So what's new with the Shryman and the Lundster and the Scorecards since we spoke?
Hanne is working away at the hospital... I'm getting pretty much all the shifts I can handle so that's good. I love interacting with patients and my coworkers, and I'm hoping that through my job I can make at least a little bit of a difference to somebody every now and then, but in order to be the best person I can be, I need something more in my life besides work. I am noticing that when I work a lot I can tend to feel uninspired and be a less-than-inspiring person to be around, too. I'm the kind of person who needs at least a little bit of space and time to dream and to have something to reach towards. So now that work life's on track my new project is figuring out what to do with my spare time. Great suggestions are warmly welcome in the comment field:) For now, Christmas preparations are on my mind... and painting our apartment... I have a couple of friends from Fuller visiting me in November (Nelli and Ja-Kyung, yay!!!)... we are starting to get plugged into a church community here... and I'm looking into ways of serving local immigrants or just other newbies like myself, because that is something I am really interested in. Also hopefully, at the start of the new year, we'll be able to have some kind of small gathering of believers that will meet regularly, but that is to happen all in God's time.
We are starting to make friends, and that has been just a super awesome improvement to our life here in Fredrikstad. This fall I've gotten to go along to two of Ryan's gymnasts' competitions, and we've had a lot of fun with the gymnasts and their families--and the girls have had some really good results, too!
Ryan's traveling a bunch with his job, so far to Slovenia and a few places in Norway, later this fall he's heading to Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary and who knows where else... I'm impressed by the work he is doing, it's fun to see him thrive in this new context. Really, getting married and then moving straight to a whole different culture is something I wholeheartedly would recommend, haha, contrary to what most people have gently recommended to us.
We're quickly approaching our first wedding anniversary. This past year has gone by soooo fast, but it's also been soooooo good! Maybe we'll blog about our past year some day, who knows.
And the Scorecards (Torvald)? He lays around and sleeps all day, so not much new with him... He's been on vacation twice this fall, once to Oslo and once to spend the weekend with BJ and her family and their girl dog named Mim. Torvald likes Mim a lot, but to her he couldn't be more invisible... the story of Torvald's life when it comes to girls... sigh...
This is a blog where we'll be sharing what's going on in our lives, thoughts we are having and projects we are working on.
You guys connecting with an expression of mission yet? Are you CA folks still? I am curious about the journey from the church planting impulse you have expressed prior to arriving.
ReplyDeleteHey fcb4...we're still fleshing out what mission here in Fredrikstad is going to look like. We've got a vision and some cool people in our lives here that we'd love to join us in creating some kind of faith community, however, a wise CA friend told us, start with service and allow the community to but built around that rather than starting with community and then doing service.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that the vision that we started with will go through some adaptations and we are totally open to doing whatever we feel like we are called to here. So, all in good time, or I should say, HIs time.