Hello again, dear readers. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It has been a long summer, one I decided to take a sabbatical from blogging for, and now the summer is over and I will do my best to bring you inquisitive ones up to speed with where I am now.
Greetings from my new home. I’m sure at some point pictures of my new home and my family here will come, but I will indulge myself with a description. I like that better, because even if I could transport you to where you could fully picture this place, to stand in a photograph isn’t the same as to dwell in a place. I live in a small village in Sweden called Restenäs. It is about an hour’s walk to the closest town, Ljungskile (pronounced Yew'ng-skeelay). All around me are bouldering hills and clouds and wildgrass and tall trees. I live in a big brick building called Solbacken, which began its’ life as an orphanage but now houses disciples of all kinds who come here to Restenäs to study in the various schools that are taking place. We have four schools going on right now as well as many people who live here in positions of ministry, so the whole campus is alive with people of all kinds from all places. Our collective home for this season consists of a large handful of buildings which dot the circumference of a large field where several cattle endlessly chew away at tufts of wildgrass. Across the road and through many yards of wooded glen, there lies a saltwater bay, and beyond that the island Orust, and beyond that the Skaggerak straight which connects the North sea to the Baltic. The sea is filled with plankton which shimmer out with bioluminescent light when one runs their hands through the waters.
Every morning begins before the sun has made its’ way over the hill, and by 6:50 I’ll be bundled up and on my way across the field to our dining hall for breakfast. All of my days are filled with all sorts of wonderful disciples and servants from all over our lovely planet that fill my life with joy. I get three lovely meals each day prepared by our cooks Maarten and Pierre, and I have a warm bed and our village has wonderful trails that allow us to see all the pastures and hills that surround us. Every morning we have fika, that grand swedish tradition where all of us sit down as a big family for tea. All of our days are spent in fellowship - walking and having fun, fulfilling our daily chores. My chore is to help run the café in our main fellowship building - brewing fika and cleaning so that everyone can have a place to fellowship. In addition to this - the reason I'm here, in fact, is a nine month inductive study of the bible through the School of Biblical Studies. It's going to be a long and lovely winter.
To have a home on this earth is one of those most tenuous and special things for me, and I can’t say how grateful I am to get to have one here for a time. I will speak more of all of these things later, dear friends. I’m glad you’re reading! I don’t know how often I’ll be able to update and muse during these next few seasons, as things are about to get very busy. Give me grace as I do the best I can, and if you haven’t subscribed do so as this is the most frequent way I will be updating. More to come soon.
Tack för läsning!
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