Funny story from Skotselv.

Today was my first church service and Sabbath school experience. It was very eye opening. First of all was Sabbath School (SS), we sang some Norwegian songs which were very nice, then we broke into groups for the lesson study. One group was Norwegian, the other group was English, an Australian and myself the only native English speakers, yet we were in a group of about 25 or so. We are talking about love and how to love. Then we read about how perfect love cast out all fear and the discussion turned to what kind of fear are we talking about because the Bible says it is good that we should fear God. So my new friend Zoran was translating for his parents who spoke no English but Macedonian, and Zoran was saying something (I’ll be honest it was a bit hard to follow) and he was giving examples and said, one kind is we should run from the beer and the other kind we should all run towards the beer. “What in the world did I miss”, I thought, “perhaps it’s a cultural explination or I wasn’t paying attention or this is okay to say here?” A few people were also laughing which made me feel better because I thought it was funny. Then Zoran said something about a beer hug and I was really lost. But then I realized he wasn’t saying beer he was saying bear. OHH! It made so much more sense. Well then I giggled a bit more when I realized the faux pas and in his English. At first I think only Ryan (the Aussie) and I realized the confusion. Anyway it was super funny and I got a giggle out of it and I don’t think I’ll let him forget. After SS someone told me welcome to Skotselv English. Nice, I hope my English doesn’t soon suffer. If so I might have to go find a beer to scare it back into me :O)

Then there was Church. I enjoyed the sermon about forgiveness; it was brought to us by the Church Union secretary. He preached it in Norwegian. How might you wonder did I learn Norwegian so fast? Perhaps it was the Rosetta stone? NO! They don’t make it in Norwegian, apparently they don’t think anyone wants to learn Norwegian, phshshssss, that’s dumb. So I don’t speak it already, no I in fact I wore a very attractive headphone set on my head. It was a bit like a conscience whispering into my ear. It got to be so hard to watch the preacher because it was like watching a movie with the sound a bit off, and off gender. . . the English translation was good, a bit of direct translation. It soon got to be so loud, I was warm and tired and my head was being thrown off balance so I put one ear on and the other one off. Not to shabby. But I can’t wait to either understand Norwegian or have an English sermon.

The songs were good, and the people were great. We had potluck, hmmm I love potluck. In line I met a man who spoke Spanish so Caroline (from Honduras, and knows lots of people I do! More on that later) and I sat with him and talked Spanish. Crazy, I’m sitting at a table with a German and Honduran speaking Spanish in Norway. Who’d a thunk it.