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.