My Story

We moved back to Norway for a second year, this time without knowing how long it would be for.

Immediately after our honeymoon, we were sat on the bed in a friends basement. We had only 14 days there to find an apartment, and only enough money to pay perhaps 3 months rent if we were lucky. No employment. I think that was the moment where we started asking "Wait... what are we doing again?""Why are we in Norway of all places?""Did God really say..." Thankfully, we balance each other out: when my faith muscles are starting to tremble under the weightiness of a new "impossibility", Felix seems to have enough faith to walk on water, and then we seem to flip roles the other way. It was day 13 and we had no success. We had no where to go next either. But we used every bit of faith muscle to stand on the fact that God KNOWS and God will make a way. Day 13 was when another friend and his wife offered us a room in their apartment for as long as we needed! These two totally embraced our presence in their home as though we were long lost family. Half of our belongings were jammed into the little space, with the rest in boxes stored in the church office, and in 2 different friend´s garages. We slept on two single beds for 5 weeks, in the opposite two corners of the room because that was the only way they could fit. But we were thankful.

God had provided a place, just like that. And this couple, just by being their wonderful selves, really ministered to my heart at the time, which had begun needing the security of feeling fathered, or "safely caught" in the free-fall: a time were everything was a little swirly for two newly-married nomads. It could have been easy to feel a little ashamed of our position, because we couldn't put a label or title on it. But Jesus is the one who qualifies me. I don't know if we can refer to ourselves as "missionaries"; we haven't been sent by any church or organisation to Norway, and we never had Norway burning on our hearts as we dreamed about where God would call us. But He simply asked us to go and we went.

We are on a mission: To go and obey what Jesus asked us to do, because we love Him and we love people. So perhaps we can refer to ourselves as missionaries.

To many, it was probably "two young unemployed people who want to live in Norway to build their life" or "two immature, irresponsible newlyweds who really should just pick their hometown to settle in and start working". But we chose to follow the gentle voice of God, despite the unanswered questions and many misunderstandings that could possibly follow.

Many foreigners move to Norway to improve their living quality and make some Norwegian crowns. Norway is a very wealthy nation with a lot to offer. But this wasn't our case.

We left behind us everything comfortable and secure. We could have easily found work in Australia or Switzerland. We have beautiful families living in these places and great friends and opportunity to serve the local community. But I have to say that I feel more secure now in my life than ever before. And I know that the reason for that is I let go of control and I gave it over to God - the safest person I know, the best provider, the deepest lover, the best dad.

So from our friend's apartment, we were able to start putting our focus on looking for apartments and our work at Impact. We just took each day at a time, said yes to the tasks in front of us, sought the Lord, and chose to rest and not to worry. Then came the first tension: I was ready to move on, into our own space and begin building our life together, but Felix was hesitant to leave. His reason was quite logical... Sure, it'll be great to have an apartment... but renting involves PAYING RENT and finding furniture. Very logical. So we asked God what to do, and His answer was, as He can typically sound,

very UN-LOGICAL.

What I heard him say was this: "When you move out of this apartment, and into your apartment, you will have more money because you will have less expenses." This gave us all the faith we needed, and soon we found something we really liked.

CONTINUE