Category Archives: Norway

Norsk Baking Lessons

The breads and pastries in Norway are great. I (Jenn) thought it would be cool to learn to make them, even though I’m not much of a baker myself.Thankfully, I have an outstanding teacher! One of my new friends in our city offered to have me over for the day last Wednesday, and she taught me the basics. There is one dough that can be used for a variety of different items. Her excellent lessons left me feeling confident about my future Norwegian baking attempts.

So we started with the dough. From there, you can make boller, skolebrod, kanelsnurrer, klippekrans, and more. S taught me three of the more common items.

A couple of things to help you along…

  1. A boller is a simple roll. Many traditional Norwegian boller includes raisins.
  2. As I am learning more and more, cardamom is a staple of any baking recipe here!
  3. Even if you think you baked a lot, don’t expect these items to last long. Seems like they were gone as soon as Z, W, & D spotted them!

First up: skolebrød. From what I’ve read, it gets its name from the fact that it used to be packed in lunches for dessert, or sold at bake sales.
A delicious boller, filled with vanilla cream, baked, and then topped with a confectioner’s sugar and coconut glaze.
Wow.

Kanelsnurrer, or skillingsboller… or for our American friends, cinnamon rolls!
We made a LOT of these. This was a pic I snapped quickly as we were taking them up from the trays.

Finally, we made klippekrans, or kringle. The word klippe is Norwegian for cut, and comes from the fact that you use scissors to cut it before baking. Our variation included a thin layer of vanilla cream, and chocolate.

So if you notice us looking a bit ‘thicker’ around the waist in the coming months, you’ll know why 🙂

Hytte

Our friends invited us to spend a weekend with them at their hytte. A hytte is a mountain cottage/cabin, often shared by a family and passed down over generations.

Our friends’ family hytte is in the Telemark region, just outside of Bø. We had a great time relaxing, hiking, and being tourists.
Here are some pics from a wonderful weekend…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

syttende mai

The seventeenth of May (syttende mai) is Norway’s National Day, or Constitution Day.

Our city is not that big and the celebration was HUGE, so I can’t imagine what it must be like in a big city like Oslo! The day includes two parades, bands, music, lots of food, traditional clothing (bundad), cook-outs, flags, and so much fun.
*Each area of Norway has its own traditional design for the bunad. You can visit THIS SITE to check them out. We live in Vestfold.
Here are a few pictures from the day. It was incredible, overwhelming, and unforgettable!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandefjord Photo Shoot

Last Saturday we went walking around the city, doing some filming for a video. The boys needed to answer some questions that they received from a kindergarten class in Georgia, and we thought it would be fun to do it in video format!While we were out, we snapped some more pictures of our city (… and of course our boys!). This place really is beautiful – and it still looks very much like winter. Can’t wait to see it when everything is in bloom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hei!

Ok, so Jennifer has been trying to get me to do a blog post for a while.  So I am working on this one and might publish this one once I am happy with it, or it may sit here and collect cyber dust for years and years until we decide to delete it one day.

Why Norway?  I have no idea except to say it’s a God thing.  I can remember my dad taking a business trip to Norway back when I was a kid.  He didn’t say too much about it other than it was cold, he liked the food, the people were nice and it was a beautiful country.

About 2 weeks after he got home from his trip, my mom took the film to be developed (kids, google film developing).  She brought back a photo he had taken of a fjord with some colorful wooden houses on the shore and some awesome wooden boats.  In the background there were snow capped mountains and a rainbow.  Even on 110 film (again, google this), this could have won a  photo contest any day of the week.  I was captivated by this photo and showed it to all of my friends at one time or another.  It is still hanging around my parents house to this day.  I may try to find it with all of my spare time (sense sarcasm)  and post it online one day soon.  God put Norway and the beauty of the land in my heart.

In 2009, a good friend told me he was leading a vision trip to Norway and wanted to know if I’d be interested.  Sure!  I’ll go to Norway.  I went and fell in love with the country.  The people were amazing, the land was beautiful, and although it was awesome, I felt sad.  I wanted to share what I was experiencing with Jennifer.  I couldn’t wait to get home and share photos and videos and story after story of God ordained meetings with person after person.

I got home and we went right back into adoption paperwork and preparation mode.  July of 2010, we came home with Daniel.  As soon as we got home, God began really speaking to me about full time ministry.  I had thought about it earlier in life, but didn’t know exactly where  I fit.  Turns out, I didn’t really fit anywhere around home.  On a Saturday morning in October (I think) I went to Rexall Grille in Duluth for breakfast with some guys for accountability.  While I was there, I felt like someone was squeezing my insides.  The guys encouraged me to listen and obey.  I went home and told Jennifer that I was feeling like God was calling us to missions overseas.  Her only response was “I know”.

We began looking into different organizations and after weeks of interviews etc, we decided on one.  We have been in process since October of 2010 and it was been an intense time of interviews, doctrinal statements, background checks, references, medical exams and having the boys tested for everything under the sun.

We went to a “ministry fair” for lack of a better term in Memphis in July of 2011 in Memphis.  We had times when we could meet with the different groups that work with people around the world according to the areas and people groups they were affiliated with.  We chose to separate on the first meeting and then hooked back up for Europe since that is where we really felt God leading us.  We were given a list of positions around the world.  We looked and saw several that looked interesting, but none were exactly where  God was leading us.  We went and sat down on a couch to pray and spend some time talking together.  I opened the job list back up and noticed that we had missed one section of the European jobs.  The first one was in Oslo.  We knew that this one was for us.

Fast forward then until now, we are job matched with this position, have been appointed as apprentices and will begin training on July 23rd.  We have roughly 5-6 months of training and then should be in Oslo by January.

We are scared.  We don’t know where we will live.  We don’t know what to take with us.  We don’t know how we’ll handle the cold.  We don’t know where the boys will go to school.  We only know a little Norwegian.  BUT- we know God has chosen this position for us at this particular point in time and regardless of our disobedience in the past, He has called and we are now being obedient.  We (mostly all Jennifer) will post our thoughts, fears and adventures on here when we have time.

Please stay tuned as we share what God is doing and what we are learning from the people in Norway.  Please pray for our adventure and for our kids.  They have known lots of transition in their young lives, but what better way to spend your childhood years than serving the Living God and working to make a difference in His kingdom.

to be continued. . . . .