We're Going to Ethiopia!

We have found out where we are going for our two month outreach mission trip in March and April: ETHIOPIA! We're very excited for this huge opportunity for growth! As most of you know, we had multiple fundraisers, saved, and worked overtime, but we're still in need of quite a lot of help for our outreach fee. We did take out a loan, but haven't used it yet. We truely feel God is telling us not to use it. We've been getting by with the payments being made on our Bug that we sold right before coming here. Also, things in Norway cost 2-3x as much compared to U.S. We would love to get jobs here, however not only are we completely busy with school (our schedules start at 7:30 and end some days at 9pm), but our Visas do not allow us to be employed.
Within a few weeks we are suppose to pay our outreach fee of $5800. Please pray for us about this. If you feel led to help us out financially and be a part of our mission to Ethiopia in this way, you can contact us through my e-mail: mallyomal@hotmail.com. Please also contact us if you would like to be part of our mission to Ethiopia by a commitment of prayer, and we can update you on specific prayer needs. There's also a link to make a donation through Paypal at the right of the screen. Thank you! Or, "Tusen takk," as they say here.
P.S.
We've been trying to sell Mitch's 86' Toyota 4Runner. If you or anyone you know might be interested please give them our information. It has a bran new rebuild engine (provided by reputable company, not just somebody), new battery, new rebuilt transmission, and third member in the rear axel. It is black with red interior. We have it posted on Craigslist for $5995. Thank you!

Fight the World of Relativeness

'Escape the circus, and live beyond the limits of the imaginary lid.' -Playstation 2
Go check out the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYu81Q1QTy4
This commercial is an excellent example of many of our lives. We are 'boxoholics.' We take what we know, define it, say how it works, wrap it up, put it in a box, and say, 'There it is!' The beautiful thing is that God likes to take these pretty little boxes and SHAKE them. This is sometimes challenging and frustrating, yet exciting. We need to live with diversity and flexibility as our partners, not fight them.
Sue Rinaldi from England was our teacher this week. Listening to her was like listening to a song all week. She spoke on, 'Communicating God's Heart Through the Arts.' She definitely shook us up, in a good way, and her teaching was so incredibly refreshing and inspiring.
A great reminder was to always use God as THE source. Along with that, if we ever find ourselves becoming bored or boring, or out of inspiration, then to GO. Go somewhere you can see God. If your world gets small, if your imagination becomes small, get OUT of your world. Get out of yourself. Do something, go somewhere where you can see God.
We addressed the obvious issue that the world is in need, and then how to meet that need: We must meet the world with love, with passion; 'Kiss the world awake.' We need to meet the world with skill- When the temple was created the best artists were summoned and used. With authenticity- With true reality and out of an honest heart. With cultural insight- This earns the respect and provides the openess and an ability for others to hear what we have to say. We need to look into what people are doing and spending all their time and money on, and look into why they do and like the things they do. We need to meet the world with a sensitivity to the signs of the times and prophetic eyes- We need to get into the future in a way, to be leaders. 'Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.' -Acts 17:21 Nothing has changed. And, we need to meet the world with humility- Hello! The message of Jesus.
I realized my need to get in touch with the world I live in. This is hard for me, but I need to discipline myself. One idea is to start reading the TIME magazines that are delivered to the base. At one point Sue said, 'Find your creative pulse and make sure it's always there.' This all is so true, and something so important to start remembering and working on daily.
A couple other videos Sue showed us this week were amazing. Here are their links, go check'em out and let them inspire you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzoNInZ2ClQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvTFKpIaQhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSIbfzK2spg

Under the Sea

Have you ever had an under the sea Thanksgiving? We have! Seeing that they don't have Thanksgiving here, we made things a little untraditional, okay, very untraditional. We entered the room with blue lights shining from above, accenting the bottom of a ship on the ceiling made from cardboard, fish nets and paper fish all around, and whale noises playing. The meal started out with turkey sushi. We had games, one being pin the tail on the whale, and another one shown in the pictures was fishing for treats. At one point for entertainment a student named Esben sang bits of songs and put them all together. It included beach boys songs ('Kokomo'), 'Cold Water' by Damien Rice, the Bay Watch theme song, and a few others that had some reference to the beach. Sharks, beach trash, scuba divers, a yellow submarine, fish, turtles, the heart of the ocean (from Titanic), starfish (that was me), and many others attended.

Music Track Concert

The music track gave an excellent concert that surprised everyone. Each person has to write one song per week. At the end of the week they decide as a track which song the whole group will learn. They performed songs they have written up until now. I'm sorry I don't have any sound or video clips for you. I'll let the photos sing for now.

Roots of Bitterness

This last week was Plumbline. It was sort of a counseling seminar. We looked into our negative personality traits, such as fear of failure, insecurity, and times of loneliness, which were some of mine. Considering we weren’t born with these traits, we were taught how to look into where they came from, and how to begin to work on getting rid of them. Their roots are usually in childhood memories. You are able to among other things, forgive others and yourself; to tear up these roots.
Genesis 3 was used a lot, the fall of man. The first question God asks Adam and Eve after they have eaten the fruit and are hiding is, “Where are you?” This question was used to help us identify our personality traits, and where we are in life. After Adam says to God that he hid from God since he was afraid because he was naked, God asked him, “Who told you?” This was the main question. Who has told us we are insecure, afraid, sad, inferior…whatever?
It was a very hard process, but an extremely powerful one. I’ve been able to begin to live life with a new reference system. It was very good for Mitchell too. There are issues in our marriage that we are able to confront in new ways. We’ve learned so much about ourselves, and therefore able to begin being better together.

"Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation...Lift up your heads...that the King of glory may come in." Psalm 24:3-7

Red Riding Hood and the Wolf!

Two weekends ago the staff threw the students a Lovefeast. It was 'fairytale' theme. It was a really amazing night, the best party I've ever been to. They completely transformed the dinning and living rooms into a fairytale forest. The three little pigs, brothers Grimm, Repunzel, fairies, the three blind mice, A troll, the queen, the princess, snow white, a snow queen, and so many more, they were all there. It was really fun to make the costumes, we had to get creative with just stuff we could find around. We just barrowed other peoples clothes, cut/colored cardboard boxes, and stuff. We used some tall, dried weeds as Mitchells tail (he was the Big Bad Wolf).

There was dancing, a halarious skit, the staff read off appreciation notes to each of us, and a yummy meal (including dessert! Mmm.).

Life Artist

Last week we had teaching on “Art and the Artist in God’s Perspective.” I was taught a lot, so I thought I could maybe share some of it with you.
A Life Artist: Someone who embraces opportunities as they come along. They have a willingness to explore more than the minimum.
Don’t say, “I’m not creative.” You are lying against the very first verse in the Bible! “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.’” Gen.1:1/26 etc. "He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." Gen 2:19. Since the beginning He has been co-creating with us, giving us the freedom to be creative. He wants us to think outside the box, to create, and live creatively.
Arts has the power to bring revelation. It takes what the eyes see, past them, and affects the heart. We have a calling to creatively image God into this world. Yes! I want to be part of this, and discover and grow it in my life. He is Jehovah Elohim – Creative Redeemer.
The speaker gave an assignment, which was to do a Redemptive Art project. You were suppost to take something you struggle with and make it in a peice or art. At first I wasn’t so excited about it, it just didn’t enthuse me. When I thought of my idea, it just didn’t seem that my feelings on the subject would be able to be fully expressed through my idea. Man, I was wrong. It turned out to be such a wonderful new experience. We made such powerful art and testimonies with just found objects. People talked about things they had never dared talk about before, and they did it in front of people they have known for only a month. By doing so they themselves were healed, and others were healed. They’re heart’s were spoken to. The power of healing through speaking out testimonies is real. Stories that come from the darkness, when spoken out, are given light. When you're in the light are have less fear, which makes more room for love. I greatly recommend everyone do this! Do it with other people. I guarantee you'll be changed in a great way! If you need more info. on the "assignment" holler my way.
The lessons I’ve learned this week are huge ways of life that I’m so excited to make part of my life.
The whole earth and sky and everything in it is an expression of God’s creativity. And we’re living in it everyday! Us too, we are HIS ARTWORK! Amen!

Culture Day

Saturday was Culture Day! The day started with an American breakfast of pancakes, and later that day, everyone from each country got together and put on a display reprisenting their country. We had a Chinese dinner put on by Miuky. The picture with the guy with a yellow shirt (Miika) was Finland. You can see on the bottom of the picture is the longest word in the Finish language. I forget what it means. There were all sorts of music, food, desserts, costumes, and on and on. It's amazing how many counties in Europe are famous for black liquarish. Yuch.

That night Meghen and Anna taught swing dancing. It was a blast. I mostly took pictures and videotaped. I danced with Caleb for awhile, but he was so goofy that I was laughing so hard, so he "fired" me. : ). Everyone was having such fun!

Miracle Maker

We had our first Creative Week. It was chalanging and so fun. I danced four-five hours a day with a lyrical jazz teacher from Norway, and Mitch had the same with his music track. In the dance track we have a very wide range of experience, for some they had never danced jazz before, and some haven't even ever taken a real dance class before. The teacher, Therese, pushed us a lot, we did a lot of technique and all. It was difficult for me even having the experience I have. It was really great to see everyones spirits stay up dispite frustration or progressing soreness and bruising as the days went on.

On Friday we had, "Show and Tell." All of the tracks joined and shared with each other what they had been working on during the week. There is a short video clip of part of the dance we did to the song Miracle Maker, by Delerious.

The assignment for the fine artists was to paint something about their testamony. One of them, Danielle, painted about a really hard period in her life and how the overcame it. She wanted to express more of how she got through it, and what it felt like after she got through, so she asked two of the dancers to put together something for her Show and Tell. She played the bongos while they "danced/monologed."

Enjoy!

We saw one up close and personal!

I chased him down! Poor thing, it was probably so stressed out after I flashed the camera in it's face like four times. Actually, earlier that evening, Miuky a girl from China brought a hedgehog into the base in her coat! Hah. It was crazy. It bit her. At one point she started to put her coat on the floor and I was like, "No! He's gonna get lost in the house!" Hahaha.
We're having a special supper tonight (the fourth meal of the day), waffles. Yeay, I can smell them cooking right now...Oh it's three minutes to supper, I must go! Love you all so, so much!
Oh and if anyone wants to call us the number is: +47 70 14 53 02
It's best to call between 8am and 1pm your time.

Wild Hedgehogs!

Yeah! Wild Hedgehogs! We've seen two now. I guess there's tons of them here. How fun. And I think I failed to mention in past posts that it is SO expensive here. You see it's about 5.4 kroner to 1 dollar. The minimum wage is about 110 kroner/hr. Wow. So of course everything is priced at a relative amount. But I have other, more exciting things to talk about...

We went to Bergen (a town that takes about 12 hours to drive to) from Wednesday until late Saturday. In Bergen we went to a conference led by Bill Johnson from California. He spoke, etc. on healing. It was very cool and interesting. At the end of the evening sessions him and his team would have discernment about very specific pains that they were feeling people had in the audience. Afterward, people would gather around them and pray. Many people were healed. It was really remarkable. I wish I could explain it better. It was also a conference on healing in general. I have many really good, helpful notes from it.

On the way home from Bergen we hiked to a glacier!!! It was breathtaking! All of the trees are turning, so that made it all the more magnificant. The other couple in one glacier picture is our good friends Erin and Caleb who live with us at the aparment. They are so awesome!

Beautiful Rain

The streets were actually dry when we woke up this morning! And it was so windy. Now it’s down pouring again, but that’s ok, it was neat while it lasted. Kalle, the man who started this YWAM base actually told us the first night we were here a neat outlook on it raining so much. He said, “God loves this place so much, that He just wants to wash it clean every day!” I liked that a lot, it gives us an optimistic outlook on all the rain.

The other day we were praying for all of the tracks (the dance track, the music track, etc.). It was a really encouraging time for everyone, then something amazing happened. We were praying for the music track (they stood in the middle of the room, with everyone surrounding them), and then one of the guitar players just started crying really hard. He was rubbing his wrist. He was trying to talk, but couldn’t get a word out through his crying. The whole room just kind of sat on the edge of it’s seat, we didn’t know if we needed to be concerned or what. He finally got out the words, “My hand, it has hurt so bad for so long. It just started burning.” Then he flexed his wrist backwards and forwards, and all around, still crying, now clearly with joy. His wrist had been healed! And nobody in the room except him had even been praying for that, but God knew. Espen told us later that he hasn’t been able to do all that he would like to, or play for very long on his guitar because he had injured his wrist quite a few years ago. Now it’s totally fine! Wow, I wish I could explain it to you. It was one of the most amazing moments in my life.

Mitchell is feeling better, and I didn’t get sick! Yeay! We leave to a conference in Bergen tomorrow morning. That should be really great. By the way, we have our very own mail box spot at the base, and it would be so delightful to receive anything you might feel to send…Pictures, letters, treats…Hint…Hint....Any piece of home would be so nice. Love to you all!

Growth!

The last few days have been such a time of growth!

A couple of days ago we had game day. We were split into teams and had all kinds of chalanges; leading each other blindfolded, eating very interesting combinations of weird Norwegian foods (I was the only one willing to suck down a raw egg, ew, I gag just thinking about it), and other team games. We had to take care of a "baby" during all of this, which was a difficult in itself since it was raining pretty hard. At the end of the games we got to open our babies at the BBQ, there were chips and Norweigian candies inside.

Yesterday was our first "CREATIVE" day! Yeay! Every Friday we have days where we consintrate on the creative part of the school. Then there will be weeks that every day is a creative day. Anyhow, a married couple came and gave us a talk on comparison. It was so uniting for the dance team! Among this, they said how there will always be someone better than you, and someone less than you. Therefore, it's a waste of energy and really a dishonoring thing to God to do such a thing. We should honor God in what he has made. He has a specific purpose for all of us at any level we're on, and all of the purposes are equal! Yes!

The husband of the group taught us a Street Hip Hop class, it was so much fun to dance again, and for the group to finally dance together. The dancing didn't stop there! Last night at The Art Factory (the place where all of the dancers, fine arts, and videographers go on creative days) we had a dance party! I guess it's something that happens a lot around here. It was pretty ragin' : ). There was a smoke machine, black lights, all different colored lights, a disco ball, the whole nine yards. Oh that saying brings me to a funny thought. It is so fun to have to discribe sayings to people whos second languige is English. For example, last night I said, "Out on a limb." It had to be explaned.

Mitchell has been sick with a fever and stuffy nose yesterday and today. Please pray that he'll recover soon, and that I won't get sick! And sorry everyone for my interesting spelling, it's Community Schools fault : ).

27 Hours of Travel Later

A truck ride to the airport, a flight from Seattle to Denmark (couldn't sleep AT ALL), another flight from Denmark to Oslo, Norway, a 10 hour bus ride to Alesund, and a two minute car ride (we arrived in DOWNpouring hail! Good thing thatour leaders where right there when we got off the bus to help us attempt to smash all of our things into their little car.), and we were at Alesund's YWAM base!

We are staying in a beautiful apartment with two fun married couples. The apartment is right out of an IKEA magazine, except for the random added Native American posters. The apartment is just a two minute walk from the main base is, where the other students live, where the hang out area is, and where we have our meals.

When we landed in Oslo it looked like we were landing in Sequim! All of the same foliage and overcast, tons of evergreens. Here at the base the main windows overlook water and mountains. The third day we were here the sun came out (the 1st time is four weeks they said), you could see the fresh dusting of snow that had fallen on the mountains. It's breathtaking!