Holsby, God and Gothenberg

I realized two things about this blog recently: first, I don't update it nearly as often as I should. Second, I told all that it would be a blog about what God is doing in my life here at school and I haven't done much of that.

So, about God. We've had so many great speakers that it gets to be an information overload! I know I'm learning a lot about God and about Christianity and my role in relation to those two things, but with 5 lecture hours a day I have a hard time spending time thinking about what I'm learning. I need to remedy this, I know. Your prayers for that are encouraged and appreciated!

In summary, we've had one lecturer who spoke on 1 Peter, one who spoke about ethics, another on biblical history, one on counseling and understanding differences in personality, one on practical evangelism, and my favorite guest lecturer who spoke on the blessing of having nothing.

The blessing of having nothing was really great because he spoke a lot about grace and needing Jesus, which are two topics that can be difficult to really get the mind wrapped around. At the end of one class period, he said that if anyone needed money, they could stand up and walk to the front and he would give them some money. It got really quiet in the classroom and for a long time nobody went forward. We weren't really sure what to think. Then someone got up and he gave them the equivalent of about 8 USD. Then when that person sat down he said, now if you still need money, come up and get some money. And the girl who went up first didn't want to go again. But another guy went up. The same thing happened about 5 more times, but the same guy went up each time. I'm probably doing a horrible job of explaining this, but it was really neat.

After, the speaker told us that it was like God's grace because it requires humility to go and to admit a need and then to receive something for nothing. Then, when the first girl didn't want to take money a second time, he said that that is all too often what we do with Jesus. We accept grace once and "get saved" but then we feel that we don't need anymore than that and we don't want to ask too much. Then, when the guy went up a number of times, after about two times, the speaker asked him to give some of the money he had received to someone else who needed it. It was cool because it showed how we need to give the same grace that we have been given to others.

Anyway, the illustration made my pride more apparent. It is hard to keep going to Jesus over and again for the same silly problems or sins in life. But it's really cool to think that God's "money" will never run out and that He loves to give and give and give.

So, that's just one of soooo many great things I'm experiencing with God here at Holsby.

Now for some more pictures!!!

The weather is beginning to change around here. I love this picture for some reason. It's really serene looking. I took it at 7AM and you can kinda see that the pond in the background is starting to freeze over!



This is my "family group." We meet every other week to hang out, eat dinner together and get to know a few people on a deeper level. Dan and Esther are the two in front--they're our family group parents and the two RAs here. Then, starting with the boys in the back row, R to L it's my three brothers Mike, Chris and Davide. The girls L to R are Jaclyn, Maike, Jodi, Me and Danielle. It's an awesome group. We really do feel like a family, which is nice!


This is a picture of the beautiful countryside from the 3.5 hour walk Veronika and I took to a town called Skiro, two towns over from Holsby. There were about 7 other rock walls in seeing distance from this one and I really felt like I was in Europe when we were walking on this one-lane road.


Me and a Viking we met on the 3.5 hour walk : )


Here's Gothenburg's canal at night. The lights made really great reflections on the water, and I really liked this bridge. I have like 15 pictures of it!!!


This is an alleyway in Gothenberg. This was the point when I told the other girls "I think this is my favorite day. It's good to be alive!" Another, "I'm actually really for real in Europe!" moment.


Here's one of the harbors with a small village surrounding it. Typical swedish colored houses.



And here's Adolf Gustav or someone pointing at me.

In Gothenberg it was a great time of shopping a bit, frequenting cafes for hot chocolate and taking our time to enjoy the buildings, canals, and free time. The first night we actually went to bed at around 9pm!!! Sounds totally stupid, but it was nice to have a more relaxed schedule than we do at school.

So, that wraps up the longest blog in the history of mankind. Hope you enjoyed it!