They have arrived!

The new students have finally arrived, and, ah!.... We are so excited! They are INCREDIBLE! We are already just so impressed with them. They seem to be very mature and humble and so powerful! Each one has so much to offer, and we can see that they were hand picked by God for this year. They are bonding already and I can tell that they are just longing for more knowledge of God in their hearts, their minds, their art. 

We have nine different nations in the student body alone. We have 23 students this year coming from the Philippines, Israel, Norway, Canada, USA (Hawaii), Germany, Finland, Switzerland, and Holland! This doesn't even include the staff for this year! 

Caleb and I have been working hard and having fun for the past couple of weeks getting things together for the European Arts Festival which begins next week. We are leading worship and playing in a few songs with other people as well as playing at Lyspunktet, a GREAT coffeehouse next to the fjords in Ålesund. We have been in the studio and art factory for several hours several days of the week! After the festival, we will be getting into more of a routine..... I think!

We're back....

We are here. We made it! It has been a rough go since we have been back here in Aalesund, but things are looking brighter. We do not yet have a home. We are staying in the basement in a single room in the base. After a few difficult days, we just decided that we had enough of worrying about a home. We decided not to dwell on it anymore. Now, we are thankful for our room, but are looking forward to having a place to settle down for this coming year! 

Since we have been back to Norway we have spent time camping in Stavern working at a big missions conference called GoFest. We had a chance to work in the cafe and lead a two hour slot of a 48 hour worship session. It was fun doing that and also intense! There was an hour after a session that Caleb and I got to have a mini concert, and we also had a chance to sing a couple of songs on the main stage for the last conference. A new friend who is one of the most amazing violin players ever played with us.  Her name is Erica James, from Iowa. 

My birthday was Monday and we (all of YWAM Aalesund) went to an island about an hour away and we spent time on the sandy paradise of a beach. The water was so clean and clear, the sand white and lovely! YAY!!! I love the ocean!!!! God really spoke to us in that place and gave us some vision for the year and a real peace about being here. He told me that I should write music about love the way He has lived it, designed it and prepared it. Love and justice. Good topics, huh! He also told me that we would be His voice and that we will live these things out. Wow. It sounds intense and scary. Love is such a difficult thing sometimes! But, this is what we are called to do. 

We are so excited about this coming year, for the students to get here, to be involved in the community of YWAM Aalesund again and just in the Aalesund community. There is also a European ArtsGathering coming up in September which we will be playing in and helping to coordinate!!! Erica James is traveling 25 hours on a bus in order to come and play with us! Should be good, fun, hard work. God is really just opening doors for us to get right in to the community.