What's up?

Hello out there
Hope you are doing good
and enjoying life.

We don't have any new cool pictures
and not a lot of new stuff to write,
but yes we are doing good.
Enjoying life- sure, but there is also a... what to call it?
a..longing. A longing to see things come trough.

What are we waiting for?
Is it time to move south?
Or is it smart to hold our horses for a bit longer.
Time will tell...
And in the meantime
we are enjoying the good we have today.

And always and through it all:
God is good and forever faithfull.

Saffron Buns

Christmas is here!! Well I know it's almost three weeks even until advent but
Kenneth did some Saffron Buns earlier this week so we got a nice cosy Christmas feeling

Playing Christmas music, lighting candals, thinking of other Christmas goodies...

This is the very first Saffron Buns Kenneth ever made! (he do has eaten them before, in countless amounts...) And he did a great job! though he got tired of making the cats after half the dough... (the buns are in swedish called Lucia cats)

And Lena was laying in the sofa feeling sorry for herself, having a cold.
Feeling much better after having some "lussekatter" though! and now even better after a couple of days of rest.

Wednesday and "Stället".

Tonight is cafe' Stället! Kenneth is trying to find out if he's going to get some prisoners from the jail to Stället. We can bring about 4 guys every wednesday. But still no answer from the prisonpastor!
The prisonministry has been going on for 50 years we belive, with mainly gatherings in the prison. But it's not easy to find drivers that can bring the prisoners to the meetings in the church.

Mats Testimony

This is a friend of ours Kenneth filmed.

Click on link:
Big City Life

The violence in the end of times!

Yesterday friday night the evangelism team was out on the street as usual with coffe and some biscuits. When we were ready to wrap it up there came a girl walking on the street crying heavely. Louise the leader went to talk with her, and it turned out that she had been raped by 3 guys that had dragged her in to a alley somewhere not far from where we were.
She was 18 drunk and to young to get in to the pub where her friends were. So they left her outside alone. Then these 3 guys came and said they would help her, so she went with them.
Well! Listen to this! When her friends heard what had happened they of course got upset and started to cry, and one of the girls who was kinda stronger and a sort of "mothertype" in the group said that -"We have to be strong for her sake" and then she said -"This is getting to common, this is the 4:th friend of mine that has gotten raped". Now this was said like in a sence that they allmost thought it's normal! Like that's what girls has to count with!?

Well in one way that is true! cause if you are out there living in and playing with the SIN you are putting your self in very dangerious situations. The devil is walking around all the time, looking for someone to attack! So don't long for he joys of the world you will only get hurt in the long run!

A walk around "our" lake

This was a couple of weeks ago.
Today everything is bright yellow and red.
Just as beautiful any day though.

Studying Greek

Our life in Stockholm

As you might have understod we are not yet living in Maccedonia.
Our hope is that it wan't take to long until we have something more permanent going on down there, but until then...

Lena is having a full time job at a hostel for homeless addicts. It's a good job that she likes a lot. She likes the people she meet and is having lots of fun with her colleagues.
We're convinced that the grace of God can turn any life around. So her prayer is that her life will show the love of Christ to the people she meet at her job, and through that give someone hope for a better tomorrow. What else than Jesus can fully move a person to solid ground?

Kenneth has different things going on. Two main things are the friday nights, when they are downtown handing out coffee and talking about Jesus. The other is Wednesday when there is "Stället" in church.
Stället is a cafémeeting with a focus on addicts and other broken people. There is lots of different people coming though and it's a nice homy feeling at these gatherings.
Another thing that he's doing and long to do more of is filming. Right now he's doing some short clips with testimonies from different people. Kenneth has more things he like to see come to past but we'll see what doors will be opened and when the right time is.

Something else that we are excited about, is that we have started to attend a language class in greek. We're fighting with the greek letters and wondering why there is so many different "i". But bit by bit we are going to learn it, Yes we will!

Sascha testimony
(Not yet with english subtitles, but he's a former drugaddict that after having heard the message about Jesus for 15 year by some faithfull christians, finally gave in and got saved. Now he's been in bibleschool and the Lord gave him life back and the job he has today!)

my pelargoniums

Now the autumn is here! likey likey
The sky is high and the air cold.
The wind is blowing hard in the trees.
I have taken our pelargoniums inside
to protect them from the night frost.

Oktober harvest

Before the frost is killing our carrots (that's been in the earth for 4 month!!) we decided to harvest (the one on the left is bought in a store) They are not big... but they are our beloved carrots, don't think I ever seen so beautiful carrots before... and never tasted such wounderful carrots ever before :-)

Evangelism in Stockholm

Every friday a group from our church are out on the street, handing out coffe and talking with people about Jesus. Kenneth is trying to join them as often as possible.
These friday nights allways gives the opportunity to deep and good discussions with people. Some times one have to wait the whole night before those right people comes that really want to know and here about Jesus. Like last friday, Kenneth was about to give up and leave earlier because he felt the whole night went without any good chats, but then suddenly those people came and one could really see and feel how they absorbed every word like a sponge. One commentary was from a girl he spoke to: Good Lord! Why have'nt they told us this in school?

That's the fact in Sweden, people don't know the main message in the gospel.

Us beeing silly on our way home

And so we were on our way home. First with the train to Thessalonike (where we spent the night at some friends house, thanks a lot Elias- love you!) then a car to Karamoti and a taxi took us the last bit to the airport. And we were late as always... Why!? but we did make it in time and no time was wasted...
Here is Lena at her best :-) waiting for a train that is more than an hour late, but we know nothing becouse we didn't learn the language yet...


Maybe not to smart to film on the side but... it's a great song he's singing... öh or not... and maybe only swedes will know it, it's preformed by a swedish artist in the 80th.

Thunder

On our way back to Tetovo it started to rain, a lot.

Our days in Skopje

We were staying with a lovely family in Tetovo, family Rudd who works with Youth With a Mission. And while we were there they gave birth to their second son. :-) Congratulations!! We also got to know another couple of the staff, Jordan and Vesna, who went with us for a fun day in the capital city and introduced us to some other people. It was good to get to know them and hopefully we'll get to work more with them in the future.

Jordan is modelling at one of many statues in Skopje.

Daniel is talking to mummy who's at the hospital with babybrother.

Mother Theresa is from Skopje.

Flag of F.Y.R.O.M

Our way to Skopje

After some days in Thassos we continued north west to FYROM.
An Albanian couple, friends of the fellowship, were going to Thessalonica and gave us a ride. It's amazing how God makes us one. We didn't know a common language and yet they are now our brother and sister.

From Thessalonica we took the train to Skopje.

What to say about our ride on the train? Did you travel with train in Sweden in the 1980s? I did quite some and this was like going back in time. Lena likes the older trains when you feel and hear that you are traveling. Kenneth though would rather enjoy the comfort of a car but was happy to be able to speek to our fellow travelers...

After one hour at the border and another three hours on the train we came to Skopje where our Macedoian friends were picking us up.

Our days at Thassos

We have had another week in Macedonia and feel really excited about what God want us to do down there. I more and more understand that most likely nothing will be as I have planed it... First of all I have to adjust to the Greek way of doing things... It's more about relationships and spending time than efficiency and organisation. I have to allow things to take time. We have a thought of a café and I really love to see it come to pass. But sometimes it feels overwhelming, how will we make it happen? But! all things are possible for him who belives. Halleluja! As long as we walk in what we belive God has told us to do, he will also have his hand of protection and guidens for us. "And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." Rom 8:28

In Thassos we were hosted by a Albanian who live with a german on this Greece island. They have a peacefull and beautiful place just few hundred meters from the beach :-) We stayed in Thassos for three days. Spent some time with our friends in the fellowship.

When we in Sweden where getting ready for the trip Lena didn't feel so motivated to go. Would rather stay back. But when Mario came to meet us at the ferry we where home!

Gordon was of great help taking us to some officials and making it possible for us to see a facility that is for rent. This was very encouraging even though we don't think this is our place. Now we at least have something more concrete to think of. There is a nother place, a big abandon house, that we love to have but we don't know how to find the owner or how to assume it. But God willing... everything is possible.

Fresh fruit from the garden. Ah lovely.

Another visit in Macedonia

Yesterday we came home.
Today we done some unpacking and washing.
Tomorrow we will update the blog...

Harvest time

Look how it's growing in our garden! :-)
Well it's more green then fruits, but still...
We did get some potatos and if we're lucky we'll get a tomato aswell...

On a roadtrip to the Arctic Circle

Follow us along our 3000 km long journey through Sweden. This summer we took mum and niece (Lenas mum and niece that is) and drove to Juoksengi to visit dad and other relatives of Kenneth. We stoped to visit friends and saw a lot along the way but foremost it feels like we spent a lot of time in the car... We started of on July 2 at 11pm taking turns driving and sleeping. We followed the cost to Sundsvall and then went inland by Helgum, Lapplandsveckan, Vilhelmina...

It is for sure a beautiful country we have!

At 5 a'clock in the morning this our first night we were climbing (with our car) up the Vätteberg (Vättemountain) and was for sure enjoying the view we got from up there with the soft morning light and Indalsälven below.

After 7 hours in the car we were happy to see a bed! This bed was prepared in a chapel in Helgum, the village of peace as it seemed to me. We decided not to spend anymore nights driving but to stay the night in Helgum. So after a couple of hours of sleep we had a beautiful day with friends, swiming, some prayer and just a relaxed, nice time.
At this time we still had nice weather, later on we got some rain and greay clouds (quite nice considering the hours spent in the car).



So we stayed in the chapel over night before moving on.
A backyard that someone made into a tractor museum :-) there were plenty of them, mostly old ones though and quite rosty but beautiful...

Norrland have some beautiful scenerys! Here is midnight at Volglake in Vilhelmina and the roaring river Storforsen. Storforsen is the biggest free rapid in Europe



In Boden Lotta and Hans (sister of Lena) joined us for our time in Norrbotten, they had had a shaky night on the train but was soon enough ready for some sightseeing of the surroundings.
We got to see some young Sand Martins (Back Svala) when visiting Gammelstad. Oh how cute they are.

As a lover of "Karl-Bertil Johnssons julafton" (Christopher's Christmas Mission) we had to visit "Bodens fästing" when beeing in Boden. In this film a Matchstick picture of the fort of Boden is given as a christmas present(in english one of Taj Mahal in sunset. So I guess that has to be our next visit). One may wonder what this picture really looked like though, the fortress consist of five different forts and I don't know how many hundred other locations around the city, the city of Boden is in fact the actual fort.
Anyway, as visiting our relatives in Boden we went on a tour of this military installations in the mountain.

One may think it's quiet and boring in Juoksengi, a village with only 401 inhabitans in the middle of nowhere.
But when we came there we had to fight to find time for recreation and spending time with dad. There was an market (in the rain) with everything from plastic tools to handcrafted knifes with carvings in reindeer horn and there was carbingo that gathered hundreds of cars, honking when getting the right numbers and my favorit, cowbingo :-) where we where hoping for the cow to do a poo in a surten number...

Then of course we had to make our way to Finland that's just on the other side of the river, to enjoy and shop some finish design.

And so after 8 days with lots more happening than we mentioned here, we were going back home again. With some more friends and family that we visited along the way.

And then, finally, home sweet home :-)

Borta bra men hemma bäst.