Yesterday when the elders’ conference was over we went to a great surprise party! Elisabeth Osland had invited us to join her in celebrating the silver anniversary of being married to Knut Osland for 25 years. The actually date was a few weeks back, but this weekend was more suitable for celebration as so many of their friends from all over the country were gathered at the conference and could take part in the surprise party.

Elisabeth joined forces with the children and they arranged a grandchild blessing party and invited some of us to join them. That was a perfect disguise for all the necessary preparations and to get Knut to dress in a black suit. I asked Knut if they had a tradition of having great parties when a baby had been brought to church for blessing and thanksgiving. They didn’t and Knut was as surprised as me that they could make so much out of such a thing!

After having some light cakes and fruits and a competition which Knut and Elisabeth won, there was a short break before the dinner. Knut was kept busy as more guests were secretly guided to the dining hall which was locked at the normal entry. When all the about 50 prominent guests had arrived, Knut and Elisabeth were asked to come for dinner. As they entered we all shouted: CONGRATULATION with the silver jubilee!
Knut was completely knocked out. Absolutely taken by surprise! He was just shocked. I will never forget the unbelieving expression in his face, the mouth fell open, the eyes were big, and what a miracle, he went dumb – not a word came over his lips. For some seconds he was lost! I enjoyed these seconds!

Eventually the reality dawned on him, and he came back to life! Then we had a wonderful party with delicious food, nice speeches and good time of fellowship.

We have had a very good but intense day at Gullbotn today in the apostolic team discussion our goals and strategy for the work. We have formulated many big goals and talked about the best way to reach them. It has been very fruitful. All the goals are natural concequences of the apostolic mission we have been given:
The apostolic mission is to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God to cause people to repent from sin and bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
The apostolic mission is to make all people groups disciples in such a way that entire nations, cultures and communities are transformed into the likeness of Christ.
The apostolic mission is to plant churches built on the foundation of apostles and prophets. The church exists for God and must be built his way for his glory.
The apostolic mission is to supervise the covenanting communities of believers and help them to grow to maturity and reach the fullness of Christ.
The apostolic mission is to bring forth a prophetic people who through their life, service and proclamation can be light and salt, – a prophetic sign, a demonstration of the age to come.
The apostolic mission is to care for the poor and underprivileged by helping them to get out of difficult and inhuman conditions. We have a social responsibility towards our neighbour.
The apostolic mission is to bring unity among all believers and foster a sense of belonging to the people of God, the holy nation, a manifold and colourful community.

All day from morning to late evening we have been together at Gullbotn for prayer, discussion and strategic planning. We have had some significant time together as we have been trying to reformulate our vision, mission and values. This coming weekend we will have a national elders’ conference where we will dialogue along the same lines. I am sure we will have a good and fruitful time together with the elders as well!

I have found great joy in reading reports on Norway in the blogs of some of the European participants at the Dawn Conference in Norway. Marc from Holland is giving a full and interesting report which I recommend.

At the early prayer meeting this morning we had a wonderful report of young people finding salvation in Jesus Christ in one of the suburbs of Bergen.
Last autumn the Lutheran state-church in Arna, Bergen wanted to offer the Youth Alpha Course as an alternative teaching in the confirmation system. But they had a problem in that they didn’t have the necessary number of leaders. Michael from the charismatic Christian Fellowship church heard about this need and volunteered to find some young people from his church that could help the Lutherans with this. After some talk they reached an agreement and went ahead. Michael and 6 of his friends have been assisting in this works since September 2003.
100 teenagers in Arna will be confirmed this spring in the Lutheran church. 30 of these have been attending the alternative Alpha Course for young people as the teaching and preparation for their confirmation. They started in September and will continue to May. Last weekend they had a Holy Spirit weekend and many were touched by the power of God. Today we had the encouraging report that 15 teenagers have come to Christ already! They are testifying at home and at school about their salvation through Jesus Christ.
I am excited to hear good news like this! It is one more sign of the moving of the Spirit in our nation! But is only a small beginning. We will see a powerful move of the Spirit among the young generation that will supersede everything we have seen so far.
I am so happy not to live in a post-Christian era but in a pre-Christian era. The world has yet to see the plentiful harvest being harvested!
God is good!

I have been blogging on Blogspot for a while but during the Dawn Conference in Bergen about a week ago I had a chat with Andrew Jones and realised that I could make my blog look more exciting. Therefore I am trying to use a new blogging tool – the Typepad.
The other day I received two very encouraging emails from unknown people who had read my blog and my poems. It meant a lot to me to read the words of appreciation from people I have never met. I felt good when I read that they had enjoyed my blog and found my poems on being somebody wonderful!
During the 18 months I have been blogging I have received a few emails from people reading my blogs. However I have had a lot of encouragement from people I know telling me face to face that they enjoy reading my blog. Encouraging words like that is always welcome and sweet to my soul.
But this time it was different. The words of appreciation came from people I had never seen, people I never met, people from the big world out there somewhere in the virtual world and at the same time from the real world. The two emails in one day made up for all the toil and discipline in writing a blog for 18 months! I have the feeling of being connected to a new reality. I feel my life has been enlarged! I feel I have broken out of my Norwegian geographical and cultural limitations! I expect more limitations are to be broken. I will explore new grounds. Prophetic words will come true. I am flying to new horizons of joy!