Whithersoever thou goest

The Maasai group met today, and for the first time, Hoyce was able to join us for the beginning. Hoyce is from Tanzania and earned her PhD from someplace in  Germany (which I will find out about soon) and is doing a postdoc project (a feminist perspective). Unfortunately, her visa application was delayed in getting a response until the very end of March, well over the typical 3 months. And unfortunately, she arrived with a wicked cold with a cough. So, I passed on my citrus Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges that are wonderful, but not miraculous. However, in her honor, Knut ordered pizza for lunch. The taco pizza will not be on my recommendation list. The ground beef and ham was the better of the two in my opinion, but I’m not wild about Norwegian pizza. (I’m starting to sound like former missionary colleague Jim Bangsund, who could have written a food column in the Arusha paper with recommendations of the local restaurants. However, with the high cost of dining out, I don’t think I’ll have as much to write on as Jim did with the very affordable–and good–meals in Arusha.)

Today, our Maasai research group continued in 1 Samuel. We had an excellent discussion on the Masorah Parva and Majora, which are all the notes in the Hebrew Bible. I didn’t know how significant these are, but especially how important they were in the pre-computer concordance days. Knut unpacked them for us and gave us interesting and meaningful examples.

I will always be humbled by Hebrew, but I sensed today that my reading and vocalizing is improving a bit. Here’s a sample from Genesis 1. I think I counted that there are about 40 different vowel markings once, though not 40 sounds. Perhaps it is easier to have 40 markings with fewer vocalizations than in American English which as 6 vowel markings (A, E, I, O, U + Y) and about 40 sounds.

The conversation continued with a discussion of Zephania’s revised dissertation project outline. It is helpful for me too as Knut lays out the “pedagogics” of a dissertation and what pitfalls to avoid. I also see how I have developed an understanding of this journey over the past 2.25 years.

Zephania was also tasked in facilitating a discussion on Gerald West’s book, The Academy of the Poor. I have met Gerald on a few occasions now at conferences. While I have only read some from his vast works (he is prolific), I am moved by his solidarity with the poor and marginalized. He has risked a life of academic privilege and comfort to walk with the “ordinary” reader, but especially the powerless in apartheid South Africa–the oppressed blacks–and now especially women and those living with HIV/AIDS.

I bused home, and because I switched to the #3 bus at the bus station, I walked up the hill (the typical #2 drops us on a parallel street higher up the hill). The up path gave me this picture. The daffodils are finally out!

This evening, I made plane reservations for early May to visit the Stockholm area, including Uppsala a bit north. So, anyone have contacts or recommendations for a little visit in Stockholm? I was there when I was in 8th grade, so I remember the beautiful city hall and the Vasa ship. I’ll need a hotel, probably in the Arlanda airport area, central to Stockholm and Uppsala. Any suggestions?

With blessings,

Beth

Anya is 15 today! She went to school where her friend, Oda, had written “Happy Birthday, Anya” on the chalk board (yes, a real chalk board) in Norsk. Later the class sang to her. Oda gave her a gift which included a special collectible Norge canning jar and some candy that she knows Anya likes in a Marge Simpson bag (below).

 

Anya is 15 today, but she wasn’t too eager for photos!

Previously, she had opened her grand birthday gift brought from the USA by cousin Erin. The grandparents had helped with the purchase.

I spent part of the morning making a cake for her birthday. I’m known for a moist chocolate cake, but this was my worst ever, as the oven was too hot. So I started again and made cupcakes.

I did some work, which included purchasing NVivo software to keep my qualitative research resource active for the next 12 months, but I had to secure my student number. I didn’t even know I had a number, as I’m just referenced by name on the bills and things!

The numbers I’ve had to add to life here include:

• Student number
• Residency permit
• Tax card
• Student management software log-in PIN
• Printing code
• Bank debit card PIN
• Phone SIM PIN, needed every time the phone is turned off in order to unlock the SIM
• House alarm code
• MHS key card code
• and probably more that don’t come to mind right now.

Back to Anya’s birthday. After school we walked downtown Sandnes and got her youth pass for the bus and commuter train (mine doesn’t work for the train). This is a small rite of passage, as she has to be 15 to get it.

We then went to one of our favorite restaurant in Norway–a steak house–for an early dinner. Their lunch menu is very good and very tasty, but not as expensive as their dinner menu. My steak sandwich was $20 and Anya’s pulled pork wrap was a bit less. It is a good way to celebrate Anya’s birthday.

Then we walked quickly up the hill, picked up a few things at home, and walked fast to catch the #2 bus to Stavanger, which goes close to MHS. The youth from the International Church of Stavanger meet at MHS. I had cupcakes carefully packed to bring along and celebrate Anya’s birthday. I dropped her off and went to study Hebrew for tomorrow.

On the bus ride home, Anya was in a great mood. At the pause at the bus stand where there is wifi, Anya Skyped on her phone with her good friend, Annaliese! But because we were on the bus, Anya just greeted her and planned to call her back. On the way home, we played a travel game (Bottacelli–for those who have played it with me or Elenn), and we laughed quite a bit of the way home. We were having so much fun that we even missed our bus stop by one stop and had to walk back a bit to our street.

In some ways, this was a difficult birthday for Anya being so far away from such dear friends and going to school where there is so much challenge to learn the language. In another way, it is wonderfully meaningful that friends made the day special, emailed, Skyped, and send e-cards to her. She was encouraged.

With blessings,

Beth

Happy Birthday, Elenn, my sister. She is the one who visited about a month ago on her way back from Pakistan.

Last night, Anya tripped when going up the stairs and bruised the ball of her foot and big toe. So this morning, we were wondering about school. I offered to piggy-back her, but really, I’m glad she didn’t take me up on it, as it is uphill for a quarter mile! I thought of a taxi, but then how would she get home, as I was at MHS until late afternoon. (Taxis here are 1 Norwegian Kroner per second or $.12 per second.) I emailed her teacher that she was home for the day.

I gave her the assignment to work on her online English course all day, which she did. She’s a bit behind with the guests here and all the sightseeing.

I went off to school and did some work on Exodus 20 (the 10 Commandments) prior to the Easter service. One of my former classmates in the philosophy of science course I took in 2012 was presiding minister. The liturgy was in Norsk, but the homily was in English. Afterwards, there was a simple but complimentary soup and bread meal for all. The women PhD biblical scholars met for a time of fellowship over lunch. I hadn’t seen Marta since Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, in June 2012. She is a post-doc researcher studying the way that terminally ill people use Scripture in their lives. We mentioned that many participants were glad to live on in her research and the sense of stewardship of their voices as many have passed on.

After lunch and a bit more on Ex 20, I met with Alemu. He is from Ethiopia and doing a master’s thesis comparing the generational curse of Ex 20:5 with the clear message of corporate responsibility and the text in Ezekiel 18 which relays a more individual responsibility. We have some similar passages and have shared some insights and learned from each other. He is doing great work, integrating qualitative research including interviews with traditionalists (non-Christians), “ordinary readers” (or those who have not been formally trained in theology), and then those who have had at least a year of theological training. I was amazed at the amount of work he has been doing for a master’s thesis. He has been joining our Maasai research group conversations, because of similar methodologies, and we share the same adviser, Knut.

I saw Knut today at lunch, and we again were amazed that we saw each other on the ferry on Wednesday! I relayed that Erin was joking that he was stalking me to see if I was doing my work. He joked that this is the quality of supervision in Norway! I joked that Knut is my shepherd.

I bused home to Anya with more reading on Ex 20 (commentaries) with a back pack full of groceries I bought near campus. I realized that it is more efficient for me to buy these close to the campus and take them on the bus than to buy them closer to home and have to walk farther with them from the grocery store, as the bus only comes every 30 minutes at that time.

There were several guests around, so Anya asked if I’d get a take-away (take out) pizza from Dolly Dimples. As it is her birthday tomorrow, and a walk to town and back seemed easier than cooking around a kitchen full of people, I opted for the pizza.

After dinner were tasks (taxes, emails, scheduling for a future trip to Sweden in early May, etc. I’m ready to crash, but here are a few notes about travels last week.

After exploring Stavanger, we opted to go to Bergen for an overnight. We considered flying, bus, and ferry, but the most flexibility was renting a car. We were able to adjust things to take the bus to the airport and drive away with the car for an early–but not too early–departure the next morning.

I was the one driving!!! While Norway drives on the right side of the road like the USA, the road signs are way different. But the most dramatic issue is that unless one is on a priority road (marked by the sign below), then the right of way is to the driver on the right. It may feel like a thoroughfare, but unless you saw that sign a few kilometers back, it isn’t. You have to stop for a car approaching from the right!

The good thing is that the drivers have to be very alert all the time for any car approaching from the right, as well as pedestrians, who are so confident in the driver stopping, that they don’t look to see if a car is coming before they step into a crosswalk!

So, I was a bit nervous traveling with these new rules in a place I had never been before, including downtown in the second largest city in Norway. Fortunately, everything went well, including driving in some light snow.

The trip to Bergen takes about 5 hours, which includes 2 ferry rides across the mouth of a couple fjords. The ferry rides are great to mix up the journey and give the newbie driver in Norway a rest! The other amazing thing is the tunnels that go under some smaller fjords and bodies of water! How much rock to they have to leave above the tunnel anyway!?!

More about time in Bergen tomorrow.

With blessings,

Beth

We three–Anya, Erin and I–were picked up by Melanie (originally from Curaçao, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Southern Caribbean)…

and Joseph (originally from Zimbabwe), and we went to church at the Stavanger Internatioal Church. In addition to the regular worship music, there was special worship music led by the Romanian church’s worship team. In addition to the sermon by the Fijian pastor, there was a sharing by one of the Romanian guests. While good, it did become a long service, especially for the little ones.

After the fellowship time, where I hung out with the Ethiopian students from MHS, we went to Joseph and Melanie’s home back in Sandnes for dinner, where we were joined by Denise (African American who married a Norwegian), and later her husband. The food was good, but not the typical American ham for Easter! We had rice with a lamb stew, garlic and onion chicken, an original cheesy-potato dish, sweet pea pods, and a “greens” that I’m not sure what it is called, but it was good. Dessert was ice cream with a mixed berry sauce with the coconut candies that we brought as a hospitality gift. Yum.

The conversation was–from my perspective–interesting with moments of awkwardness, as it was theological. Denise is also a PhD student at MHS (comparing OT Passover with NT Eucharist), so plenty of theolgians. There was one other who was fairly opinionated with broad-sweeping generalizations. It became a long afternoon for the non-theologians.

On the way home, Joseph gave us a driving tour of the east side of the fjord around the hills. There was a bit of fog, so the view wasn’t as amazing as our hike in this area last week, but we saw new parts of town we hadn’t seen before.

We returned home, and Erin packed up her things. Later, I prepared a light dinner and scheduled a taxi pick up in the morning, as the buses aren’t running on the Easter Monday holiday. Erin and Anya had a fun time with her giant Kinder Easter Egg toys from the inside.

 

Monday, Apr 6:

On Monday, the taxi arrived, and I joined Erin on the trip to the airport, to give her a good send off. Then, I walked the 10.4 kilometers (6.5 miles) home, but made it in 1 hour and 50 minutes, instead of the 2 hours and 8 minute estimate.

It was quite foggy at the beginning. I couldn’t even see a plane taking off, though I was right next to the airport. It got a bit less foggy, but the moisture helped me see a cool spider web.

I showered, did some laundry, napped, folded laundry, and caught up on emails while Anya did some of her online English course.

This evening, Anya had an invitation to see the Sandnes Ulf soccer game with her friend, Oda. The home team’s stadium is really close to Anya’s school. They tied–and there was no rain or no cold wind.

While Anya was at the game, I plowed through my Trinity email after delaying this for more than a month. It isn’t life-giving.

However, Anya is life-giving. Great Anya quote: “I bet the women’s fashion industry sells us clothes with small pockets so they have to sell us bags. You can barely fit a piece of lint in there!”

I still have highlights from Bergen to pass on, but it will have to be another day!

With blessings,

Beth

A comment by an American in Norway said how interesting that in this country there is so much national holiday surrounding Holy Week and Easter (all of this week through Easter Monday), but yet so few people are engaged in any worship practices. In contrast, there is less  religious holiday, but more people are participating in worship.

The website for the change of the Easter bus schedules calls today Easter Eve. I’m getting really good at reading the bus schedules with the adjustments for the holidays. So, we hit all the right buses today–all 5 of them.

We started in Stavanger, as Erin was hoping to pick up a couple more gifts in tourist shops. However, they were closed for the Easter holiday. We did find a few shops open, but we didn’t get much. We ate lunch just a little bit from the Stavanger Cathedral (founded AD 1125), with lots of hungry pigeons eager for our crumbs. We were careful not to drop them. While eating, I got a call from Marta (the former MK and missionary to Madagascar). She invited us over for dinner to have homemade pizza. Great! We’d see her and her husband later.

Inside the cathedral, we heard a few minutes of the string quintet and soloist practice for an upcoming concert. Finally, we got to peak inside.

 

We walked around and saw Torrey, who lives (sometimes) in the basement. He has an American friend visiting from university in Spain. We’ll see them back at home tomorrow.

We headed home for regrouping with a grocery store stop on the way home–as stores have been closed for the past two days (Easter holiday) are closed on Sunday in general. We needed more milk and breakfast cereal. Erin stocked up on some Norwegian chocolate to bring back to the USA. She opted not to get the Kinder Egg, as they are illegal in the USA. She says they also are not the best chocolate.

At 5:30, we then took two buses to get to Marta’s neighborhood, who greeted us at the bus stop with her adorable dog. We had a great meal and played Ticket to Ride European version. It gets complicated with 5 on one board, but we had a great time, even though Kjell whipped us.

Marta had recently discovered that our parents knew each other as our dads were at Augsburg Seminary together and both went to the “mission field;” mine to Taiwan and Hong Kong, and Martha’s parents went to Madagascar. They’ve kept in touch over the years, and now we have a personal connection. We also share a friend. Phyllis was an MK with Marta at boarding school, and her older sister were great friends. Phyllis was a classmate at Lutheran Bible Institute and just a couple doors down the hall from my room. I have fun memories of Phyllis. One I shared tonight was that our college had a rule that you couldn’t wear bib overalls in the dining room. One time Phyllis was caught wearing bibs there and was asked to go and change. Phyllis found the closest scissors and cut of the bibs, and she finished her dinner. Anya loves this story!

Kjell drove us home, and it is again too late for me to relay highlights from Bergen. But here’s a picture (for Kathi) as a preview of coming attractions!

With blessings,

Beth

This morning I drove Karen (my Trinity coworker who teaches in the Business Department) to the airport, sending her back to the USA. As we had a rental car for our trip to Bergen, we extended it a day for the airport drop off and mid-day travels (next paragraph). With each taxi trip to/from the airport being $50, we can put that into a car rental with more opportunities.

With the car, we took off south for some Hanson family heritage. My mother-in-law did some genealogy work a few years ago. I highlighted all the town names I could and searched for them in Google Earth, marking pins for the 2 sides of the Eric’s family.

I also scanned her book, so I had a copy here on my laptop. Some dates go back to the 1500s!

We arrived in Ivesdal, just at the end of their Good Friday service. (We did look online to see if we could find a service time, but this little church didn’t have a website that we found.) We walked up an found gracious help to connect us with relatives!

Our gracious helper and translator on the left is viewing the scanned family history to help translate to the 4th or 5th cousin twice removed (by my rough estimates!) on the right. His grandfather had two brothers who went to North Dakota. I have visited the relatives there (Edmore area), but even more amazing is that the little Odalen church in Edinburgh was one I visited several times as part of the camp staff at Park River Bible Camp. This is where Anya’s maternal great-grandmother is buried. The pastor (center) came to share in the stories. He attended MHS as well, and Knut was his Old Testament teacher. Small world!

Then I showed them the painting that hangs on my in-law’s guest bedroom on my iPhone. This was meaningful, because he said that his grandfather helped build the church and he worked there as caretaker for 50 years.

I didn’t quite get the right angle, but here is is today.

Ivesdal is a stunningly beautiful area with steep mountain cliffs which descend to a large, crystalline lake, nestled into green meadows with an occasional colorful farm house and barn. Here’s the Google map link.

So, prior to today, we didn’t know any of our relatives in Norway. Being 4th and 5th generation Norwegian-American means those who have had personal connections have died. How cool to meet him!

We returned home at about 2, and I was ready for a nap. I awoke and figured out plans to get the rental car back to the airport and learned that city buses aren’t running from airport–at least this afternoon–because of Good Friday. Yup, I drove myself there and walked back, which takes just under 2 hours. It was a beautiful day, and I figure I just paid myself $25 an hour to walk a couple hours (instead of paying $50 for a taxi). As it was probably holiday taxi rates, I also would have earned holiday rates! Yes, I’m guessing that it would be $32 a hour! Whoo hoo!

I’ll have to give you highlights from our past few days with Karen. She really did bring things to life and make it a jolly holiday. She also had a Mary Poppins-like purse that seemed to hold everything! So, come back for reflections and pictures of beautiful Bergen and more!

With blessings,

Beth

We just spent two days with travel to Bergen and back, spending one overnight in a hotel in Bergen. I’m so thankful for the safe travels, especially because I was the one driving! I’m wiped!

So, I’ll be crashing soon and catching up tomorrow with the highlights including amazing World Heritage buildings and architecture from 1100s, (the new church is from the 1630s!), stunning fjord cruise, and the funicular (26% incline) rail car to the top of the city! Just a pre-view of coming attractions.

With blessings,

Beth

With Erin and Karen in town, we’re out and about doing and seeing lots. Here’s the highlights.

Monday was back to Stavanger by bus to go on the Lysefjord cruise under Pulpit Rock and to nearby falls. The weather was semi-nice, but it could have been so much worse. It is just stunningly beautiful.

Shopping around Stavanger was fun with lots to look at and some strategic purchases! We were all pleased, though my feet weren’t!

We came home, had dinner (taco salad) and planned our time for the next 4 days. Tuesday was a hike to the top of Dalesnuten (though Anya opted out and did some preparation for a school project this afternoon). The almost 1000 foot summit was stunning with a 360 degree view of so many different environments. The unfolding of the views while ascending increased the awe and encouraged us on!

Back home, Anya took Karen to Kvadrat mall as they are both shoppers–mostly window shoppers–but they had a great time. Erin prepared to be picked up from a high school exchange student friend from this area, as they are both now adults and thriving. It was good to catch up and see her two adorable kids.

Karen went for another walk exploring Sandness, while I did several tasks. Our plans for Wednesday and Thursday are driving to Bergen for adventures there. Actually, ME driving the 5 hour one-way journey to Bergen. So, after Karen got back, we had a light dinner and headed by bus to the airport to pick up a rental car. It worked better to get it in the evening rather than walking 2 hours in tomorrow’s foretasted rain. Then, we can also get an earlier start and maximize our days in Bergen.

So, I’m a bit unsettled about driving, but I’ve been trying to observe others. I’ve studied the road signs and significant differences (many places are like uncontrolled intersections, but the car on the right has the right away). I ended up not taking the route home that I was planning to take, and realized that I was really driving the bus route! After all, that is what I know pretty well! Karen was so encouraging with my first venture driving, but I’m going to ask all of you who read this to please pray fervently for me! It will be an adventure!

With blessings,

Beth

Hi folks,

Today was very full with a fjord cruise, seeing the sights, and shopping in Stavanger. The evening was planning the next three days. But it also means an early start for a hike tomorrow, so I need to get to bed. Come back for highlights from today and and tomorrow–with pictures–in the next post.