fire and the northern lights!

So, where to begin, its been a while since i last updated this and alot has happened....

The base at Nordtun continues to amaze me each day, with the beautiful scenery surrounding us, to the extremes of weather. Lately the days have been wonderful, warm sun, calm waters rolling like liquid glass, still a little chilly but ultimately just great days to be out in Gods creation. However, there have been days completely overcast with clouds hanging just a few hundred meters above the ground level, just capping the low peaks surrounding us, some days this comes with freezing wind and thrashing rain, others its calm and it feels like I'm living under a giant blanket.

It was on one such day, overcast, raining, freezing that we decided to go fishing. We can walk 500m from the front door to a nice point jutting into the fjord that has been affectionately named "worlds end" and cast our lines off (this is worlds end on a nice day...) . It's a great spot however, if its cold, windy and raining the full force of nature will hit you there. Nick (my American roomy) and I were hankering to catch a fish so we decided to brave the weather and go out. we did, it was cold, freezing is an understatement, Hooray for Gore-tex and windprool fleeces, and like 10 layers of clothing... but we still couldnt feel our fingers. We didnt catch anything decent, just two small fish about the size of a mobile phone but it was still amazing being out in the elements "acclimatising" as we called it. On the walk back, we decided that night needed to be calm, not raining or windy so we could go out and set a fire at worlds end, take a guitar, jembae and fish + sing the nighta way. We had also been learning about our identity in christ during the week and had read a passage that when two or more people agree in prayer it will be answered or something along those lines, so we figured, hey, why not ask God for this opportunity...

That night was amazing, not only did it not rain, there was a clear sky full of stars, most of the people in the base decided to join us at worlds end and we sung and praised the night away by a huge fire just hanging out. What was even better was that God decided to give us something special and switched on the northern lights! they are crazy if you ever get the chance to witness them! whats even cooler is that they only show up on really clear nights in winter, so having them this early in autumn is a real treat!

This week we have been having teaching on "the bible". The history, its canonisation and all that mentally heavy stuff, its not quite as entertaining as other things we have done but we are learning heaps. Soon i will be able to pick apart the bible like a pro, well no, not really but thats what they're teaching us to do, well trying to teach us to do.
The sky last night was big, really big. If you have ever lay on the beach (is that bad english - its slowly slipping from me) at ocean grove or somewhere else where teh city lights die down and look up you'll begin to understand out big it is up here, just double everything, the sky is so packed with stars some sections of the night sky look white rather than black.

next week we are heading out to go island hopping and climbing a few of the peak on these island and sitting at the top doing some MTW or "mountain top worship" just hanging out praising God and praying for the local area and islands around us, it will be a really cool week as we will just get to hang out on the islands and hike!

my mind is slowly melting and im about to start rambling so ill cut my blog off here. I'll have some more pics up for you in about a weeks time i guess after the trip.

Wow....

So i arrived at YWAM base about a week ago and met all the people i will be living with for the next 9 months, everyone seems really chilled out and awesome people. they all love God first then love the outdoors second, my kind of people!

After a short introduction and a quick supper (we managed to get to base at about 10:30pm as driving directly from Bodo to Engavagen consists of driving aroun in the hugest squiggly line you cna amagine due to all the fjords up here, a 100km direct line took us about 3hours i think...) were todl the plan for the next few days, basically it consisted of jumping on a small boat, taking a short trip over a crystle turquose blue glacial runoff fjord to the base of the 2nd largest glacier in norway and setting up camp. all on the 2nd day we got there with half the student still Jet lagged and feeling tired and sore, awesome...

so basically words can barely begine to describe how beutiful northern Norway is, pictured dont really do it justice either, though ill throw some up anyways. We set up camp at the bottom of the glacial flow just behind the big turquose lake at the bottom in a small clearing of tree's. The mountains rise about 1000-1500m up from sea level with rocky outcrop and near vertical cliffs, the tree level is about 300m so there are not many tree's on them at all... everything is lush and green with small waterfalls cutting their way down the side of the mountains at regular intervals, small berry bearing bushes litter the ground, all of which you can eat if you feel a little peckish.

we camped one night at out base at the bottom of the mountain then hiked up and spent a day on the glacier with crampons and iceaxes in tow all tied together with a rope to make sure we didnt fall. its hard work and we got our first glimpse of freezing norwegian temperature as it was windy, raining, icey. we were all soaked and cold by the time we got of the glacier and we still had to scramble down a wet rocky mountain side to get back, it was great! that night was horrible, pouring rain, over cramped tent as we forgot the poles for one tent, with a splitting headache. got through the night and we packed up early instead of hiking up to a hut 1400m up the mountain as the wind was too strong and it was pouring with rain.

My room at base has an amazing view, its great for the mornings when you just dont want to get out of bed, you just look out the window and want to jump out and go climb it or something, its picturesque!

so thats about it for the short ramble, not too much details but you get an idea of what its liek up here, we're yet to start the teachign phase, that starts this monday but i'm looking forward to that and to see what is in store for us! after a week or so of teaching im sure my Blog will have a little more substance to it! but yeah....

NAthan.

leo and ali...

So i flew out of liverpool a week or so ago, having spend an awesome week there having lots of fun with Joy, Kurzon and Trish (tina) - they were all brilliant hosts ! - and landed in Oslo for my first stint going solo... managed to navagate my way through the airport, its a really really good one, everyone's relaxed and very helpful, though thats the same for most of the norweigian people anyway!

got in the hostel door moments before it poured down with rain, the hostel is on a big grassy hill, a really nice change coming out of Englands crampedness...

so far I've basically been wandering the streets seeing the sights. I met up with two others Leo, a smooth talking mexican at the end of his travels and Ali, an Aussie gal, it was nice to hear an accent from home too. we hung out and had a great time at the vigeland park? (spelling on tha tis probably wrong) with all the random sculptures and walked aroudn the bay to the viking museum and saw how they moved the ship in a whole chung 100 yards at a time on moveable track... crazy norweigians...
oh, also saw scream by munch, we were in a hall of all his work and only realised it was famouse art when we spotted that paining, its pretty crazy!

we ended up cooking dinner, food here is rediculously expensive if you eat out, like 50AUD if you want a large pizza... so we made a massive bowl of pasta for me and Leo, 500g of pasta with about as much sauce, we were stuffed but managed to get through it all in the end, though felt rather unwell.

Leo, being the smooth talker he is managed to get 2 young Russians to sing to him. we found out they were from a choir and managed to get invited up to their practise. there were about 14 Russian woman with amazingly beautiful voices, very hard to descrive how good it was though it gave us all shivers they were that good! turns out they were only amatures who sing for a hobby by we felt they were professionals, besides all the laughter and chatter between songs...
they were a great group and when their leader found out i was australian she asked if i could find some poeple who would be interested in being penpals with a russian as they were studying international studies and austrlian in particular for the last semester... so if anyones interested...

besides that I've just been hanging out relaxing.
not really sure what else has been done, im sure ill remember later...
oh, large fireworks show in liverpool, fosters in the park at night like a bogan (scally), knitting with some ladies while drinking coffee at the white room... yeah thats about it...

so, send me an email or a reply or something and fill me in on whats happening back home, im kinda out of the loop up here you know...
hope alls well.

oh, ill chuck up some photos when i get a chance, i have to use an internet cafe as the hostels wireless is a little stuffed at the moment or something.. oh well.