After midnight

So, it seems that I'm back on European schedule.  It's always late at night before I have a chance to blog the day.

Last night, Gard and Lasse and Leah and I stayed up late talking and drinking a bit of wine.  I think we finally decided we needed to sleep around one o'clock in the morning.  We got up at 8 and had coffee and breakfast and set out for the town of Granavolden where we are staying in a guest house.  There are two ancient churches across from us, St. Mary and St. Nikolai.    It took us a while to get to Granavolden because the roads were snow covered and traffic was slow.  It is a winter wonderland.  At the end of this post, I'll include a link to today's photos.

We began the program at about 1:30 with a talk and welcome from the local Lutheran Bishop, a wonderfully warm and welcoming woman.  When she was ready to leave, I decided I needed to hug her so I asked if it was all right and she welcomed the hug.  She was so supportive of this meeting and the cause of full equality within the church.

We began with a presentation on the history of Norway by a very funny Norwegian pastor, Karin.  Then we began to give our introductions.  We have people from 12 countries and there are about 30 of us here.  Norway, Finland, Holland, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia and several other countries.  We broke at 6:45pm and ate at 7.  Worship was at 10pm and lasted about an hour.  Then Rostek and Fr. Maxim came to my room and we talked on Skype to Brother Vladimir, Ivan, and Boris in Kyiv.  Since, for the second night in a row, it's approaching 1a.m.  I probably need to sleep a little.

We have breakfast at 8 and worship in the church of St. Nikolai at 9 and then on to a full day including a pilgrimage to another church.  We'll walk the 4 kilometers through the beautiful winter scenery.  This place is gorgeous.  Very rural, there are cows outside my window.  It is the perfect place for a retreat.  We have already started to form community and I'm sure by the end of the weekend, we will have a hard time leaving each other.  It's so good to be with my friends from Ukraine and to see again an old friend from Hungary.  I never forget how blessed I am to be able to make these journeys and share the lives of sisters and brothers from so many places.  Today's photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20101112?authkey=Gv1sRgCMyNqffA6bmJWQ#