Gothenburg and Stockholm

The week of February 26 was outreach week, and my team consisting of nine students went to Gothenburg. Gothenburg is a city on the west coast of Sweden and just a little north of Holsby. Before we left, all we knew we were doing was 'teaching' an English class, which actually means playing games with them to get them to speak English, and running a youth group, so we planned some games, discussion and music. We left on Wednesday, and it took us about 3 hours to drive there. Wednesday night we split up into pairs and attended different small groups attached to the church that organized the week for us. EJ and I went together to a small group of five church members. They ate together and visited and we got to share a little bit about where we were from and what we were doing at Holsby. Then we sang a few songs and discussed the passage of scripture that had been the focus of that Sunday's sermon.

On Thursday morning we went to a mall and handed out DVDs of the life of Jesus based on the gospel of Luke. It was intimidating at first to walk up to people and give them a DVD, but it got easier the more we did it, and we got to talk to a few people who had good enough English to actually understand us. After a little more than an hour, we were asked to stop by the leader of the state church. I was not exactly clear on all the details, but I think it was partly because we were working with a priest from the state church but handing out DVDs with stickers from a different church. It might also have been that we were too 'enthusiastic' about handing them out, not just standing by the priest and his book table and waiting for people to come by but actually going through the mall and walking up to random people. Maybe they were afraid the priest would lose his permission to have the book table in the mall. Thursday afternoon we handed out the DVDs and free waffles, coffee and cookies in a city square not far from the church. I helped serve the waffles, which was fun since especially the kids were thrilled to get them.

On Friday we spent the morning at a Christian school; it was strange though because there is a relatively new law in Sweden that says you can't 'indoctrinate' kids which means you can't evangelize even in Christian schools. We didn't get to do our prepared games either because it turns out the teachers weren't expecting us to teach English. We were placed in different classrooms and tried to talk to the kids while they were working, but it was kind of awkward. I don't think the teachers really knew what to do with us. In the afternoon we walked to a nearby lake and since it was frozen we walked and slide on the lake, which was great! Then we headed back to our home base, number 54 of an apartment complex. We slept on the couches for a bit and then ran through our worship set and the activities we had planned for the youth group that night. The youth group was a lot of fun! I helped lead worship by singing, which was a new and stretching experience. I have never really led the singing by myself before, and I missed a few of my cues but it worked out okay. It was a little less stressful since we were off to the side and behind rather than in front and I didn't use a microphone so I thought no one would hear me after they started singing themselves, although I found out later they still could.

Saturday was our 'day off' so we explored downtown a bit and took a ferry to an island, which I liked the best. The island was one where there were no cars and there was a forested area with some large boulders so I took off into the forest to climb them and find some alone time. Then we headed back to home base where we made dinner – fettuccine, chicken, garlic bread, salad, and brownies – for the open house that night. The open house was a weekly event open to the community and church members where they ate together, sang a few songs and prayed. A few of us had an opportunity to share so I talked about what God has been teaching me this year about what it means for Christ to live in us.

The next morning we went to the church service and then headed home. It's really hard to describe the blessing we received through the people from the church that we met and stayed with. They were so welcoming and friendly and encouraging and that characterised our time there more than anything we did. They also placed a large emphasis on prayer, which in itself was encouraging. I felt like we were blessed far more than we blessed them.

This weekend I have been on the other coast of Sweden, in Stockholm, visiting Josefin and her family who I knew from my time living in the Philippines. It was really good to see her again after nearly ten years and to catch up with her and to talk about our time growing up together. We watch a few home videos of Christmas productions and birthday parties and laughed together. We walked through the old part of Stockholm and ate dinner in a dungeon. We went to an outdoor museum with houses in different styles from all over Sweden and as old as the 1600s. We visited a mini zoo and saw monkeys, seals, wolverines, elk, a wolf, and a sea otter. The best part was just bring together and hanging out.

This is the last week of spring term and about half the students will be leaving to travel or go home. I am not looking forward to saying goodbye.