PontifiKate

The Girls From France, Part 1

"The Girls From France" was how our Swedish hosts referred to Mary Ann and I both prior to and during our visit. It made me smile. (That's me!)

The Backstory: So how did we hook up with these wonderful hosts of ours? Well, some Zion/RUF friends got me talking with their MTW friends (thanks Karen, Joe, Tim, and Gary!), and that, as they say, was that! The MTW Sweden people were über helpful and involved throughout our time there. They told us what we needed to know, helped us plan daytrips, and roped in some unsuspecting church folk to be our personal guides. :o) They even gave us somebody's old cell phone so that we could be in contact with whoever we needed during our stay! I could go on and on, but in short, they were GREAT.

The Setup: We stayed with an MTW intern named Cristin, whose apartment is in a building that’s one of 15ish in a grouping that share a rec. center, computer center, playgrounds, etc. The church space is on site as are many of its members. So what you get in the end is basically a parish model, meaning that daily Christian community and sharing of life is allowed to happen with ease -- COOL. Mary Ann and I were all too pleased to have the opportunity for such quality fellowship in English (since almost everyone speaks it very well). I guess I didn’t realize how wearying it is to pursue my faith in a foreign language!

And now, as promised, I'll fill y'all in (as briefly as possible!) on what we did in Sweden.

SATURDAY (Feb. 11th) was a travel day from Paris to Stockholm to Tranås (pronounced “tra-nos”), which was our Swedish home base. We flew Ryanair, which was kind of hilarious. Talk about your cardboard box operation! Praise God for traveling mercies! I have to remind myself that even though traveling's never exactly cake, it can be so very bad. We got off easy, only missing one unimportant train the whole of our time there, I think!

On SUNDAY we went to church in the morning, ate lunch with Pastor Gary's family and other guests, went to church in the afternoon, and had dinner with a church group. What an excellent Lord’s Day!



see my Tranås photo set (This set includes stuff from throughout the week, but begins with the above-mentioned dinner.)

MONDAY morning we played in the snow with three of the now eight children of one of the pastors. We spent the day getting to know Tranås a little. That evening Mary Ann and I went with others to a Bible study in Linköping (pronounced “lin-shuh-ping”) and had the opportunity to practice our French with a new gal from Morocco who knows French better than English. How cool that we "happened" to be there to welcome her (newcomers though we were)! The Bible study itself was good and refreshing, as it was much more in the style of the American Bible studies I'm used to.



TUESDAY (Valentine's Day) we visited the town of Gränna (pronounced "greuh-nuh", I think; known for it's candy!) and the island opposite it, called Visingsö. We went with Tim, Cristin, and Jenny (the only non-American of our fivesome!). We had much fun exploring and examining the ruins of Viking castles and just taking in the cold, winter beauty. When we got back to Tranås, Mary Ann and I were invited to help make some very girly, very fun Valentines for the six, single, on-site guys in the church. That was a hoot. Afterwards was their first annual Valentine's Volleyball Tournament and then another Bible study. I like having church stuff every day of the week!



see my Gränna photo set (be forewarned: this set has 98 pix! I just couldn't whittle it down any more.)

see my Valentine's Day photo set

The rest of the week's adventures are soon to come!

posted by Kate @ 5:47 AM