On a journey...

Trying to settle into a new country and culture is complicated. It’s very different from visiting, where all things new are (mostly) an exciting adventure. Living and settling is an invitation to not just be an observer of the culture and ways from the outside, but to embrace it and become part of what others observe when they are visiting. But it’s complicated. And it takes time to navigate. How do you embrace a culture that functions so differently from your own, while not loosing yourself? How you navigate not letting the struggles overshadow all the treasure each culture carries within them? How do you remain thankful, when everything within you is feeling overwhelmed by yet another wave of culture shock, leaving you feeling a bit like you were literally washed up on the sand by a giant wave? This month marked 6 months of living in Amsterdam. I guess we all hit moments of reflection in our journeys. I don’t know if I hit one of those moments, or if I am reflecting a...

The coffee was ready, cookies nicely laid out on a plate, the preparation was done, and Shannon and I were ready. Ready to welcome one of the ladies we’d met in the windows to a Bible study she’d asked for. But this time was like the last time, she didn’t show up. We waited for an hour, knowing that she probably was a no-show after half an hours waiting, but still wanting to be available and hoping that she was just running late. Well, she never did come. So we tidied everything away, and although we had so hoped she’d come, at least we got to have a nice chat while we were waiting. And the response of my heart to the reality of yet another missed appointment was not so much that she didn’t come, but hoping she was alright and that she wouldn’t feel ashamed to have missed our appointment. As I was reflecting this evening I was reminded of the unpredictability of pioneering, and I guess of working with broken people. You never quite know how things will work out. And yet I don...

I always end up sitting down to try to encapsulate a plethora of experiences in one little blog post. I guess it’s the consequence of not writing as I go along (which I really should get better at). A trip to the beach. The past weeks we’ve had some beautiful hot spells with warm weather, blazing sunshine- in fact, the perfect weather to go to the beach. Last week we rearranged our schedule on popped to Zandfoort, one of the “local” beaches only oh, maybe 30 minutes on the train from Amsterdam. Now remember I am used to Norwegian beaches (beautiful sandy beaches with just a few people here and there, if any) and Brazilian beaches (beautiful wide sandy beaches usually with a vast amount of people). In my Norwegianness I kind of figured a Dutch beach would be more similar to the Norwegian version, and I must admit that as we were cramped into the train with hundreds of other people who had also thought of the good idea of going to the beach, I was a tad worried, wondering w...