Saturday night friends in Stockholm

I just recently returned from a trip back to Europe. For three weeks I traveled to Germany, Latvia, Iceland and Sweden. After having been in America for the last two months it was good to be back. It gave me an opportunity to see some good friends and to say some goodbyes for awhile. I will be stationed in America for the next two years and making some trips back and forth to Europe but not having my permanent residence there.

The last Saturday night I was in Sweden. I went out to do the Saturday evening ministry we do in the community of Vårberg between the two Pubs and beside the subway entrance. I usually set up a table there around 12 o’clock at night and serve free coffee and tea to the people using the Subway and visiting the two Pubs. We do this as a community service. Often our community of Vårberg has had bad press concerning the problems there with drunks etc… We started serving coffee there about a year and a half ago and have continued on Saturday nights. I really enjoy meeting people and getting to know the people of our community. I think we have had a calming effect on the area. That was our goal to begin with.

Here are two pictures of some friends that I met out there on my last Saturday night in Sweden for awhile.

Moving On

Sometimes the unexpected happens. As we live our life here on planet earth it seems like the unexpected comes more frequently than we would like. We like to think that we are in control of everything but just when we begin to feel secure in our own abilities and gifts it comes unsuspectingly.

For me the unexpected this month was a job change. I have the privilege of working with a great organization and with great people doing something I enjoy to the max but my job title and my job description have changed. At first I thought that I was in for a demotion. I began to feel I had lost something that I would miss dearly. I also felt some envy for those that would continue on in the same tracts that I had walked before, but would no longer walk. But as I considered the new possibilities of what was being offered to me in the place of what I was leaving, I realized that I now would have the very job that I had wanted all along. In other words, what I thought was a dream job 5 years ago quickly turned into a lot more administration and extra meetings then what I ever dreamed. But now the administration and extra meetings are gone and I have been set free to do what I enjoy doing.

The unexpected for me has become something really good. But what about if the unexpected had become something I really didn’t want? Would I still be writing about it and would I still be happy? Could I have accepted the unexpected as Job had done thousands of years ago with the words, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Could I have been satisfied to receive the good with the bad and still say, Blessed is the Lord? Receiving what the Lord allows to come our way is not easy. In order to do it we have to believe that The Lord is good and that He only has good intentions for us. We have to believe that even when evil comes against us the Lord has promised never to leave us or forsake us and He will walk though it with us even through the valley of the shadow of death.

This month the unexpected has happened, and I won’t be working as closely with all the people in the picture above as I have the last five years. But we will still be working together in other ways. I have been set free to do what I really want to do.