Å leve fra Ånden...

So thank you for all the encouragements before telling my story this Wednesday morning, in this school I'm staffing (Awaken DTS). This week every staff had 20-30 minutes to share their story to the class, 80 students we barely had begun to know. It's something really powerful about sharing your own life story, whether you are 18 years old and you feel like life just started, or you're 80 and hopefully have a well of wisdom to draw from. And everyones story is so different and it is just yours , no one can take it away from you, no one else but you can own it. While thinking about and telling it, it might hit you how good it is and how fortunate you are. Or you may notice how you have not even begun in reaching your goals, maybe you even forgot about them because the dreams faded so long ago. Maybe your story is full of pain and hurt and how you have overcome them, or still are in the process of it, or just never got started and pushed it all back down. Telling your story...

Jeg skal dele historien min på onsdag. Foran 105 stk, 80 ukjente. Neste uke kommer den første foreleseren, og etter det er det 10 uker med nye forelesere, men denne uka er det oss; staben som er forelesere. Og oppgaven vår, å dele med hverandre og de 80 studentene er - fortell om livet ditt. Og hva Gud har gjort i livet ditt. Hvem du er. Hva som har gjort deg til den du er. For en utfordring! Hva hadde du fortalt om du kunne fortelle dette til fremmede? 20-30 minutter valgfritt om livet ditt. Hva som har satt spor og forandra livet ditt, hva som gjør at du er slik du er nå... Det er min tur på onsdag. Jeg vet enda ikke hva jeg skal fortelle. Det er så mye. Det er så mange historier og mange folk som har gjort meg til den jeg er. Og Gud? Det har vært en evig opp- og nedtur, livet mitt har blitt snudd opp og ned, både til det bedre og det verre. Hvilke tidspunkt skjedde noe spesielt mellom Gud og meg? Var det da jeg forstod at han var ekte? Var det da jeg første gang opplevde en p...

Jeg har nettopp kommet ut av det to og en halv kvadratmeter store "badet", hatt en dusj i lunkent vann etter å ha venta i timesvis på at vannet skulle skru seg på igjen. Jeg har kjøpt en tilnærma ny blender til å lage smoothie med for 5 dollar (ca 30 kroner), telt alle myggstikkene mine og spist lunsj på et lite, rødt tefat. Det er det nærmeste vi kommer en slags frokosttallerken her på rommet og det fins bare en av dem. En helt vanlig dag på Hawaii. En helt vanlig dag på rom A201. Ei romvenninne sover etter en lang stranddag (stranda kan virkelig gjøre deg trøtt) og ei anna sover på det harde flisegolvet, sikkert fordi hun ikke gidder klatre opp øverst i køysenga. De andre jentene vet jeg ikke hvor er, de kan være hvor som helst egentlig. Altså en helt vanlig lørdag. Men ingen ting av dette er vanlig for meg. Ingen ting minner meg om livet mitt. Ingen av folka. Ingen av rytmene og rutinene. Ikke en gang språket. Ingen ting føles trygt og alle rundt meg er ukjente, ell...

I love getting comments. I will totally admit to that!! I love getting likes and encouragements, and I love it if people disagree or see things from a different perspective so they can challenge me!! I never say no to a good discussion!! I´ve been blogging for so many years now that I should have a celebration soon, haha! Back in the early 2000´s - when blogging was hot and super cool, I used to get lots of comments, on all kinds of random blogposts, and at times really interesting strings. When I changed from Squarespace to Blogspot I copied and pasted over 200 old blogposts from before 2011 over to Blogspot, and if you take a look at those it looks like I only got 1 comment every time. But that´s just because I copied them all in one go, if you click on it, many of them are long strings of conversation. I´ve been made aware from several people at different times that it is hard to leave a comment on this blog. Is that so? If so, you could comment on the Facebook-thread. But her...

So this week has been all about moving in. From the room with 10 girls living on top of each other, to a room with only 3... where one supposedly would move out in a little while. I could hardly believe it. Would we be only two girls living in that spacious room, only two girls sharing shower and kitchen cabinet?!  Well, before I could even get excited about it a girl asked if she could move into our room the day after we had gotten in. And then another one asked... And then - suddenly we were six girls stuck together, totally crammed, stuff everywhere, girls everywhere... and I decided that I could either be a bit upset over it and start complaining, or think of it as more people I´d get to know really well these months.... and also, just accept the fact that this is #ywamlife and the only thing constant about that is change!! So here are some pictures, with explanations under - from my moving in!! Creating some privacy by using a sheet (laken)! Creative, huh?! W...

If the first week was super hard, the second week had many ups, and many downs. I realized after the first week that patience probably would be my keyword this season, and that everything wouldn´t come as easily to me as I would have liked.... this might be a good thing for me to learn.... keeping at it when it doesn´t come easily. I´ve always hated that, most things had to be fairly easy for me from the beginning to pour my heart into it. Somehow I had it in my mind that leaving home and moving across the world, from living in a nice apartment and driving my own car to living in a community with an unknown number of foreign girls would be easy! That I would just be good at it right away. That I would just love all of it. That it all would be an adventure. Sometimes the dream is better than reality, at least in the beginning. It´s not until the end of the story the girl gets the prince, the war is won by the good guys and the mystery is revealed. And then you realize that it was all...

I´d love to get snail mail, in my mailbox. Letters or postcards or even salty stuff from Norway. What I really miss is `leverpostei´. I brought a lot of  `knekkebrød´ but only six small packages of  `leverpostei´. The food here is not the same, and I hardly ever want any of the candy. Oh well, could be a good thing!! And I still have some chocolate that I brought from Norway to munch on. I love the mix of milk chocolate and salty peanuts, M´s or kvikklunch (not hinting at all!!) So my mailing address is (per September 2014): Renate Solberg 75-5863 Kuakini hwy. APT 226 Kailua-Kona HI 96740 USA I´m at my favorite café right now, Kona Haven , where you sit outdoors overlooking the ocean. Now, at 7 o´clock it´s extra nice to watch the sun set. It´s beautiful, and different every night. This is how it looks right now: Isn´t it just amazing?  No filter. I´m on the other side of the road. I´m lucky to sit here outdoors with a cup of iced mocca a...

Det er fredags ettermiddag i Hawaii, og jeg har vært her i akkurat en uke. Sju dager, åtte inkludert reising, borte fra Bryne og alt jeg kjenner der - til andre sida av jorda, 12 timers tidsforskjell, fra nord til sør, til sommer i Hawaii, deilig varme, palmesus, sjø og strand fem minutter fra der jeg bor, hvor jeg skal bo i fellesskap på et slags misjonsuniversitet, og være misjonær her og til resten av verden, sammen med hundrevis av andre, men først og fremst 24 andre ledere i disippeltreningsskole. Ledertreninga starta en dag etter at jeg landa, og alle var i 200, full av energi og forventninger. Utenom meg. Det har vært ei tøff uke. Når jeg nå skriver det ned kjenner jeg at det er en underdrivelse. Det har vært ei knalltøff uke. Det har vært knalltøft å være ny og usikker og ikke kjenne noen. Heller ikke kjenne til alle kodene, all intern humor, alle folka "alle andre" kjenner, hva som er normalt og ikke normalt, hva som er forventa og ikke…. osv…. Jeg ankom...

I´m in a small room with 9 other girls. I´ve just slept (or tried to sleep) on a top bunker that none of the other girls want because of the hard matress and no latter up, - along with dirty socks, a sleeping bag, some clothes, a hair dryer and a bunch of other knickknack I didn´t get out of the bed before I fell asleep. I had spent 15 minutes, half in my own world after staying up almost the entire 26 hour trip from Norway to Kona, Hawaii, cleaning out everything else laying on that bunkbed, which was packed with stuff... I woke up 7 this morning and had left over potato chips and a lukewarm Coke with no fuzz for breakfast before I gathered in line and hoped for the water to still be hot when it was my turn to have a shower.... Welcome to Hawaii! Welcome to Paradise! Welcome missionlife and transition! The story gets better. And it gets worse! It started with almost forgetting my passport. Yeah you heard right. I had totally forgotten about it BEFORE we cleaned out my apartme...

Jeg reiser på fredag. Til Hawaii. For å leve sammen med Awaken, en "hub" i Ungdom i Oppdrag som driver med mange former for misjonsarbeid. Jeg skal være stab på en DTS (disippeltreningsskole - en slags misjonsskole) med dem fra 16.juni av, ta meg en tur til Sør-Korea i september, og se hva som skjer framover. I desember kommer jeg hjem for å ta eksamen. Det er rart å skrive det ned. Og det er rart å snakke om det. Hver gang folk spør meg aner jeg ikke hva jeg skal svare, og prøver å finne et slags standardsvar som høres ok ut. For jeg vet ikke helt hva jeg syns om alt dette . Og jeg vet ikke helt hva som møter meg. Og jeg har så mange forskjellige slags følelser inni meg. Hvorfor gjør jeg dette? Det er et stort spørsmål. Jeg prøvde å besvare det da jeg ble sendt ut av menigheten min på søndagsmøtene. Hvorfor reiser jeg fra alt jeg har hjemme til noe nytt, spennende, men også usikkert i et annet land? Hvor mye av det er eventyrlyst? Hvor mye av det er følelsen ...

So you´re at the end of the rope, you´re worn out, torn up, exhausted, feeling braindead, living in a bubbleworld and is just longing for freedom - knowing that breathing again only is days away now!! That´s how it feels like today (just look at those dead roses on the picture!), being a student, 3 days before my exams start. Not like August, the beginning, when I poured over the books, a whole new world opening up to me, so excited and with a hunger to learn. Now it is all about discipline, getting up, getting to the library, not ending up on Facebook or online news, and reading the same thing over and over trying to get it, because in a few days some professor will actually ask you what you know about this topic, and you can´t say you remember you read about that somewhere, and please, give me a minute, and I´ll check it out. How student life was in the start... and still is! My for ever amazing study friends Ina and Maria, having lunch at the college cantina. You´re the...

What is a missionary and what is missions?! Good questions.... What are you up to now, Renate?! Where is this leading? Well... traditionally being a missionary has been traveling abroad to share the good news about Jesus to people who have never heard of him, and with that, also doing all kinds of jobs connected to that purpose - teaching, helping, leading, building schools and hospitals, living on income from a church, friends or others who believed in the persons "calling".... It has been going on in Norway and abroad, but traditionally we´ve been used to think of it as something that happends in foreign countries, mainly Asian and African, because the States have been portrayed as "Christian already" and Europe just the same. And - since we´ve been the country in the world sending out the most missionaries per capita, of course we haven´t seen much need for missionaries in our own country the last decades... maybe until now. This is what the English Wik...

  J eg er ikke i mot barnehage. Ikke i det hele tatt. Jeg tror det kan være veldig bra. Jeg kjenner mange gode barnehager og barnehageansatte. Og selv er jeg av den personlighetstypen som elsker å jobbe, og aldri har vært spesielt opptatt av barn. Hadde jeg fått barn kan det godt være at jeg hadde vært drittlei av bleier og å være hjemme lenge før ungen var ett år. Det er en ærlig innrømmelse. Jeg kan ikke se for meg at personligheten min blir transformert i den grad at jeg bare har så inmari lyst å "bare gå hjemme". Jeg tror det ville vært dager da jeg holdt på å gå på veggen og bare ville vekk! Allikevel.... tror jeg ikke det er det beste for barnet at jeg hadde gjort det. Jeg er ikke psykolog. Eller ekspert. Kanskje en pedagog siden jeg er lærer. Dette innlegget er uansett ikke faglitteratur. Men jeg har snakket med en del eksperter på emnene. Eksperter på barns utvikling, og på barn og tilknytning. En behandler innen psykiatrien sa til meg at det er et problem...

Jeg er ikke i mot barnehager. Ikke i det hele tatt. Slik som samfunnet nå har blitt tror jeg det kan være veldig bra for et barn å være en del i barnehage. Jeg ser at mange har det kjekt og trives godt, og at flere ikke alltid vil hjem igjen når foreldrene henter dem. Innerst inne syns jeg nok litt synd på barna at de ikke får lov å ha den oppveksten jeg fikk, som fra morgen til kveld sprang rundt i gata - på fjellet, i skogen, i hagen... klatra i trær (og falt ned mange ganger), hadde utflukter i marka med venninner, passa kaniner og hunder og fant på en hel haug sprell før jeg starta i 1.klasse. Det var et eventyr hver dag. Jeg fikk sove til jeg våkna og hadde lang god frokost med mor og Christina (når hun kom til familien) før jeg fikk lov og springe ut og besøke Mette som bodde 2 minutter unna. Fra jeg var 2-3 år sprang jeg alene bort til henne og ropte navnet hennes så høyt jeg kunne, fordi jeg ikke rakk opp til ringeklokka. Jeg vet at noen få har det slik enda i Norge. De er h...

Here is the main reason why I am highly sceptical to sending kids to preschool/kindergarden (barnehage) before they are three. Brain science, to put it simply. I do have other arguments, the main one very simple – that I just believe that it´s best for the child to be with its mother most of the time from 0 till 3. But other than my own personal view of the matter, it is actually research of the brain and what happends in a child´s brain the first years that is my main argument for my conviction. Today... after some consideration I decided to post an article about   Preschool teachers critical of too young kids in preschool on my Facebook page, and comment on it in the online newspaper. It is not to condemn. Therefore I decided, as I´ve already ripped off the bandage and been vocal about my opinions, to write a little on my blog about why . I know this is a highly controversial theme, especially in Norway where most women send their children to preschool from 10 mo...

I´m eating this ice cream because there is no more chocolate left in the house..... sounds familiar to anyone?!? I´ve eaten all the chocolate that´s been laying around, then all the ice popcicles I had in the freezer (which was 2 boxes of  `Isabella´ ice pop my sister left last August... probably like 15 of them in each box), and now... I´ve started to dig into the ice cream jar.... I think about my Dad loving ice cream like no other while eating it, and for the first time in my life I understand him.  I´ve never been a `comfort eater´ in my life. Several of my girlfriends are, some admit to being addicted to chocolate. I´ve never understood it. For me escape has more been about escaping into books, I think... or sometimes sleep.... to try to cope with things, try to forget something happened, but food has usually been left alone. I´m known for being able to have candy and chocolate and the likes stacked all over my apartment and them getting too old to eat before I ge...