Summer vacation...

After having worked for about three and a half month it's time for some vacay time...  Most (?) people in Norway have 4 or more weeks off in the summer--I've got a whole week off with nothing to do besides keeping Ryan company at home on the couch or occasionally leave the house should we feel like it.  We're trying to save as much money as we can for the time being, and the couch feels like the safest place for that ;)...   Plus Torvald likes the couch, too, and he's nice to cuddle with...  

My sister in law, Elisabeth, niece Alida and nephew Noah came and spent the night yesterday.

 Ryan and Noah, walking the dog into the sunset...

My dad has been here, too, and later this week my mom will come to visit along with my niece Rikke who just finished first grade and thus gets to go on a tour of Norway with her bestemor as a treat.  We're hoping for some beach and sun time for us girls and some reading in the shade time for Ryan.

Tomorrow Ryan will get to experience a major slice of Norway weirdity as we're going to a TV-show called "Allsang på Grensen," an outside concert/singalong with a few thousand other Norwegians and Swedes in a 350 year old fortress on the border. 

I am looking for reading material, in the areas of anthropology/sociology and faith, cross-cultural nursing, and renal or infection nursing.  It's hard to find the good stuff just by way of google, so does anybody have any good suggestions for me?

Have a good summer vacation!!! (I'll try to get Ryan to write some more too, I promise...)

Torvald

Here's Torvald.. He's shy of the camera...

Haha, they look so cute together!

All worn out after a walk...

What's up, world?

"Chilling" at a coffee shop in Oslo I am glad that we chose a smaller place to settle down (for a while :) ).  Although people watching and urban life is fun, I'll be happy to come home tonight to our house and our new dog, to water the garden and sit down for a while to enjoy the bright midsummer night before going off to work again tomorrow.

A few things are new since last time I wrote:

We got a dog, a one year old West Highland White Terrier.  I'd post a picture of him, but for some reason the uploader won't work... So later... His current name is Torvald, and he's really cute.  He likes to cuddle and to chew on people, he does not at all like his toys, and he loves "working" in the garden with me.  He even doesn't mind taking showers.  He used to share his home with 4 girl dogs and their puppies, but now he gets to rule over our pad all by himself.  We've had him for 4 days, and today will be his first day to be home alone for a while.  Hope he doesn't freak out!!!

Ryan got an early work start permit!!! This means that although his application for work and residency in Norway is not approved yet, he can work and get paid and that's great.  In my opinion, though, anybody that applies for residency here should be given an early work start permit automatically, cuz why the heck should people have to sit on their butts and do nothing for months on end just because their final immigration status is not determined yet?  But it feels great to know that we're at least a little bit farther along the way toward really living here.

I'm working at the local hospital, full time and more.  It's good, there's a lot of things I don't know yet, but mostly everybody, nurses, patients, doctors, have been really sweet and welcoming toward me and they seem genuinely happy that I'm there to join the team so it's been a good work environment for me so far.  It seems like there are good opportunities for professional development at my unit and I think I can maybe squeeze a couple new friends out of it too;)  On a side note, working life sure feels like a never ending vacation after completing grad school...  so if for nothing else, I will forever appreciate my Fuller years for adding this perspective to the rest of my life:)

We've found an organization that we want to volunteer with.  A place to work out.  Somewhere to go on short hikes with our dog.  And I've come up with lots of plans to start dog-owner friendly coffee shops, dog-sitting/dog play group while you shop type stuff (believe it or not, Californians, we don't have those here in Vikingland), to start groups or hangouts for others who have recently moved to Fredrikstad (because I myself at times feel sad and lonely and not integrated and tired of not knowing where to find good beaches or bookstores, hangouts where there's more people than just myself or places where there's good, live music).  It shouldn't have to take years to find community when you move somewhere new, and being of the impatient semi-extroverted kind these are really a selfish self-help kind of thing for me.

Yeah, we are settling down a little, and I think we're both pretty happy with our life.  We're hoping Ryan's visa application will go through pretty soon so that he can go to Italy for his job next week, and so that we can visit the Manus family in Spain in July.

Pretty exciting times!

Pics will follow.. watch out.

p.s. our new banner photo (which Ryan put up) is from the Norwegian national day celebration... Norwegian kids do not walk around carrying the flag with them every day, contrary to popular belief:)

The Cross of Humility

"There is, then, a difference between sinners and sinners.  There are some sinners who confess that they have sinned but do not long to be justified; instead, they give up hope and go on sinning, so that, when they die, they despair and, while they live, they are enslaved to the world.  There are other sinners who confess that they sin and have sinned, but they are sorry for this, hate themselves for it, long to be justified, and under groaning constantly pray to God for righteousness.  This is the people of God: it constantly brings the judgment of the cross to bear upon itself." 

This statement of Martin Luther's has got me to thinking about my struggles and my desire for God's righteousness to crush the sin in my life and the bondage to self; to obliterate my ego and self-centrism.  He also says that, to be justified by faith is to give up pride in ourselves."  So hard to do and a definite struggle for me.  These statements of Luther shed light upon Jesus' words to deny oneself and pick up one's cross daily.  Humility is the key...picking up the cross of humility to strike down the prideful self and bring about the righteousness of God.  Only then can we truly love God and others.

Through the grace of God, we, the broken, are justified by faith.  Through the grace of God, he does something for us that we cannot do for ourselves.  Luther likens the church to an infirmary where the sick, damaged, and broken gather.  It is in this infirmary that healing, restoration, and reconciliation to God happens.  It is in this restorative process that we see grace at work.  Where we were once powerless to do anything about our brokenness, the power of God breaks the power of sin and death and creates in us a new person on a path in relationship with God; a reciprocal relationship in which God expects things from us (like loving our neighbors and our enemies) and we can also expect something from God (his grace, mercy, love, and hope).  God never fails at providing these but we fail at loving others.  We put down the cross of humility and pick up the sword of self; and when we do we again must pick up the cross of humility.

Thank God for the grace, mercy, love, and hope that he extends to all.  If only we were able to extend the same to those we encounter each day.

Update! Finally!

It’s been a looooong while since our last update.  A whirlwind of transition happened and we wanted to wait with sharing until we were a little more certain about what would come out of it.  As we speak, I, Hanne, have a whole, beautiful day off before my last two days at my current job.  As of this coming Monday I will be working as a nurse at the hospital in Fredrikstad, which is a really sweet city in the Southeast of Norway.  Just a few days after I started working here at Nes, Ryan got offered a coaching position in Fredrikstad, and after giving it a couple of weeks of thought we decided to go for it.  It was a pretty surprising move-I don’t think either of us had expected there to be a job opening for Ryan this soon, not in coaching, nor in Fredrikstad-a city that I have only barely visited in the past.  It was a hard decision, but I told my boss I’d be leaving only little over a week ago, and Thursday will be my last day there.

Now I’m sitting in the garden at Ildjarntunet, thinking about how incredibly fast things change.  The trick is to roll with the changes, ya know… This time last year I was venting big time to our house church after having spent a year pretty much unemployed and living on people’s couches, going to job interview after job interview, feeling desperate for some stability and security, while at the same time feeling like I was in the exact spot where God was wanting me.  I’m a much bigger fan of our current changes.  But I couldn’t have had nor appreciated the one without the other.

So, while I’m sad to be leaving Hedalen, I am convinced we are doing the right thing, and I am really excited about starting a life together in Fredrikstad.  We’ve met some good people there already, and I’m looking forward to a Norwegian summer by the sea.  We’ve got a cool apartment that I can’t wait to invite people to, with a garden where we can have barbecues.  I’m excited about my job, about Ryan’s job, about making friends, about catching up with my pre-USA friends, and about Norwegian summer night after Norwegian summer night after Norwegian summer night...

So if anybody wants to come visit-there’s always a plane headed for Rygge airport and we’ll be there to pick u up, in our awesome new old Volkswagen that can fit all your luggage just like that!

Some Simple Thoughts on a Complex Book

Over the past few days, I've been reading a book that has given me some interesting insights about my life and my relationship with God.  I find myself connecting with God in a variety of ways lately, such as through my relationships with other people, through reading, and through nature; but then today, I found myself connecting with God through a book that is all about proving that God does not exist.  This book is The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which I've been reading along with a book by Brian McLaren called A Generous Orthodoxy (an awesome combo to read these two together and very interesting).  In The God Delusion, Dawkins refutes the existence of God on the basis of Darwinian evolution and natural selection and says that he is attempting to raise people's consciousness and that if one believes in the existence of God then they have not had their conscience raised.  He criticizes creationists and advocates of intelligent design for utilizing a 'God of the gaps' approach, which says that if science can't explain it then it must be the work of an intelligent creator, i.e. God.  He also criticizes creationists refusal to think about alternatives to the origin of life, and for utilizing irreducible complexity as an argument against evolution and as proof for the existence of God.  I am not a creationist in the sense that I believe in a literal six day creation of the earth nor am I a believer in a young earth, so Dawkins scientific approach to evolution and the origin of life interests me greatly.  While reading this book, I have been engaging deeply in thinking about my faith, and there are times where Dawkins is very convincing about the improbability of the existence of God.  However, when I really start to wrestle with what he says and with all of the experiences of my life, I find myself connecting with God.  My life does not make sense without God and I feel like through Dawkins' book, God is raising my consciousness.  Dawkins would definitely criticize me for implying that if science can't explain something, then God must exist, but maybe science is God's way of creating.  Maybe God creates through evolution and natural selection.  Dawkins would say that God is a messed up creator then because he creates things that don't work right, but maybe God's way is to let things work themselves out in this messy kind of biological process.

I think that Dawkins has a lot of good points in this book and challenges believers on a lot of levels; but as I think about what he says, I feel the small amount of faith that I do have strengthened.  It seems to me that to believe what Dawkins believes takes faith just the same as it takes faith to believe in the existence of God.  

Ryan

Norway - Week 3

This past week we took the bus down to Oslo to visit Hanne's father and look for a vehicle.

Shortly after we arrived, we went to have lunch with Hanne's father at the Parliament building, where he works.

As we went through security at the Parliament, Ryan had a beanie on and the security officer informed him that he could not wear it inside the building (after he asked us if we had come straight from the forest).   This is Ryan sporting the visitor's pass...

Hanne on the metro excited about looking for cars.  

Our new car...

National Theater

 Cooking dinner back home.

Hanne started work yesterday and Ryan began taking language classes.  Ryan also got to the gym for the first time since we've been here.  We're starting to get into a rhythm and are beginning to feel at home.