It's Christmas!!! Happy Birthday Jesus!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family around the world. We love you and wish we had all of you here with us this Christmas season!

We celebrated this evening a few hours ahead of the rest of you, in the European tradition of opening the gifts on Christmas Eve. Everyone else does it this way here, so we figured we would too. Anyway tomorrow we are all off to dinner at Eman's sister's with all his family, so it was good to just go ahead and have an evening Christmas this year.

They don't have Santa Claus here exactly. They have these naughty guys called "Yule Lads" who get up to mischief each of the 12 days before the 25th.....we were thinking of trying to introduce the concept of Santa Claus to Iceland. After you see how these Yule dudes behave you are mighty thankful that you did not grow up here teaching your kids about these guys! If you are naughty you get a potato in your shoe....but I'd like to know who gave them permission to see was naughty or nice? Santa now looks like a saint, which I'm sure he was anyway.


Ok, so you were asking me if it really is dark all day long at this time of year? Thankfully the answer is no and again somewhere on this page you will find a picture of the sunrise taken at approimately 11:30 AM on the 22nd of December. So the sun starts to climb in the sky around this time but two hours later it starts setting and disappears at about 3:30 PM. There's so much talk about depression etc here because of this but it's not the lack of sunshine that gets me down but how much they talk about how depressed they all are! It's no wonder they are so down! and those Yule Lads have seriously got to have a change in attitude because they are not helping any....

The next post is will be a beautiful story of one young woman in Iceland whose life changed for the better just one week before Christmas. Tomorrow, I promise!

Have a beautiful beautiful Christmas. Every year the Lord does something very special for us. Those are the most unique gifts from Him, and I'd love to hear from any of you about what made this Christmas special for you!

Gleðileg Jol!

First Snow at Buland

Buland is the name of the organic dairy farm where we've been since September and where we plan to be, DV, for the rest of the winter. Wintering in Iceland......hmmm.......no, it's an experience!
We were greeted to this beautiful view, taken appropriately on the first day of winter, October 28th! The photo on top is taken the same day at dusk with our farmhouse and various outbuildings, barns in the background. The kids have all had a 3 week course in milking the cows and learning all that goes into the running of a dairy farm. This is a small farm with more or less 32 cows, nine horses in the stable and another 30 who spend the winter out in the fields! Dominique helped deliver two calves and one of them is named after her! She is milking every morning 5 days a week.... our expert farm hand! She can go into the barn and get the whole milking process going singlehandedly now and the farmers are very happy with her. She is very responsible and is doing a great job and having fun at it!

Eman works on the farmhouse, which dates back to 1937..... old for Iceland for some reason, a few days a week and that is in exchange for rent. We are trying to encourage our hosts to eventually have the vision to rent out the farmhouse to tourists who want to experience a farm holiday in Iceland....after we leave of course. We are located very near some of the most beautiful nature spots in the country, such as Gullfoss, Geysir, Dyraholaey, Allthing, and the biggest glacier in Europe, Vatnajokull, so its really the ideal place to be. The next post will include photos of some of those places.

The Cake, The Icing and a Cherry on Top

The Lord did this AWESOME thing for me this past week, I just have to tell you about it.

Eman had met up with an old school friend of his, Margret, who now runs a choral school and has founded a few choirs as well. He wanted me to play my flute for her, which I did and she loved it! Since I have been playing mostly for myself all these years it never ceases to amaze me when people respond positively to my playing. Well, a few weeks ago she invited me to participate in one of her choir's performances where they were doing some very lively Gospel music. There was piano, bass, sax, bongos and me on flute, not to mention a few very great soloists. I had one solo piece which was that beautiful song "You never walk alone..."

It actually came out beautifully and I didn't mess up in front of the 300 people who packed out the church and even paid money to come and listen!

But listen that was just the cake. Let me tell you about the icing. On top of getting paid for this one minute solo, Margret insisted on taking me out clothes shopping to get something to wear for the performance. So off we go to the fanciest shops in all of Reykjavik and I am starting to feel like I am in some sort of fairy tale.

And the cherry? Since receiving flowers is something that happens only extremely rarely in my life, flowers are the cherry. At the end of the concert, all the soloists went up on stage where we were presented with a bouquet and took a bow. Then we all went off to Hotel Borg for dinner to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Gospel Sisters Choir. I had no idea so this came as a big surprise!

When you walk through the storm hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and turned
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone

Amen.


We are surely being watched over and well taken care of by Him.


N.B. Unfortunately I didn't get many photos of the concert........ top photo: me with the Guy who made it all possible. Bottom photo: me and the lovely Icelandic soloist who did a beautiful Icelandic folk song.

Akureyri, city of the north

Top photo: Bustling city centre of Iceland's 2nd largest city, Akureyri, pop. 15,000

Middle photo: Thea, Laura and Rafi on their way to pick blueberries and view of the fjord (Eyðafjörður) taken directly across from the city

Bottom photo: Looking north over Akureyri...just beyond is the Arctic Circle!

We spent the month of August here in Akureyri, Eman´s hometown. Many of his old friends and relatives still live here and they all just picked up where they left off many years ago. One of Eman's school friends met up with us and told me " When we were young, I followed Karl Marx and Asgeir (Eman) followed Jesus. I gave up on communism and I am hoping that Asgeir can teach me something about Jesus" He is a sucessful psychologist and prayed with us to receive the Lord in his heart.

We made it to Iceland!

We made it!!! Whoo-hooo! We are really here! I don't know why I have been on some sort of "Iceland High" ever since I arrived 3 months ago, but it is so much more amazing than I imagined the place to be. Photos do not do the subject justice and in fact some photos I have seen make it look quite bleak and uninviting. I guess you'll just have to make a trip over yourself so you can see Iceland for yourself!

This is pretty much the first photo I took: "Solfarin" which means something like "travelling to the sun" but maybe "sun seeker" is more like it since Icelanders revel in the sunshine, a precious commodity they have so little of. This sculpture is the one that stared up from the cover of my "Colloquial Icelandic" book for the last 3 years, so I of course had to have one of me in front of it. These photos were take at 10 PM on July 10th or so.

The sun set at that time around midnight but it never got really dark. I would stay awake until 1 or 2 or even 3 am so I could experience these very quiet light nights.

Credit to whom credit it due.....

Before we go onwards with this blog, it is only right to pause and give credit to whom credit is due.......but first a small digression.

Noting my propensity for snowflakes, I came across a beautiful book in a supermarket of all places, full of amazing photographs of snowflakes. Of course I bought it at once! When it came time to do this blog I was happy to find that the very same photos from the book are available on the web as anything less would not do the subject justice.

So many thanks to Caltech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht and photographer Patricia Rasmussen for their excellent book The Snowflake, Winter's Secret Beauty. More on snow crystal research can be found at their website www.snowcrystals.com and also includes many more amazing photographs and insight.

The perfection, symmetry and delicateness of snowflakes never ceases to amaze me and I am happy to have found people with the same sense of awe and wonder.

In his book, Mr. Libbrecht writes, "All crystals demonstrate an amazing organizational ability- they assemble themselves. A crystal's order and symmetry arise spontaneously, starting with a random collection of molecules. This organizational feat should not be overlooked. If you want a brick wall somewhere, it certainly does not assemble itself. You have to build it, brick by brick. The order and symmetry are imposed by you, the builder. It's absurd to think that the bricks could magically put themselves together into a wall."

hmmm.......sounds familiar.

Since Mr. Libbrecht did not carry that line of thought any further may I take the liberty of doing it for him? I think he was just a little too shy to come out and say:

Thanks God, You did an AWESOME job on those snowflake designs!!!!!

Christmas 2005 New Orleans

November 2005, just 3 months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we decided to go as a family to the now famous "9th Ward" of Saint Bernard's Parish to see how we could be of service. Our colleagues there, who also had some serious water damage done to their home, took us in and together we spent 6 weeks preparing and then performing Christmas carols and distributing canned food and messages of encouragement right in the heart of the destruction, a little town called Chalmette.

FEMA had set up what amounted to a "tent city", called Camp Premier, to house residents who had lost their homes, and had no where else to go, as well as the hundreds of workers who were there to get that city back on it's feet. They gave us permission to go in and spend time with any who needed comfort and healing. There was also a state sponsored psychiatrist who was there to help. I asked him how it was going and if he was able to do any counseling. He said " No, no, not really....everybody seems fine."

By contrast, I found people very open and many needed an opportunity to pour out about all they had been through. Here I am with Odette, 71, who lost 3 of her children and one grandchild...... It was very moving to be able to put our arms around near strangers to pray for them and thus begin their time of healing. Tears flowed from both of us, as Odette poured out her heart about the tragedy. .....in the bottom photo I am praying for Odette.

Katrina continued.....

Asgeir, Thea,10 and Marie caroling for a man who had diabetes at the time of Hurricane Katrina and lost everything, shown here with his wife and son (clapping to music) at their trailer, on the evening of December 25, 2005. Because this man had fallen down and injured himself many times he was very very thankful for the wheelchair that we brought him, and wept openly as we sang Christmas carols. It was a very beautiful and touching moment. Many thanks to our friends from Cheer Up Missions who donated the wheelchair and helped make this family's 1st post Katrina Christmas special. Finally, our daughter Laura, 9, prayed with him to receive Jesus, the best Christmas present of all!

Katrina continued.......

Here we are with our daughters, Laura, 9, Thea, 10 and other team members singing lively Christmas carols in English and Spanish, for people in the food line.

Katrina continued.......

The man in the red baseball hat is reading the article entitled "Heaven's Healing Balm" in the Activated Magazine I had just given him. A week later on Christmas Day, he thanked me for the article which he said helped him very much as his wife had died in his arms. We spent about an hour talking after that.

Katrina continued.......

December 18, 2005
FEMA Tent "Camp Premier" Photos.

Asgeir conversing with a nurse who lost her new house to the hurricane and helped many neighbors climb to the safety of their rooftops. Asgeir prayed with her to receive the Lord and that she would find new housing.

The Snowflake

I was thirty-five years old when I saw my first snowflake. Of course I had heard all my life how snowflakes were these one of a kind six pointed wonders, but it never dawned on me growing up that I had somehow missed this. Maybe it was because I grew up 20 miles from New York City where the pollution probably renders perfect snowflake production near impossible, but none of this even occurred to me at the time. Fast forward about 25 years. There I was one winter in Norway. I happened to be outside while it was snowing and then it happened. There on my jacket sleeve lay a perfect, tiny, beautiful, just born snowflake! I was mesmerized by it's beauty and I ran inside where I was staying, saying, "Look! A snowflake!" I guess the Norwegians probably thought that was pretty funny! From then on snowflakes took on an extraordinary new meaning for me, but sometimes I can't help but wonder, how did I miss this?

Now let me tell you another story. I was 19 and studying in France. One day, while sitting in a cafe with a friend, a young man walked up to me and handed me a small tract. I invited him to sit down for coffee and we got into a very interesting conversation that lasted for four hours. He was a Christian missionary, traveling around France with some friends. Each carried what few belongings they owned in backpacks as they hitch-hiked around the country going from town to town sharing their faith with other young people. Now me, I was not religious at all. I had grown up in the States and came from a "Christian culture" more or less, so I had heard about Jesus but I must confess I didn't grasp His significance at all. I don't know, but I guess I just missed it somehow. This young man was different from the Christians I had met in the States. That night, back home to my little apartment, I couldn't shake this encounter from my mind. I felt like I had been hit by lightning! You see, even though I didn't understand the Christian jargon, somehow I knew in my heart that what this young man had shared with me was the truth.

They were staying in town, so I spent as much time as I could around them. My heart told me this was real but my mind couldn't accept it! Then one day, they had to go back to Paris. I had never prayed in my life, but I knew what I had to do. I prayed a simple little prayer asking Jesus to come into my heart and that prayer changed my life. I do not know exactly how it happened but I wanted the life my friends had too. They had given everything up to tell others about Jesus, and I wanted that too. If you had suggested that I would one day become a Christian I would have laughed you to scorn. But after that prayer, I had peace in my heart and it was something I knew I had to share with others.