The forest in oslo

Norwegians definately love the outdoors, in oslo one of the most beutiful things is the forest.This is my forth weekend, and i have already walked 54 kilometers in The Forest in Oslo out of the four trips i have had .The OKSL have a sports chapel(nordmaskappellet) in the forest .Many church youth groups and student groups always have weekend trips to the forest either for retreats ot trainings.The Chapel also has services every sunday that serve the people who go jodging,cycling and walking in the forest on sunday mornings.The chapel may have been been began 75 years ago but according to me this is what i call creativity because it serves many people who would rather go breathing fresh air on a sunday morning than go to church. Each service has aprroximately hundred people and out of this each sunday are thirty regular attenders.The chapel is run by 10 volunteers three of them are the collective members,they maintain the hostel facilities, run a small cafeteria on sundays and find speakers to preach during the sunday service.
Chapel moments

• 28th September: Our first sunday with our contact person Karl Johan, he was preaching in the service
• 4-6 October:A weekend with the kollective, the theme of the weekend was drawn from John 15:1-17.it was a very reflective weekend that was facilitated by Stig a part time student worker with Laget
• 19th October:a walk with Elbjorg, o wonderful Lady who challenges me alot about love and witnessing.She is very creative and finds an opptunity to live a mark in someones life.We attended the service together and the topic of that weekend was on Turning form sin.
• 24-26 October:A weekend with the chrittian union.the theme was on love of another kind.1st Corinthians 13:1-17

the forest is always more uplifing with very reflective topics and also refreshing with fun games such as the one in the video below,dont worry about my interuptive voice this was a first good trial

Beyond the tourist stage.........

Wel Certainly Being in Hald was great and the warm welcome in oslo was perfect.it,s been three weeks in oslo now,we have still been getting to meet people and get to attend the laget fellowships in OKSL.(Oslo Christian students group). What amazes me is that the students movement in kenya (FOCUS) ans NKSS have an almost similar approach to students' work. However because naturally we are prone to use what we are familiar with as a standard of making judgements, i must admit that at first i thought of the fellowships here to be shallow."dont make that face as you read this", just think of the way you have always reacted to new things especially when you use what you are familiar with as the scale of measuring things.Experiencing a new culture however does something to us and i had to go back to the drawing board again, I had to think over what Christianity is and why am i a christian?. Is it ;

• The enthusiasm, zeal and competence in the bible all motivated by love Jesus,i had always seen back at home.
• The genuine questions that would seem ignorant but were motivated by a deeper love and a desire to know Jesus.

I had to think over what Christianity is and why am i a christian?. This may sound funny and i know you are wondering whether i have never understood;even i thought that i really knew and understood quite well, but believe me if you have ever been in a new culture you will understand why i had to think. it is definately true that different cultural experiences dissorients us, but i believe that as christians there is a need to see where all the new experience fits in God's greater mission for transforming humanity through deeper love.As paul writes to the Phillipians in his paryer for them.

Phil 1: 9-11, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God."

As Paul G Heibert puts it, "it is important that we recorgnize the quality and extent of our cultural biases when working in cross cultural settings, for then we can work to reduce our ethnocentrism and mutual misunderstandings.”

beyond all the experiences there is something happening to us,but it is only when we examine it in the light of scriptures, that our experiences become a tool used in furthering Gods mission for transforming humanity through his love for us.

our fathers love

Hald international Centre

I am currently Norway as an exchange student.The programme began on the 10th of August will be running until 12 th June 2009.

These are the the other students on the FOCUS exanange programme with our contact person siri.

More about Hald
Hald International Centre is a meeting place for cross-cultural understanding and international work, with common goals within the fields of development, mission and leadership.the school focuses on a youth excange programme between Norway and the soth developing countries.The course lasts for 10 months, it is divided into three main categoriesfall course: a seven weeks period where the participants go through orientation oncross cultural understanding and communication,leadership development, team building,bible lessons on missions and spiritual development, and develpment studies. It is a school owned by three organizations: Laget (IFES)International fellowship of evangelical students Norway.The exhange program for those who would like to experience a different and meaningful year by working among Christian students and growing in their spiritual life.NMS(Norwegian Missionary Society) the exhange is done through team service in different congregations,and Stromme stiftelsen foundation where the exchane is done through a programme calles Act Now, the main focus is on Development and youth involvement.

moments during the seven weeks orientation course.
well of course Hald is a school,this means that 70% of our time was spent in class learning.I liked the teachers approach of making it more participatory and therefore this gave us a chance to exchange ideas among the different cultures that were presented.
other activities included:

Team bulding.
Two weeks into the course we had a mountain forest trip in the southern part.The trip was coupled with many team building activities to enhance cross cultural understanding and personal development.
The games we had during this trip were, used in enhancing coperation within a team.The teams were composed of the countries and the programmes where the exhanges would occur and thus promoting corss cultural unnderstanding

Spiritual and Personal Development
Hald school is based on christian values and therefore the spiritual development of all the participants is focused on as a major area of personal development duting the course. Fellowship and reflections is emhasizes on as a means to achieve spiritual development.

Fun and games
Fun ,recreation and games was an important part of creating harmony and understanding across the different cultures that were represented in the programme. the games helped to bring all the students together and also enhanced team bulding.The relcreation activities also boosted on the confidence of all the participants