Arrival in Norway
The Beach at Base
Hello friends and family,
It has been a little over three weeks since I arrived in Stavanger, Norway for my discipleship training school with YWAM Rogaland. I am settling in well, and enjoying getting to know lots of people from all over the world. Norway is an incredible place – cold, but beautiful!
Before I get into more details I'll just share a brief update of the the three weeks I was back in the U.S. after returning from Zambia.
Arkansas
I flew back from Zambia to Arkansas, where I went to University. I went to some of my good friend's (Andy & Bridget) wedding, which was a great time and I enjoyed getting to see many familiar faces again. My family came from Arizona also so it was great to see them also. After the wedding weekend, I was able to stay the week with another friend's (Toby Huisjen) family at a cabin on the lake which was also very fun.
Arizona
I made a more spontaneous decision to go back to Arizona a few days early to spend some time with some friends I made on my Zambia trip. They pretty much all lived in the Phoenix area and I was able to stay with them which I'm very grateful for. Just spent the weekend, climbing, going to the rodeo, and hanging out. Even managed to go to Sedona and Grand Canyon national park while I was there which was pretty cool :).
I then made it back to Tucson for a few days, which I spent with the fam and getting ready to go to Norway.
YWAM Rogaland Base
I flew straight to Stavanger, Norway and was picked up by some staff members at the airport. YWAM Rogaland is based right on the beach and you can pretty much see the ocean in every room! It's a very cool place and and staff and students are all very nice.
Kitesurfing
While I am here in Norway, I have had the opportunity to do some regular surfing, as well as learn how to kitesurf, which has been awesome so far! Although it is quite difficult to get the hang of, I'm getting there slowly and have almost been able to get on a board so far. But definitely enjoying it, even in the cold water!
The goal with this is to try and use kiting as a way to reach those in the extreme sports scene with the gospel when we go on outreach.
Community Life
Our schedule is fairly similar week to week. We have breakfast and power time (personal devotions) till 8:30am, then we usually have worship and then at 9:30am we start classes until lunch at 1pm. On Monday's we usually do some form of evangelism in the afternoon and a public worship night in the evening. Wednesday's we have track day in the afternoon (this is when I do kitesurfing as I am on the kiting track), as well as on Friday. There are two different DTS' here at the moment – Reach and Wind & Waves. Reach is focused on evangelism and goes to a few different nations on outreach whereas Wind & Waves focuses on one nation and spends the track days learning their track (options include, snow, surf, and kitesurf). The weekends are fairly free and up to us to do what we want. I have gone surfing and kitesurfing a few extra times on these weekends.
In week one the theme was The Nature and Character of God in which we had a speaker from YWAM Harpenden base in the UK, and week two was Father Heart and Identity week, in which we had one of the old base leaders speak who is now pioneering another Wind & Waves program in Spain. There has been some crossover and similar things to what I learned at Bible School in Austria with Torchbearers, but I'm still learning a lot of new things also. We have been reading through Loren Cunningham's book, Is That Really You God?, which I have found very interesting about the life of the founders of YWAM, Loren & Darlene.
Stavanger University
Worship with the Christian Union
Evangelism
One day we went out to do Evangelism at the University of Stavanger close to where the base is. This was a great time to get out into Norwegian culture and do evangelism on the campus, and we finished out the evening with a worship night with the Christian Union.
Wilderness Week
I'm not allowed to say much about this as its supposed to be kept a secret for those that haven't done it yet, but recently we went out into the wilderness for week three of DTS. This time was spent learning to rely on one another and on God through many various challenges. It was tough, but in the end I was grateful for it. I learned more about myself and God, while growing closer to my teammates as we prepare to go on outreach soon.
Prayer Requests
I found out recently that I will be heading to South Africa (Cape Town Area) on outreach at the end of November! To be completely honest, I was hoping to be able to go to Sri Lanka (as I haven't ever been anywhere in Asia) but I am excited nonetheless! (South Africa & Sri Lanka were the two options when I signed up). The contacts in Sri Lanka were unavailable this time. I haven't been to the Cape Town area so I am excited for it. I would appreciate prayers for fruitful ministry there as we will be working in townships in the area as well as on the coast with the surfing and kitesurfing ministry. We don't leave till the end of November still.
I also am still waiting to attend my Police appointment to secure my religious work visa on October 27th. This was the earliest appointment time I could get and I have to take a 4 hour train to another part of Norway and back to do it. I would appreciate your prayers for another smooth and speedy process as I need it before traveling out of the country at the end of November.
Thank you for your prayer and support!
Toby Wilson
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