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.

so... liverpool.

I've been in liverpool now for about a week hanging out with Kurzon (wills housey) and Joy.
It's been an interesting time, i've checked out wales with the local youth group and had a scavenger hunt in a small tourist town, had lunch in some mountains near a large picturesque (hmm i still cant spell) bridge and a river, and finished off the day with a trip to the beach, which was mainly beach, we started walking to the water, 10 mins later we were about halfway there along the sand (directly out towards it) and we got called back for dinner, strange beach that, but we did get a good dose od DoDo, and as always there were injuried, a potentially cracked rib and a knocked face this time i think. The youth trip was fun!

Went up to the lakes district yesturday, drove up a steep and winding path that only 1 car could fit up but there were 2 directons of traffic, its always interesting! amazing mountains though and with i could have climbed them! didnt quite have the time though so we just sat at the top in a wind sheltered part and let the wind rush by, listening to it rustle through the grass, attempting not to slide down the mountain! It was probably the best bit about england so far, a place with no one else except the people you came with! its rare here being so crowded.

I'm sure you must have all heard about the recent shooting in liverpool of the 11 year old child. but have you heard about the other shootings? a week before i got here another man was shot dead 2 mins walk from the church i attended, and on saturday night 2 bouncers were shot abotu 2 blocks away. the 11 year old child was shot 1 suburb over!
I rarely use this kind of language but i do have to ask, what the FUCK is going on here?! liverpool is a seemingly peacefull place, reminds me of home just a little more crowded, there are nice parks, clean streets, people wandering around jumping around an laughing. why on earth is there so much violence? why does this happen here?! I guess the violence portrayed on the news doesnt really hit home until its happening a block away, at least it seems not for me. And what makes it worse is that these have been seemingly random attacks.
i should say now, for mums sake at least, that i have been completely safe and not witnessed any violence and it appears this random acts are not the norm. but still. why does this happen here but not in melbourne? i jumped in on a debate at a cafe with some freinds of a freinds freind. (yeah, that makes alot of sense doesn it!) they were throwing ideas around about gangsta cultre, racial mix through to food additives. but what really gets me is why not in melbourne we have all the same. i geuss we're fortunate.... but yeah....

I'm off to norway soon, tomorrow infact, a short stay in olso then on to YWAM, 2nd day up there they're loading us up and we're going up a glacier and camping on it for the night, then up a further mountain to stay in a hut up the top! should be crazy, kinda getting thrown in the deep end though i feel! should be a blast!

Low, High and mummified cats.

Since last time, well i guess not long as passed, still just bumming around london with Katie and crocker, but ill throw up some blogs while i still have the chance...

Well last sunday i wandered into Holy trinity Brompton, a small church in the centre of london that has the likes of tim hughes and niky gumble, it was an interesting experience, very much like church back home at St Hills, good music, good teaching, big nice old building. bit of a walk in and walk out service though, no one really talked to each other where i was sitting, alas.

tried to get into the famed Harrods, got knocked back, must've been looking dodgy or something.

managed to catch communion at St Pauls that night, it was a totally different church experience to HTB (as one would expect), its a massive place, if you've been there you'll know what im tlaking about, if not, high ceilings, big dome, painted roofs with sculptures and what not piled in everywhere. communion was a great experience, about 100 people from all around the world, and it was partially sung, the canon and helper people were in robes and they had a smoke bowl thingo full of incense.

it was an interesting contract, going to the contemporary service in the morning then on to the high anglican shin dig at the church that is the centre of the anglican church...

I've also been road tripping with Dan Crocker, long drive, took up 12 hours to clock up about 400km, stupid UK traffic, even in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, its amazing... though we found some nice cliched small roads surrouned by hedges, where we got stuck and had to squeeze past other cars.
We ended up in Hastings for dinner at a small Pub called the Stagg, it was older than our country, (im assuming most reading this are aussies...) at about 400years old and came complete with mumified cats in a box and drunk owner sitting behind the bar offering us a free meal if it wasnt up to scratch.

besides all that i;ve just been doing the usual tourist stuff, all good fun, lots of museums and what not. still missin home a little.

NAthan

Long flights, busy places and warm beer....

hmmm, first blog, how does one write these things...

After leaving good old Melbourne on wednesday morning at 1am, early, yes. after getting to singapore with very few difficulties i managed to score a row to my self on the 14 hour flight to london, I'm very glad about tat as it would have been torture otherwise! - thats about all there is to say about travelling, it wasnt very exciting to be honest, just lots of sitting there and waiting...

After wandering hopelessly around heathrow for a while i finally (after a few desperate calls home to try and get my Cuz's mobile number) managed to find katie, a great relief, thanks mum for praying fervently! then headed into the city, i had managed to get 35kg of gear onto the aeroplane and was now somewhat regretting it... but that was all good as we slowly made our way on the train through the suburbs of london, its all medium density rows and rows of buildings, its quite incredible after coming from Melbourne.
At the moment I'm staying in Notting Hill with Katie (my Cuz) and her housemate, its a small place, but in a really really nice spot, a short walk to hyde park and one of the palaces, close to the museums, which i was pleased to find out are free! - im checking out the science and nature one later today.

I caught up with Dan Crocker yesturday, who has been hanging out here for the last 6 months teaching, we checked out greenwich and the meridian line, It's a really interesting place and makes me think that we're getting dumber as a people as those guys seemed to be insanely brilliant to be able to figure all that stuff out!

wandered picadilly and oxford circus (really packed places, not sure why though, not all that exciting, though the archetecture is amazing there! really really nice) that arvo and had my first brittish beer, wasnt quite warm but definately wasn't cold, good though, a great bitter, then onto dinner, managed to find china town, as small as it is, i guess its in the blood, seems to be an asian thing, find china town in every city you visit... seemed a common theme amongst the people, oh yeah, and its right next to SOHO, interesting place that, didnt check out many of the shops there, thankfully, but found a brilliant french cake shop.

well, i'm thinking this wasnt a very exciting post as i havent done much to note yet, just thought i'd organise this whole blog thing... so yeah, feel free to pick your way through this post and correct my spelling mistakes, i blame the computer, it tends to forget to put letters in where i asked it too...

I hope everyone is going well back home, i already miss everyone heaps! Wish i had someone here to share the experience with!

keep in touch,