Good morning and welcome back to the North! On today’s episode we have several events taking place. Featuring the invincible Katya, our Best Man Andrei Paulovich, our Best Lady Tanya Paulovich, the incredible Andrei Valui and me-the snowman-David. Here’s our featuring presentation:
Rovaniemi Finland
Beautiful Russia
Rehab center

Rovaniemi, Finland

Finland is a great place, especially spending it with cool people from DTS Lecture Phase like: Jani Fillpa. He wasn’t supposed to come to the youth meeting because his own youth gathering, but things changed. He and joined us. After the service, we hung out with the youth there at the church. I talked with a couple of youth and was able to listen to them. We finally left around 11:30 P.M.

We slept in until 5 A.M. the next morning before going to the guy’s breakfast. Katya and Tanya had girl time after we left. I (The Snowman) figured there was no way it could be THAT cold out, seen-as-how it was a stuffy 28 degrees inside. So with my warmest sweater on, and a t-shirt, we took off! Good thing the car was plugged in. It was-20 degrees out! So, yes, it was starting to get cold. Valui, Paulovich and I met…of COURSE I didn’t have any long underwear on! I’d be drenched in sweat by the time I got out the door!…Jani and two other guys for breakfast. We were able to see who the young and the brave were after a good night’s nap. Some came, many slept in. Jani was really happy and we talked about the events of the last couple of months.

Beautiful Russia

We made it through the Russian Border without a problem. We’ve got to border patrol answers down pat: Name: tourist, Duration of stay: tourist, Where will you go: tourist…. No problem mijo! The first night we visited a church and Andrei translated for me. It was a bit dark inside and I was a little tired, so during the sermon Andrei P. would translate something like: “Turn to Romans 8.” I’d get to Romans 4 and dream about turning to Romans 8!

Sunday we visited another church. I gave a testimony and told about the time I fell in a pool and God helped me breathe underwater. How it was so much fun until someone pulled me out! Then I shared about being 2 years old and the Lutheran Preacher asked for everyone with bad eyes to stand. I happened to be standing on the pew to look over everyone and got healed! I also shared about my mom having Leukemia. God healed her and now there’s no trace of the reproductive cancer chromosome. At the end of the service, I prayed for three people who had bad eyes. One of whom was full Norwegian, living in Russian. I believe her eyes are healed! Later, the pastor came up and said 2 women with blood disorders were spoken to when they heard about my mom being healed.

Andrei Paulovich spent preached about Faith and that God wanted to give each of us faith. That it is one of the fruits of the Spirit. The pastor and elders want to see God move through elders and youth, so He also moved through Paulovich’s preaching. At the end of the service around 30-40 people came up for prayer! It was so encouraging to me to see people open willing to respond.

So today we are at the Rehab center. We were going to stay for dinner, but they asked us to stay until tomorrow. It has turned out quite well. Andrei and Katya danced and I pretty much kept up! Then I was able to give a testimony at the end. When I was finished one of the guys from the center came up and started giving me some encouragement. That was the way much of ministry worked! We came to speak into their lives, but through hanging out with them all of us from the team and the rehab center ended up being encouraged!

We left our base in Borgen again on Wednesday and directed our car to Sweden to small town Kiruna. And this time our team has been leading by Havard. In 4 hours we were at the church where we served next three days. So, three days and three evening meetings – everyone had a possibility to serve. On the first evening Andrei lead worship and David has been preaching about God's love, that He wants to heal us. That is why we also decided to show our drama “Cross”. On the second evening Havard assumed responsibility to preach and Katya gave her testimony.





On the last day in Kiruna we realized that we are in Sweden, but we didn't see anything except forest along the road. We went to the town... But it was freaking cold and the wind was SO strong that we couldn't be outside more then 5 minute. We had no choice and we went back to the church. In the evening we had our last meeting where Havard has been leading the worship, Andrei preached about “Faith” and Tanya gave her testimony. Right after meeting we had “feeka” - strong coffee, pastry and a lot of conversations.



And there was evening, and there was morning – the Saturday – the road – new place...

After arriving in Tromsø, we went to a youth meeting at Filadelfia. There we were able to hang out with believers and simply encourage believers in their walk. The next day we worked with the Baptist Church. For some reason David volunteered to preach. When May-Liss asked “David” to come up our David, Pastor David as well as another David jumped up and ran up to the front, Bible’s in hand, to make jest that now there were THREE David’s in the church, and we were ALL going to preach! Hah! But our David was preaching this evening.

The next morning, we went to Apostolisk Tro and presented them with the drama “Cross”. Afterwards, we went upstairs for waffles and coffee. When we came home, to the Baptist church, we prepared for the next meeting! Here we also premiered “Cross”. And then Katya and Tanya went to help in Sunday school.

Monday night we prepared for Teen meeting! Here Katya presented her short preaching that God loves us as we are. Afterwards we did macramé together with girls (even Andrei and David did!). Then it was over.

Right after teen meeting we had a prayer meeting with the some of members from Baptist Church. Most of the time, this means we all come together tell about our day, take prayer requests and pray for each other. However, nobody forced the presence of God on anyone; nobody screamed and hollered, there wasn’t even the idea of prayer requests! We simply let the Holy Spirit come and prayed for other people besides ourselves! An hour and a half later we looked at each other and stared talking about how good the Lord was to us! Then Pastor David said, “We haven’t even asked for Prayer requests. Does anyone have any?” Then we prayed for each other.

The next day we were blessed to be a lead the whole children’s meeting! We showed a drama, and had a game. They also wanted to us to teach the children a song from our country. So Tanya learned a song in Russian!



Wednesday was way exciting! We celebrated Katya and May-Liss’ Birthday! This included a 12 lane Bowling alley and pizza+Coke. When we came back, we gave May-Liss a present. She made a cake for us, but it turned out to be more like a sponge cake. It was really good! She does a good job at baking!





Alright you can have a day off!..

Anyways, your day off is over…actually, we’re going to evangelizing at 11, so sleep in cuz It’s going to be a late night! (You can read about our street evangelism earlier).

Saturday the Seventh... what did we do today...Hot diggity! That’s what we did! We had the Jesus Tent! This weekend was also Sami weekend! So we got to watch reindeer lassoing competitions! When that was all over, we met Andrei Valui, Selina and Ida! So we got to encourage them as well! It was so exciting to be with them! We invited Andrei to preach on youth meeting. He talked about God’s call on our lives to be missionaries, even short term. He also challenged the youth to come be a part of a DTS at Borgen!



Sunday morning we walked down to Salvation Army. When we arrived, they suddenly remembered that we were coming! “Oh, my gosh! If we would have remembered you were coming, we would have had waffles and coffee all ready for you after service!” That would have been pretty sweet! But, that’s ok! When service was over, we walked back to the Baptist Church.

I recall the church having so many people last Sunday! But this Sunday, there were only 10 people! It’s really sad seeing only a few people! But we know Pastor David, May-Liss and crew are doing a really good job at sharing their heart and being a witness to the city, not only targeting one social, racial or people group, but finding creative ways to connect with others, such as Ny Generation Campus Ministry, Salvation Army, Filidelfia church, Apostolisk Tro, and many others to bring Christ to the City of Tromsø!

On Monday we again had Teen Track. This was with 6 teenage girls. We showed the drama ”chair” as well and played games with them. And again we made bracelets! This was repetitive of last week! It was quite a lot of fun to be able to hang out with them and encourage them! The next night was Family Meeting! We got to hang out with the kids and adults again!



Wednesday was our day off! So we went in to town to the Mall, the girls looked at clothes, the boys and Yan watched cartoons, and then we went on. In the evening we had dinner at Hanne’s house! It was really neat to hear her missionary stories from Mali! She was such a blessing to us! We could hear her story and listen to the things she had to say! When we were about to leave, we prayed for her and her husband!

Thursday, we went to the University and Evangelized! We handed out surveys to students! It had several questions, like, “What’s the main theme of the Bible? On a scale of 1-10, do you think you are going to heaven?” I think there was definitely a seed planted there!

So now we are almost at the end of our stay here in Tromsø. We are going to leave Monday morning. But this weekend will be full. So Katya and Tanya made a really good dinner for boys for Valentine’s day. Katya also had team time. So to help us all understand what being a team was about, she had pieces of string about 66 c.m. long. We tied ourselves to each other. When one person wanted more food, someone had to reach behind and get it, which meant someone else had to get up and move! But it turned out to be a lovely dinner!

It has really been a blessing to be here in Tromso. We have had so many opportunities to serve here...

The Jesus Tent
When Jesus came, He came to bring life to people. As a believer that is exactly what we want to do! Not to beat them or to make them feel Christ is a judge. Philadelphia Church, here in Tromso given started The Jesus Tent Rule number 1) no debating; 2) we seek to care for peoples needs! We offer coffee, cookies and prayer. So, the goal is, as people walk by, to assess whether they are: cold, hungry or need prayer! The tent is on the main street every Saturday from 11 A.M. until 3 or so. People know about it because you can rest assured it will be there! Some people, who dont totally believe in Christ, come because they know there is someone there who cares about them!





Street Evangelism
Our street evangelism was eventful, but it was a bit chilly out. It was around 11PM and -5C, a fair island breeze! We did manage to talk to one lady who was a Russian Orthodox. Andrei saw some Russians to be ministered to, but perhaps they had just been kicked out a bar, so he figured their public relations skill were not exactly the greatest.

University Evangelism
We went to the University of Tromso. We had a survey with a few questions on it about whether or not they believed in spiritual things and how they thought about Christ and God.

All the time we were thinking that some one from base will lead us to Tromso, but suddenly we understood that only four of us (Katya, David, Andrei and Tanya) will be there.

So, we went to Tromso on Thursday the 29th of January at 17:00 and at 18:30 we were at the Baptist Church. May-Liss has been waiting for us already. She gave us all information about the next 2,5 weeks... Oh, it will be a very busy time! A lot of evangelism, preaching, testimonies, dramas... We are so excited!!!