting for him. I would have like to hear more of Vincent’s story. I wonder what his life has been like. Is he one of the many who’ve lived their whole lives in hardship, or was it something that happened suddenly as he was going through life? What are his dreams and hopes for the future? What are his children like, what are their dreams? Maybe I’ll meet him again some day and be able to ask these questions. Although I hope it’s not begging on the streets, but working

Meeting Vincent and with Fofo and Daniel passing away, makes me realise even more how fleeting life is. And how much, how incredibly much I have to be thankful for. And how often I look at the little I lack instead of the abundance I have. I am so rich. So very rich. And the greatest riches I have is knowing God and being known by Him and having people who love me and whom I love.

Comings and goings and launching into 24/7 works of justice…

Have you ever planned to write your blog and then just gotten distracted by email and other things? Well that is my excuse for not writing for weeks…I’ve thought about it many times and it’s on my list of things to do, but that doesn’t really mean anything unless I sit down and actually write.

Wow…so much has been going on these past weeks I don’t know where to start.

Love my new house. I’ve gotten used to the fact that the toilet and bathroom are carpeted. Not what I would personally choose to put on the floor, but it works and not focusing on it makes it liveable. Getting settled and just being able to relax in the peace of this house has really strengthened me and makes me so thankful for God’s provision. It’s so nice to be able to wake up in the morning and see the sunshine through my window (unless it’s a healing rooms morning, in which case it’s still dark when I get up at 4:30 am). I also love having my room on the 1st floor (i.e. up one flight of stairs). It really means that when I go to my room I’m not in the middle of the living space and can truly shut my door and have space. And we have great neighbours.

Life has been really busy though, and with my schedule changing slightly I’m still in the adapting phase…And now I need to take a break as I’m off to meet a friend for coffee….

The last weeks have had a lot of comings and goings. One of my good friends, Rosanne, moved to Amsterdam to work with the house of prayer in the red light district there. And other people come and go. We had some Norwegians here for a few weeks which was lovely, and this week another team from Norway comes and a good friend of mine, so that will be nice. It’s all part of the flow of life here.

A few weeks ago was an intense weekend, but oh so good. IHOP-KC celebrated 10 years of 24/7 prayer. Which means that they’ve prayed around the clock non-stop for 10 years now. That’s amazing…especially as in the beginning they didn’t have that many people here (one thing is doing it when you have hundreds of people to share shifts, another thing when you only have a handful of people to do it). It was really encouraging to hear the prophetic history told again, and hear different people share their memories and experiences during this time. We finished it off launching into 24/7 works of justice alongside the prayer. I am so excited. The vision is huge. But we have a huge God! And when it was laid out it connected with my heart and made me so excited. They want to reach the city with the gospel, minister to the poor and needy, restoration of the broken, and be a place where orphans and those without homes can find a home. A lot of it’s already being done or well on the way to be planned out, other parts are still being worked on. The thing that really excites me is that I came here carrying a heart for justice, and now, after being her a year, justice is becoming one of the main things on the agenda.

All that said, another thing I loved about this new launch, was that it wasn’t to replace the 24/7 prayer, but come alongside it. The 24/7 prayer is at the core of who we are and what we do, so we’ll keep doing that, just adding the 24/7 justice to it. Everything we do will continue to be centred around the prayer room.

I love this focus and I love the way I can see how God is so working through the basis being prayer. Yesterday I got to go to the inner city project called “Hope City”. This week they were doing an outreach in one of the rough areas of the city. But it wasn’t an outreach focused on talking to as many people as possible. It was an outdoor intercession and worship meeting, praying for the area and bringing God’s presence into that area. It was powerful! Needless to say people from the area came along to find out what it was all about (the free hamburgers afterwards helped with that too), but again the focus was prayer first and out of that we actually saw people saved through the outreach. I was able to chat to 2 lads who’d come along from the neighbourhood and share a bit about Jesus with them and see them move one step along on their journey to giving their lives to Him. Now I can lift them up in prayer as I spend my days in the prayer room. It was so great! The prayers in the intercession time were so powerful and real and my heart was alive. I am not able to go to this project every week because of meetings and other commitments, but when I do, it feels like such a gift from God. He has given me this heart for the broken and needy, but also for the city. And being in the inner city just makes my heart come alive!

On that note, it’s been really cool this week. As I’ve been praying and reading the Bible, God has been drawing my attention to how the Bible talks about cities. I’ve been looking at what God’s heart for cities is and how I can better pray for this city and other cities in the world based on the Bible. It’s a cool journey I am excited to be on.

I think I’ll stop there so that this doesn’t become yet another unsuccessful attempt at getting my blog updated…

And then it was Friday.

Time has gone so quickly. The wedding last Saturday was really good! The bride was beautiful and everything went really well! Moving was also surprisingly stress-free. We managed to move the stuff before I needed to head off to my BBQ, and although I wasn’t able to totally unpack the same day, at least I could sleep in my new room and I’ve spent the week slowly but surely getting myself organised. It’s a good house. Not as beautiful as my last one, but very peaceful and I am enjoying it here. The absence of internet makes things a little bit tricky, but hopefully we’ll get that sorted soon.

It’s truly been a busy week. It’s funny how just a few extra things seem to consume time. The other night I realized I needed to get my vote for the Norwegian governmental elections in the post so it would arrive on time. It was already late when I remembered, so obviously it got even later by the time I’d actually filled in the paper and placed it in the 3 envelopes required for it to be considered a valid vote. It was sent in the mail the next morning, so I hope it gets to Norway in time.

But you know what…I might be getting less sleep then I need, rushing from one thing to another and constantly try to catch up on stuff, especially with the moving, but I feel so alive! My body might be weak, but my spirit is alive! And it feels so good. It feels so good to be here, and it’s amazing to day after day see people be built up and changed because of what Jesus is doing in their lives.

Today a lady called Karen Dunham shared at the service about the work she’s doing in the refugee camps in Israel and how God is just transforming lives and moving powerfully. I was so inspired to walk in even greater faith, because I have a great God! During the worship the children’s ministry had the children there and it was so lovely to see these little kids of maybe 5 or 6 years old jumping around worshipping Jesus and having such joy and enthusiasm. It blessed my heart.

The other day I was reading about the widow’s mite in the gospels, and was so struck by how it says that she gave everything she had for her livelihood in the offering. She gave everything that was to keep her alive to the One who is life and who gives life! How amazing is that!!!

So I am doing good. Life is good. And tomorrow is another day….on which I shall probably be posting this post since I need to go down to the missions base to get online.

How do you navigate through a whirlwind?

A few days ago I was rushing to get to the prayer room at 5:45 am (it’s funny how things just go s l o w e r in the morning). Anyway, a young lad wearing a fluorescent yellow reflex-vest walking a tiny little dog passes me. I imagine he was a dog-walker rather then dog-owner. And I started wondering what life as a dog-walker is like. I mean, who am I to say that his life is pretty straightforward and easy, it might very well not be, but I made me think how much less confusing my life would be if that was what I did: walked dogs in the early hours of the morning…

These past weeks I’ve had the distinct feeling of having to keep up with my life as there’s been so much happening and so many shifts and changes, it’s quite overwhelming if I stop to think about it, which I don’t. Think? Who has time to think? Sat here drinking my PG tips tea with milk and eating cereal I don’t even know the name of (some friends left town and left me their left-over food) I think I probably should go to bed as it’s nearing midnight…but then I thought it would be nice to have at least a little record of the whirlwind, so I decided that sleep can wait. Who needs sleep anyway, right? Especially as I will only be sleeping another 3 nights in this house.

Yes, I am moving. Sunday is the big moving day. But let me just do a quick (or slower) summary of some of the things happening lately which bring me to today, and consequently to Sunday.

I found a house to live in, which I hope will feel like home, at least for a season. Although it didn’t end up being a very long-winded process to find somewhere, the week I was emailing and looking was a long week! It’s a pretty nice house with 3 bedrooms + 2 in the basement. It’s got a good feel and one of my current housemates is also moving in, so there’ll be at least one person I know…and the opportunity to get to know 3 others. So Sunday we’re moving. The landlady of my current house is slowly but surely emptying the house so the last few weeks have been quite unsettled here. I wouldn’t want anyone to go into my room at the moment, as there’s stuff everywhere. It’ll be good to get settled in the new house.

A Norwegian friend of mine here in Kansas City is getting married on Saturday so I’m helping her with different things. We actually baked two kransekaker (traditional Norwegian cake used for weddings and special occasions) from scratch. We even ground the almonds and rolled out the rings. The cake consists of 18 rings of cake made from a dough with almonds, powdered sugar, and egg whites. It is so nice, and today we assembled it! It looks great! And it was exciting to actually manage to make a cake we usually just buy readymade in Norway. Apart from baking and bringing some food, I’m going to read Psalm 23 in Norwegian in the service and do some games at the reception. I am a wee bit nervous about the games bit because it’s a big wedding and I’m not one who thrives on standing in front of large groups of people- but it’s a good challenge, and I know it’s going to be fun to bring in a bit of Norwegian tradition in an American wedding.

So that’s Saturday. Sunday I’m moving, and Sunday afternoon I have a potluck BBQ. My amazing leader, Michelle, is moving to Florida, and so we’re getting together to say goodbye. I am going to miss her so much! She has been such an inspiration and bottom line, what we all are left with is that the prophetic is about a man named Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.

Yeah, so the last weeks have been full of adjusting to all the changes happening both in ministry, with people, moving, planning to move, people coming and going…more then enough changes to fill a year, let alone a few short weeks. But it’s been an opportunity to carry my heart well in the midst of a whirlwind. Knowing this week would be challenging I asked God to help me not get stressed or complain. I want to walk in peace; the peace Jesus had when He slept in the boat in the midst of a storm. I want to have a heart that is carried well, and I want to be someone who is anchored in Jesus, no matter how much shifting and changing happens around me. I’m far from being there, but I’m working on it, and it’s a good journey.

All that said, it is now technically tomorrow, so I think sleep is a good idea. I haven’t managed to sleep well the last few nights, but my eyelids are getting heavier and so I think I might just take advantage of that and hope to get a good night’s sleep tonight.

Hopefully I won’t wait this long till my next update, but you never know.

In transit.

It’s funny how something really so simple can turn into such a big thing which makes you stressed. This week felt like such a long week. House-hunting added into that did not make me peaceful and serene. However, it should have been fine. Logically there is nothing to worry about. There are plenty of people renting out rooms, and even more importantly I have a God who is totally committed to me and to me having somewhere to live. Still, logic and feelings aren’t always on the same page. I let my friends know I needed a place to live, sent out emails to a bunch of people on a housing list, and went to look at a few places. Not quite knowing if the girls I live with now wanted to find a place together or not kind of made it a wee bit harder to look, because I wasn’t sure if I was wanting 1,2 or 3 rooms. But we’ve worked that out in the end, and the result is that I do have a house I’m potentially moving in to at the end of the month. I wish I could move sooner, but it seems a bit of a waste to pay double rent for a few weeks as my current landlady needed 30 days notice (I think I misunderstood a bit along the way there, but hey, it’s fine).

I was telling friends yesterday that I feel like I’m in transit…no longer really landed in the house I’m in (which I never really was anyway), yet still not able to “settle” at my new place since I’ve not moved there. And the whole prospect of moving just brings to the surface the longing to not be moving so much, to stay in one place for just a bit longer, to not be doing everything alone.

And yet, I continue to be one who is “seeking for a homeland”…

Finally some more writing...

Sunday 12 July 2009

Beautiful skies and a beautiful life.

Sat here in my living room in Norway looking out at the sky. There are thick grey clouds with a pink colour in the background shining through. It’s beautiful and I’ve never noticed something like that before. Been meaning to write my blog for, well almost a month now. And now I am. No excuses…life is too short to walk around feeling burdened by the things I haven’t got round to do, especially as I am doing them. Whether or not I finish this post today is another issue…probably not since it’s already late and I’ve got an early start tomorrow.

That said, yes, I am in Norway. Got a couple of weeks holiday at home, which is lovely. Although the warm sunny weather seems to have taken a break since arriving. I wonder where it went? My youngest brother, Magnus, got married on the 4th of July, and so I obviously had to come home for that. Funny, I live in the USA, yet come home to Norway on the 4th of July. It was a great wedding with lots of laughter and tears.

So what’s been happening the last month…well, I’ve been doing a lot of praying, prophesying, seeking God, reading the Bible, talking to people, getting to know people better…it’s been good. The last months have been good.

Saturday 25 July 2009

Back to writing….

So, after a whirlwind two-and-a-half weeks in Norway I landed at Kansas City International Airport on Monday. It’s good to be back to “normality” again and it’s been good to catch up with people again. I am so blessed with lovely friendships here.

Norway was so good. I loved hanging out with my wee niece who is just the cutest little girl in the world, and I loved having time with friends and family. It was a real treat and although the weather got colder and it rained quite a bit while I was there, it still felt like a summer holiday.

Travelling back was really smooth, although it felt a bit touch-and-go for a moment when I ended up queuing for an hour at immigration and got to the gate for my flight just as they were going to board. But even there it worked out fine.

The day after I got home I got an email from my landlady saying she’s selling the house. Nice news to get at the start of a couple of weeks away from Kansas City, but it was fine. And I really trust in God to find me a new place to live. Being back there are some options and I just want to find the right place. It makes such a difference where you live and even if my life is a busy life and in the week I’m not home much, it’s still important to have people you get on with in your house. So I am looking and praying and trusting. And I’m excited to see where I’ll end up. Hopefully somewhere nice.

I’ve been pondering quite a bit recently. And just realizing what a privilege, yet huge responsibility it is being here at IHOP-KC, ministering to people coming through. It’s so precious yet quite daunting to know that by praying for people I am really impacting their lives. Even just a short time of ministering can transform someone’s life. Not because of me, but because of Christ. Yesterday I was working in the healing rooms and a quite a few children were getting prayer. My heart was filled with such a desperation for them. A desperation to see these children free from sickness. A desperation for them to walk into the life that lies ahead of them healthy and whole. I suppose what I’m feeling is just a new level of determinedness to see healings and see what it talks about in the Bible actually walked out here, today.

Anyway, I’m going to post this so I don’t end up with a half-written thing lying around for weeks. Off to EGS (Encounter God Service) in a minute to hear Stuart Greaves speak on End Times. It should be good.