Uppsala: Day Three

Uppsala, Day Three.

This morning, I couldn’t really wake up. I had noble intentions of waking up at 6am in the morning, but could only pry my eyes open at 7am. Nonetheless, it was good to know that I wasn’t the only one. After taking my shower, 7.30am at that time, I was encouraged to see that Joanne was still cosy in dream land.

Well, to be fair, Joanne was working hard at night when I was busy snoring away.

After our breakfast, quiet time, prayer and worship session, we stayed in the chapel for our combined (both international and Swedish teamers) session of oral communication. Our speaker, Annie, taught us the basics of public speaking, and we learnt quite a lot about it! This is really crucial because we will be doing a lot of public speaking once we get back to Singapore.

Today’s fikka was interesting. We had cake! The cake was absolutely delicious, I must say! Very sweet and creamy…yum.

After the session, the international teamers headed upstairs for individual presentations. The rest of the international teamers, not including us, had to make a short presentation about New Generations, and this particular presentation was to the pastors they will be sharing New Generations to. Everyone did such a great job (really set the standards for us to follow!), they were all so confident and passionate about what they were sharing! Definitely something that all of us can learn!

And so, more fikka and free time! In fact, it’s free time now, that’s why we’re blogging. We will be visiting Word of Life church tonight for a youth meeting, where Pastor Ulf Ekman is preaching! This is an opportunity of a lifetime, because Pastor Ulf only preaches here twice a year, and this year, it was specially arranged so that we can meet the man of God in person! We’re looking forward to having KS over here too; he’s arriving tomorrow morning! Also, tomorrow we’ll be going to Stockholm to do some sight-seeing and shopping!

I guess this is going to be all for today, so look forward to our next entry tomorrow! Love and miss everyone in Singapore!

Uppsala: Day 3 (Livets Ord)

Last night’s meeting with Pastor Ulf Ekman was AWESOME! We were at Livets Ord (a.k.a Word of Life Church) for the youth conference, seated at the second row right behind Pastor Ulf!

We had to put on headsets for the translation, but the service was simply fantastic. We were busy scribbling notes (5 – 6 pages worth!) and received so much from him! After the service, Arash, one of the New Generation team leaders, introduced us to Pastor Ulf! Like, WOAH. We had a tour around Livets Ord, and finally settled in the cafeteria for (more) fikka. It was really cool; they had a foosball table, a pool table and even a live band playing! The bassist of this band is a 14-year-old girl, who was also playing on the worship team earlier on! Joanne and I were so stunned by this girl, we went up to her to say hi and tell her how awesome she was earlier on. It turns out that her whole family’s into music! Her brother plays the keyboard, with her other relatives on the drums and doing the sound.

The Legendary: Livets Ord

Main lobby

Overview of the auditorium

Worship team

Pastor Ulf Ekman! In Person!

Media room

Bible school graduates!

From left to right: Tanya and Sarah Steel in the cafeteria!

So it was a long ride back home (I can’t blog much about the long rides, I’m asleep most of the time) and there was fog! The fog was quite cool..because in Singapore if you see mist, it’s mostly just the haze.

The next day’s gonna be even more exciting.

Uppsala: Day Two

Uppsala, Day Two

If there’s a culture apart from fikka that one needs to get used to in Sweden, it’s waking up early in the morning. Early, being 6 – 7am in the morning.

Gasp.

But it’s not that difficult really (I personally woke up at 6.30am in the morning, on ONE ring of my alarm clock, to get a nice hot shower), because the sun rises at around 6 am in the morning. The day stretches much longer here, and the sun only sets at around 8 – 8.30pm maybe? Everyone goes to sleep at around 10pm here (also completely unheard of in Singapore).

The programme for the day would be the same for the rest of the trip; breakfast in the morning, own time with God, prayer and worship then the first session of the day. For today, we had sessions with Pastor Joakim! We went through the 7 reasons why youths are important, and then practical tips on how to keep New Generations a neutral body when it comes to Christian issues of doctrine and baptism. We realised how important it is to keep New Generations as such, because this prevents conflict amongst churches, and also keeps us focused on our two main aims of prayer and outreach.

The last programme for the day was the prayer and worship session for Nordic. We went to the small chapel and had a quiet worship session; but make no mistake, though it was not something that we at Heart of God church are used to (loud music, full band etc), it is equally anointed and powerful. With just one guitar, a piano and two main singers, all the New Generation teamers came together to worship one God and pray for Nordic. The atmosphere of worship was so strong, Joanne, Charmaine and I retreated to our bunks after the session to continue praying and worshipping in the presence of God. Our physical bodies are so far away from home, but our spirits remain rooted at home all the same. J

Of course, we had much fikka in between. One would be amazed at how much we eat around here! We have about 5 meals a day! But no complaints here, the food is really good. And to think I actually packed a whole luggage of food…

Speaking of which, my food DID come in handy at the end of the day. I brought instant noodles (two packets of 8 instant noodles each), so Joanne and I decided to have them for supper. Two of the teamers, Anna and Sofia, were quite intrigued by our noodles so we had a mini cultural exchange programme right there in our humble kitchen. It was quite hilarious to see their reaction towards spicy food! So we stayed and talked to them over supper, and really had a good time.

It was 11pm by the time everything ended…so that’s it. Nothing else TOO interesting happened…no more midnight treks into the forest…it was a good night’s sleep.

Uppsala: Day One

Hey Everyone!

Here’s us, Joanne, Charmaine and Liane, blogging after a lovely day out in Uppsala, Sweden!

We’ve just ended DAY ONE of our training here in Sweden, and we’ve had an AWESOME time. This entry promises a blow by blow account of our day, armed with pictures of all the places we’ve visited, the house we’re staying in, and of course, our friendly grass-chewing neighbours out in the fields.

So, here goes!

The first thing that struck us when we touched down at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm was how everything looked like it was from IKEA!

And then the chill autumn wind set in, which made us thank God we were armed with enough sweaters for the whole trip. We were soon picked up by two of the teamers, and began our long car ride to our lodging place at Ribbingeback (rib-bing-a-back), a short distance from Uppsala city.

As we drove to our destination, we were amazed at just how much sparse land there is in the country! There were empty fields, sign posts scattered along the sides of the roads reminding drivers to be wary of the occasional moose, horses and cows in the fields…it was a beautiful sight to behold. The houses in Sweden are vastly different from those in Singapore; most of them are out in the fields, located a substantial distance from one another, and many are self-sustaining with their own farms with cows and horses. We drove past IKEA (this is the real deal!), Subway, McDonalds and other small shops too, but no shopping malls! I found my right arm aching a little after a while, which could be attributed to Joanne’s very frequent lunging across me to snap random shots of cows, horses and grass.

Swedish architecture!

After a long drive, we finally arrived at Ribbingeback, where we will be lodging for the next couple of weeks. This place is absolutely gorgeous; we’ll let the photos speak for themselves. There’s one big house where we eat and have our sessions, and two separate ones for the guys and the girls to sleep in separately. We were introduced to all the teamers in the house, both Swedish and international teamers, then ushered to our bedrooms. After which, we had a short prayer and worship session at the chapel within the compounds of the house.

Main house at Ribbingeback

Girls' Dorm!

If there’s one thing we learnt about the Swedish culture today, it’s fikka (fee-ka), where one takes a short break and has coffee and some light snacks in between meals. We had a meal of bread (the bread is delicious), butter, cheese and ham, before heading for our first introductory session with Brad Hawkes, who is in charge of all the international teamers (that’s us!). We then had a short tour of the house, from the halls, to the dining room, the basement, the kitchen, toilets etc.

We had our first formal session with Brad Hawkes and Sarah short after, which really served to introduce us to the work and life of a typical New Gen teamer. This really gave us some insight to what is would be like to travel from school to school, bringing all the different denominations together for a single purpose – to reach out to youths!

The next part of the day was probably the highlight – a ride downtown with Pastor Joakim!

Streets of Uppsala City

We had expected another session, but Pastor Joakim brought us down to Uppsala city instead. Along the way, he also showed us his house, where some parts were built in the 18th Century! Our first stop was the cathedrals, the oldest built around the 11th Century. The cathedrals are nothing like that of St Andrew’s Cathedral, or Orchard Presbytarian Church; these are huge, towering buildings almost 10 stories high; a breath-taking scene. The history behind these cathedrals are really cool too; we learnt much about the many Swedish martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the name of bringing Jesus to Sweden.

Outside the church

Beautiful ain't it?

Hallway of the church

Martyrs

We trekked up a hill to take a look at the library, which also overlooked the castle where the King of Sweden used to live. It was a lovely sight, and whilst we were looking at all the buildings across Sweden, Pastor Joakim told us that no building was above 5 stories high! Unheard of in Singapore.

View from the hill!

Pastor Joakim then drove us to the main shopping area, where we sat down for a cup of coffee and some more snacks. What really struck us was the culture of the place; most people would be cycling around rather than taking public transport, and everything was very quiet, even if there were many people around. It’s almost like we were in the outskirts of the country again, only this time, there were more buildings and people.

The three of us have already been stuffed with food by then, but guess what? By the time we headed back, it was time for fikka again! It was then that we realised that we are definitely not going to lose any pounds in Sweden. Well, we had some good fellowship with the teamers, and then the last bomb fell on us. It was time for the much-awaited Swedish delight...

Surströmming [aka Rotten Fish].

With much apprehension on our side, and lots of cheering on the end of the Swedish teamers, we ventured outside for our dessert. One brave Taiwanese teamer took on the task of opening the can of rotten fish. When it was open, the smell that emerged from that tiny can was enough to rocket us a good 3 metres away! It was absolutely unbearable; a fridgeful of durians would have smelt like a bed of roses at that point in time. Unfortunately, no amount of screams and cries of despair could free us from the ominous prospect of having to actually eat the rotten fish. So, in the noble spirit of unity and good sportsmanship, the three of us swallowed a piece of that rotten fish precariously wrapped in pita bread.

It wasn’t too bad actually. You see, the trick is to quickly chew on it and let all the bad smell out, then quickly chew on it again. Chew for dear life and imagine sashimi. It was very smelly, and very salty. But trust me, you DO NOT want to have to repeat this experience. It was hilarious watching everyone’s reaction to the rotten fish; some chewed them down like champs (ahem), while others spat the rest out into a specially-prepared empty bucket. No one can blame them, the smell speaks for itself. Made all of us, Swedish teamers included, wonder how people up in the north of Sweden actually LIKE eating rotten fish, so much so that they have a day dedicated to eating rotten fish!

Apprehensive crowd.

Well, the excitement died down a little from there, and we all proceeded to the main hall, where we sang songs and worshipped together for a while. It was so cool seeing how all of us can come together, in spite of our backgrounds and cultural differences, to worship one God. It was so powerful; really reminding us that God is doing a work in every corner of this earth, that we can all come and worship together because we are worshipping the same God. After some time, we headed back into the chapel, where two people read from the bible and the rest of us could listen and gain revelation from the word of God.

Today was great, and no matter how tired our bodies are due to uncomfortable seats on the plane and jet lag (we are 6 hours behind Singapore, so it would be 6 am in Singapore and 12am in Sweden), we are totally looking forward to tomorrow.

Apparently, the above ending was not to be.

Just as we were about to get some shut-eye, teamers were streaming into our rooms, yelling to wake everyone up. For some bizarre reason, we were told to gather outside, cold, freezing and terribly jet-lagged (body aching, eyes begging for mercy…). It was rather hilarious actually, because we all knew what was going to happen next…

Charmaine and I were put in the same team, and our team was the first to embark on a lovely trek into the forest. Please note that in Sweden, forests are really forests, not a piece of empty land that CapitaLand has set her eyes on for her next condominium project.

Our first task was to follow a length of rope and remembering the items which hung on it, some of which were liver, bacon, kidney…you get the idea. After that very disturbing trek, we ventured further in for our second task. This time, we had to sink our hands into 4 buckets filled with what looked like yesterday’s leftovers to find 5 (very small) stones in each bucket. I don’t know about the rest, but my fingers were so numb, I couldn’t differentiate stone from pear. It was disgusting, but really funny to watch! The third and last task was a lot simpler; we had to get each group member across a tangled web of twice (or rope).

If anything, that very unexpected activity taught us all a lot more about Swedish forests and embraced us into Swedish culture like never before. We might want to bring a little of this Swedish flavour back to Singapore…you never know…

Atta Sweden.

Hejdå [bye!]
Joann, Charmaine & Liane