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!!!

We went back home to Borgen, through Kautokeino (just to split our way to make it easier). But God had His own reason for us to be there... The main speaker from local church was sick and Leif Braathen had one more opportunity to preach. Also our team shared a testimony and showed the drama “Cross”. We really enjoyed our time there, but at the same time we all were excited to go home to Borgen for couple days...

On our way to Borgen God made a wonderful present for us. We again could see the sun! It was the first time for three month... It was amazing!!!



From the 26th until the 29th of January we were at the Borgen base praying and preparing for Tromso. On the 27th of January Andrei had a Birthday and Tanya cooked a lot of his favorite food... It was soup, chicken, rice, salad... So, we could feel as we are at a belarussian dinner!

We arrived from Honningsvag in the morning... Now we could see all the beauty around us and again we passed tunnels.



When we were nearly to Karasjok we saw a small cafe. We decided to stop and have a drink break (we used the coffee money which Bea gave us. Thanks Bea!!!). We were also able to shop in the attached strip mall. Off course most of things were left on the shelves, but we did find a few items we couldn't live without.

When we arrived in Karasjok our host directed us to the church. It was near the gas station “Statoil”, we were happy because we all have Statoil-cups. And in the evening we went to the pastor's house. Our time with the pastor Tom, his wife Inger-Maria and three wonderful sons was well spent.



On Tuesday (20.01) we had planning and had to work through some things... And in the evening we had two confirmation classes where David showed the presentation on Genesis 1, two testimonies (Tanya's and Lenneke's), drama “Heart” + explanation. And on the next day we did the same program twice. So, it was our first experience to work with Sami people and with confirmants.



On Wednesday we had wonderful possibility to visit Sami museum (but it was very small museum – only 3 rooms). But any way we got some information about Sami culture and made a lot of pictures.





After museum we went to Parliament building (it's made in Sami style) to get Internet. And couple hours we were out of this world...

On Thursday morning we had meeting at school together with New Generation ministry. Where Andrei and David gave their testimonies. Then YoungBo and his biiiiiiiig family invited us for dinner with real Korean chili food. But it was a wonderful dinner with a lot of kid's noise!!!

On Friday first of all we cleaned up the church to make it as we are not leaving here at all, because at 12 am high school came to hear some teaching about Jesus, church, baptism and etc. from Inger-Maria. We just were there. And in the evening we had youth meeting ...with girls. We played some competition games, then we had worship, preaching from Andrei (he is our team preacher) and drama “Cross”. Afterwards we eat waffles and just talked with each other... it was good to know them better!

Oh, Saturday!!! On this day God taught us to be VERY flexxxxxxible and just serve to confirmants. So, we spent whole day in a State church and it was a long day for us! For us it was opportunity to talk with young people and share about living relations with Jesus. We just spent time with them in chatting, showing our drama “Cross”, telling about our ministry... There were 121 confirmants: 46 from Karasjok, 42 from Kautokeino and 33 fron Tana.







Sunday – it was our last day in Karasjok. On this meeting Leif Braathen came to preach. So, it was like a part of our Borgen-home came to us. Also we showed our drama “Cross”.
Afterwards we filled up our Statoil-cups and went to...