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!