This was a trip with a difference in that Peter went out on Thursday and I went out on Friday !! Add to this that we had not a single speaking engagement and you get the strangeness of this trip. Peter left on Thursday so that he could get up early on Friday to catch another flight to Trondheim for prayer and fellowship at an old church near Trondheim where previous wells of healing and revival had been dug many years ago. While they were up on the West Coast, I was on the early flight into Oslo Rygge to be met by Robin, our partner in Norway. The real purpose of the trip was to go to the annual conference of a group of congregations with a total membership around 5-6000 people. Known as the Free Evangelical Pentecostal Movement (MY translation for better understanding), they had over 1000 good folk at the conference – that’s around 20% of their total membership !!! They had come from all over Norway with at least one family driving over 2400km (1600 miles) each way with a family of three children just to be there and take part.
We were wonderfully hosted by Reidar Gamst and his people at the movement’s Kraftskolen or Bible School, and although no actual speaking was involved we were kept busy networking and praying for the pastors and leaders who crossed our path with great regularity. As one went away so he or she brought another to meet us !! So the four full conference sessions were always busy as new friends and a surprising number of people we had met before came over to greet us. Meal times were also good networking times just saying ‘Hi’ to the many people who very kindly spoke our language.
We have said before that 80% of all we do on these trips cannot be reported and so it is this time. We fellowshipped and ministered at the conference venue in Drammen, and back at the Kraftskolen with and to the staff there. It was a truly blessed time for all of us. The net outcome is that Peter is almost certainly going back to the far North (Tromso & Hammerfest – about 500 miles inside the Arctic Circle) later in August. He will have to go on his own unless funding is received as the trip involves three flights each way – London to Oslo, Oslo to Tromso, and Tromso to Hammerfest. There Peter will meet pastors and leaders and minister to them in a way probably not available to them before now. Then later on, probably end-Septemberish, we will go to Haugesund(?) on the West coast for the same reason – to minister to pastors and leaders and to encourage them and maybe equip them too.
Finally, we caught the ferry back across the Oslo Fjord on probably the hottest day of the year out there – about 26-28C. After a day with Robin we went to meet a couple from one of the local churches in the town of Rygge where we had a wonderful time of fellowship and music !! It is amazing when two musicians get together a ‘jam session’ always ensues and favourites like “What a Friend we have in Jesus” filled the air and everyone was singing along joyfully. Prophecy and prayer completed the day and we bid farewell to our new found wonderful friends with the idea of a full musical evening with them sometime in the not too distant future.
Isn’t God good ?? Hallelujah \o/
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