Å leve fra Ånden...

First a little history. From 1997 - 2000 I was in Korea 5 times, all together living there for about 7 months. It was my first time back to the country I was born in, and it changed my life. I always wondered if I´d feel at home coming back, it being my birth country and all, but I felt like such a stranger, and as much as a tourist as my fellow Americans and Norwegians that came with me (there were 80 of us, located in the north, with a main task - to pray for Korea. It was amazing, maybe the best time in my life). But all the same, feeling like a stranger, I also had a lot of other emotions filling my heart - love, respect, fascination, annoyance, shock, and the like. This time around is my 7th. After more than 14 years I came back here 12 days in September, and am now here for six weeks. Everyone that´s been here after 2010 has told me how changed Seoul has become since the 90´s. So I didn´t know what to expect these times around. But to me, it looks exactly the same . Very litt...

Jeg landet i Sør-Korea for nøyaktig sju dager siden, og det føles som om jeg har blitt kasta utfor et stup og må lære å fly uten å vite hva som kreves. Heldigvis var jeg ved godt mot, om ikke forberedt... Mange følelser blir satt i sving. Jeg er i Korea igjen, det er ikke hvor som helst for meg. Det er nydelig ute, fantastisk vintervær - kaldt, solskinn, vindstille.... luktene, og alle minnene fra vinteren 1997 da jeg kom hit for første gang slår meg med en gang jeg lander. Men så velter jet lag og kultursjokk over meg ganske snart. Ingen forstår meg her, og de få som kan litt engelsk er ikke interessert i å snakke. Jeg, som har lært meg å elske small talk i USA, kan plutselig ikke kommunisere med noen, ikke en gang om været. Den "koreanske måten" å gjøre ting på overvelder meg, kjønnsrollene her, hierarkiet, alle forventningene, de uskrevne lovene... Jeg har lyst til å si til alle at jeg bare må få lande først, jeg klarer ikke ta inn alt ennå.... men det er umulig å få ...

Godt nytt år!! Det er 2015! Et nytt år! Nye sjanser. Nye muligheter. Dette året har jeg bare to nyttårsforsett, som jeg planlegger å ta veldig alvorlig. Det er ikke alle år jeg har forsett, og som regel har det handla om - å lære meg spansk, å øve mer på gitar, trene mer og lignende mål... Dette året har jeg som sagt to. 1. Jeg vil være snill mot meg selv. I dag er jeg takknemlig for at jeg har føtter, deler av kroppen som jeg tenker sjelden på og gir lite ære. Men jeg har aldri vondt i føttene mine, de funker utmerka og jeg bruker dem flittig hver dag. Fysisk må de ofte ta støyten, og jeg utfordrer dem hele tida ved tidvis jogging og annen belastning. Jeg er takknemlig for føttene mine og jeg vil behandle dem bra og legge merke til dem. Jeg vil lære å være snillere mot meg selv. Si finere ting til meg selv i speilet, glede meg over at kroppen fungerer, selv om det har kommet et par kilo for mye. Om jeg ikke får de vekk, vil jeg framdeles være snill med meg selv i år og s...

Merry Christmas everyone! Yes, it is a merry Christmas this year. Even a white one!! Christmas eve it finally started to snow on the west coast of Norway, the kids were out trying to build a snowman... but oh well... we´re hoping for more!  You´re even more thankful for merry Christmas´s when you´ve known some that weren´t that merry. I still remember some Christmas´s; stuck alone in an airport in Texas, the first one without Dad and others marked by sad events or feelings. It´s not a human right to have a merry Christmas, and it is not something I take for granted. For some Christmas is the loneliest time of the year, the time not having a family, or not having a close one, or other parts of our broken hearts are extra visible and noticeable to ourselves and others. So many expectations, and maybe mostly our own. This year I try to sit back and enjoy the merry moments , sometimes they just last a few minutes before something annoying or stressful comes up, but the...

Jeg er midt i et stort uventa omvendt kultursjokk, blanda med en saftig dose jetlag. Finfint! Det passa meg veldig bra når jeg har så mye som 6 uker hjemme.... Dette hadde jeg ikke forventa. Jeg hadde gleda meg sånn til å komme hjem, og følelsen av å se tantebarna, hele familien og Cathrine og kidsa var herlig. Jeg kjørte hjem i baksetet klemt inntil Isabella og koste meg i vinterlandskapet og så på den vakre jærske naturen som føk forbi. Mor sin komle, kald frisk vind; å være hjemme var bare deilig. Så kom jetlag´en... og kultursjokkene - overraskende, siden jeg jo nå var hjemme! Her skulle jo alt være kjent og kjært, eller? Det begynte faktisk før jeg ankom Sola torsdag kveld. Ved gaten på flyplassen i Frankfurt ble jeg sittende bak to menn som hadde vært på fotballkamper i byen, og høre på dem snakke. De hadde Sandnes-dialekt, hørtes det ut som, og pratet om vær og vind. Men ved å høre dem snakke kjente jeg en rar fremmed følelse inni meg: Er disse norske? De snakker så...

So out traveling again - 33 hours this time, two loooong lay overs in San Francisco and Frankfurt. Airports are not that much different, did you know? Same kind of stores, same kind of feeling, same kind of people. Not that many surprises, and since I'm not a big shopper I usually end up with my nose in a book, at Starbucks drinking coffee looking at bypassers or getting that one lipstick, same brand, same color, same number. Yeah, so it's not really an adventure, unless something unusual happens! And sometimes it does. A couple of times being upgraded, to business and first class and this time Economy+ (hey, I'll take any upgrade!) or loose your flight and then end up getting a better flight + $300 cash, or meeting someone you really connect with or can help in some way and they end up asking you to coffee and tell you their life story, sitting next to a person who is looking for a person from Kona base because they forgot to hand in a key, and then they end up giving you ...

Jeg har alltid hatt problem med å forstå at andre spiser som trøst . Det hele hørtes rart ut, å være lei seg og så skulle det liksom hjelpe å spise?! Det samme med shopping. Om jeg var nedfor en dag var vel det siste jeg kunne tenke meg å gå på et kjøpesenter! Men flukt som trøst, det kunne jeg forstå, i alle fall til en viss grad. Jeg husker da jeg kom hjem fra å lede en outreach (2-måneders misjonstur) til Korea og Filippinene. Vi hadde blitt så nære, vi 12 på teamet. Da tiden for avskjed kom, 'gjemte' jeg meg på hotellrommet, tok på meg headset og skrudde volumet opp. Jeg ville ikke høre på at folk sa ha det og gråt utenfor rommet mitt, og lyden av kofferter på vei ut hotellrom og inn i heisen. Etter at folk hadde reist kom jeg smilende ut av rommet mitt og kjente at dette gikk jo lett, og fortsatte til neste ting på programmet. Dette var lenge siden. Og nå som jeg igjen er tilbake i misjon forstår jeg mer og mer hvorfor jeg gjorde det. Og hvordan dette antageligvis er ...

About a year and a half ago I wrote a blogpost in Norwegian about looking for God , searching for him without finding him, going through doubts and disappointment and wondering if he was even watching... or caring.... For the longest time it was as if there was this thick glass wall between him and I.... I couldn´t find him, I couldn´t feel or reach him, nothing made sense and it felt like I was all alone in the world. I´ve kept searching... And then a few months ago I realized that something had changed... I tried to explain it in a couple of blogposts, Bye for now Norway  and Another pause,  but it was hard to put into words. Maybe something like - it wasn´t like God was gone anymore... but he wasn´t close either. More like he was in the room, at times even sitting at the same long table... but just in the opposite end, and we weren´t really talking to one another. And I started to wonder if it was more about God finding me, than me looking for him..?! ...

So my normal and un-normal life continues here in Kona, and I´m getting my own rhythm of life. Getting up three mornings a week to run or walk (half asleep, half dead, pain everywhere!), then settling in at some café to read, while being more on Facebook and e-mail than actually reading.... drinking too much coffee... hitting the beach or pool about once a week so that you actually can  see that I live in Hawaii, and not in Norway... On my down time I sit in on DTS classes or go get some more coffee, look at sunsets, watch movies on my tiny Mac Air and read novels - the latest is SYCAMORE ROW by John Grisham and of course the latest from Ken Follett. It´s a lot of reading. I feel like I read all the time, whether it is newspapers, novels or actual school related books. The book on `Methodology of science´ (Field research methodology) is surprisingly interesting and of course very relevant to me; 3 months before my own field research, my very first one . There´s a lot to ...

Å møte Døden ansikt til ansikt har definitivt gjort noe med meg og forandret hvordan jeg ser på livet. Tiden etterpå har vært en lang vandring, hvor å innse og godta at jeg vil sørge resten av livet, har vært en prosess. Jeg er så ung enda. Jeg føler jeg enda er i begynnelsen av livet. Sorg er noe jeg mest har forbundet med å være gammel. Det føles urettferdig at jeg nå, etter dette møtet, som jeg ikke ønsket, har måttet vandre i dødens landskap, og vil gjøre det resten av livet. Jeg vet det vil bli lettere og at livet framdeles kan være godt og bla-bla-bla... men bare dette ene møtet, hvordan det nå vil påvirke resten av livet, virker framdeles urettferdig. Mitt møte var med en mann som ikke var klar for å dø og som hadde så mye livsglede og så mye å utrette. Men han hadde allikevel levd lenge og fått se barna sine vokse opp, han hadde bidratt til å bedre  samfunnet, fått forandre liv, oppleve å bli pensjonist, og gleden av å få barnebarn... Når jeg hører om barn.... og unge v...

I´m back in school, back studying and the adjustments this time around have been really hard. Sometimes I feel my life is a whirlwind and I have to go along even though it´s so chaotic. Other times I feel it´s like no breeze at all, nothing much is happening and I´m kinda bored.  I just have to include this random picture of my coffee stained shirt. I think I took a picture of it because it was my third time spilling in one hour - all in public!! It was awful! First at McDonalds - my paper jar of ketchup hitting the floor, all over and on my books as well, then knocking over my Sprite while trying to reach for something, and 30 minutes later walking around in Walmart with my coffee and too many groceries in my hands and my bag on my shoulder and no cart (don´t you hate when you´re just suppose to get 2 things and don´t need a cart, and end up carrying 10 items in your arms?!) Well it didn´t go too well trying to get chicken out of the freezer, not putting my groceries a...

Transitions transitions .... I guess life is full of them, huh? Going from week-end to another Monday, from being young to being slightly older... through different time zones, being single and no responsibilities to having kids... a season of rest to a season of running around... moving house or changing job... lots of changes ... loosing someone close to you... a new season of grief, different from a season filled with joy. Life is full of changes, full of transitions. I guess the only thing we can say for certain about life is that it will be full of changes... Well I´m in the middle of several transitions right now, and in the middle of a lot of change. Moving away from Norway was huge, coming into a new world of new people to live with, from living in the cold alone in a spacious apartment to the heat in Hawaii with 5 other room mates, transferring from being a student to being a staff. Recently transitioning into a couple of weeks in Korea; teaching English some, singing ...

So I don´t even know how to start... How can I sum up what´s going on in my head right now in a blogpost?! It would take hours and days to explain my past, present and maybe even future when it comes to the nation of Korea. So I´m not even gonna try to put my heart and mind into words. Maybe some other time. I´m just gonna say that I´m here and that it´s awesome. I´ve come for twelve days, partly to work at a school as an English teacher. Partly I´m here for the good food, I haven´t had real Kimchi in 14 years and it´s about time!! Also, it´s the perfect timing concerning weather. The superhot Korean summers are coming to an end, and it´s just nicely warm, sunny all day, pretty hot, could still wear a tank top at night. And there´s life on the streets at all hours. I love it! Bars and cafés are open until wee hours!  I arrived in Korea Friday night, and because of jetlag I´ve woken up 6 o´clock in the morning. Already the park next to where I stay is buzzling with l...

It´s 1997... and 1998.... and 1999 and 2000 and I´m rushing from the base where I live, and over to the Royal Kailuan condos - to watch a movie, to jump in the pool with some friends, to babysit somebody´s kids or just to hang out with people I know in the various apartments there. It´s so close to where I live; on base in dorms with 2-7 room mates, and it´s so nice. I love the pool, I love that it´s quiet there and that it is so close to my whole world on base. Several times I think about how great it would be to live here, but never ever thinking about how it could happen. `Cause it sounds impossible, the thought doesn´t even hit me - ever. But this week - the first of September in 2014, I will be the proud owner of an apartment there!! 17 years after I first set foot there. It´s nothing short of a miracle, I am not even sure of how it happened, and I am so thankful and blown away by it. I can´t believe I´m gonna own my own apartment in Hawaii, and that I get to call it my home. ...

So the last two weeks have been C R A Z Y busy, that´s why I haven´t blogged in a while. The days run by so fast and weeks sprint away! But let me share just a little of what has happened these two weeks. I absolutely love being staff in the school I´m in! And one of my roles is to organize some events. I had been helping out planning a weekend at a retreat place called Makapala. We went there in some cool traditional American school buses ( the ones like in the movies! ); 101 people all in all and had a fun weekend with rest, games, stargazing at night, good teaching and good food. It ended up being a really restful and bonding time together. I just enjoy being away from town for a while, surrounded by nature everywhere! The stars at night were so bright and clear. And afterwards I just felt so relieved that the trip went well; no one hurt, everyone safely home. I´m starting to really love these guys. They challenge and teach me and bless me in so ...