Milk Cartons, Knit Socks, and Street Signs

Hello friends and family,

This week has been really good but also challenging. We're doing the  Course which is a course that basically redefines missions as you know it.. or at least that's what it's done for me. I've learned so much about different aspects of being a missionary that I'd never thought about and it's so exciting.    I'm learning things that my brain probably already knew but my heart needed to know it too

•  to be patient because Gods timing is always better than ours
• I'm responsible for saying yes to Him but not responsible for worrying about everything that's happening that I can't control while I'm waiting to be "out in the field" 
• also I should be happy and present where I am right now and know that when the time comes I'll be able to go. For now wherever I am in the present is my mission field. 
• to really focus and work on loving people unconditionally and seeing people that I live with. I think it's so easy to go through my daily life and not truly know the people I live with. I can know them on a basic level but most of the time it takes effort to know them on a deeper level. and right now I really want to work on that. Just to be able to see that someone close to me is struggling and walk with them. I think that sometimes we try to fight our battles by ourselves or just us and God and it can be so exhausting but when we let others into our lives then they can build us up and we can link up arms and fight forward together. Normally it's so easy for me to think that I wouldn't want to put them out of their way or that they probably are dealing  with some tuff things so why should I bother them with my troubles but I'm learning to be more open and real and in that I feel so much more freedom and love and the ability to love others and want to help them fight their battles. If that makes sense:) all of the above and everything else I write are still things I'm processing and figuring out more and more every day and some days I realize what I've been thinking isn't that accurate or something clicks and it's just lovely. Basically dear Mr. C.S. Lewis sums up my thoughts perfectly "I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand." 
• Also, I am beyond glad that I am here. I got really homesick on Wednesday especially while I was trying to fall asleep. Partly because I wanted to Skype my mom and I realized she was at work and then also because I have thought for the past month that Thanksgiving was on the 20th this year and I was thinking about my family having Thanksgiving the next morning. And me being me I decided to be super nostalgic and look up children's books I had when I was little and just meh it was no fun. So I started to just talk to God about it and tell Him how hard it is and just that I missed my family and friends so much. Also, I miss being known. I think it's human nature to desire to feel like someone knows them completely or at least understands them. So after living with people for 19 years and having such amazing friends that I see every day or often and coming to a completely new place I think after a while you just miss having someone that knows you. But it's kind of silly because everyone starts as strangers except for parents and friends that you grew up with so meeting new people and making friends is something that must happen. I think I've just missed the comfortableness of having someone love you unconditionally, not that no one here does but we're still all learning to love each other and how we work in this new environment together. I didn't realize how nice it is to have someone you can say "remember when" or quote movies to or laugh about inside jokes. Anyhow as I was praying I started thinking about Jesus and how He says He's been through things so He understands what we're going through. And then it kinda hit me. How did Jesus feel when He came to earth. He left the most perfect most comfortable beautiful place in the divine dance and came to earth. He wouldn't have been able to say to anyone around Him "hey remember that one time" or anything like that because all of His memories were from eternity and the disciples didn't even understand Him when He was speaking clearly about normal things so how would they have responded if He looked up and saw a rainbow and was like " hey I remember when I created that and Noah was so cool" Their human brains probably would have exploded or just ignored Him and not have understood. How would He have felt when He saw different people that He had created and they were hurting other people He'd made or when people were in so much pain. I feel so terrible for Professor-X in X-Men in the scene when he is able to feel all of the people's pain around the world but that's just a movie. I can't even  imagine how Jesus felt when He not only could see all of the pain but know that that wasn't the plan and that they could have had a better life. Talk about extreme culture shock. I also thought about His friends, how even though He had the disciples the majority of the time they had no idea what He was talking about and it took Him dying for them to understand partially what was going on. He was never able to have a deep conversation with anyone in the flesh. I love having deep conversations and isn't definitely not the same if it's over the phone. For His entire life He was never understood. His parents didn't understand Him, His friends didn't understand Him, and the people around Him didn't understand Him. He must have felt so alone. He prayed a lot and spent time with God but still I can't imagine the feeling of not being understood by anyone for your entire life. And then I thought. What love that must have been. What kind of love would be so extreme that someone would willingly allow themselves to live through a life of such isolation and then be killed by the people that you came for. His love for each of us is just unfathomable. That He would go through all of that even if it was just for one person. Mind blown. So after that I calmed down and realized that it's okay to miss my family and friends because they've played and still play such a huge role in my life and shaping me into who I am but I can be comforted in that I'm alone in missing people and be a comfort to others. Plus in all of this I think I've come to really appreciate my "old friends" and value getting to know my new friends. 
• I was washing dishes last night and while I was washing them I was thinking how glad I'm here at Grimerud. The atmosphere here is so different. Everyone feels like family. God is so good because the morning after I had gotten so homesick our base had it's annual "Home Days" where the entire base meets in the barn/fellowship hall and everyone that's out comes back to the base and we spend 2 days together in fellowship eating, talking, and listening to speaker or the base leaders talk about things we can do to make our base a better place to be and live and how to just be better family for each other. After being here for 2+ months I've gotten to know a lot of people and the ones I haven't gotten to know well I've at least seen around the base so the home days were like this huge family reunion with children playing everywhere and grownups talking and everyone just feeling safe and koselig. It was exactly what I needed. But anywho back to washing dishes.. So I was just standing there thinking how I'd rather be here washing dishes than anywhere in the world. I think it's that peace of knowing this is exactly where I need to be right now doing what I'm supposed to be doing that makes it easier when I feel homesick or anxious about where I'll be a year from now. I know that God's got me covered so far and that He'll definitely be able to handle whatever comes next.
• I also finished the book A Severe Mercy which was one of those books that I started and read so much but it was so deep I had to stop and process and then pick it back up again. I think it's on my top 5 favorite books. It was the kind of book I dreaded finishing because it's like losing an old friend and even though you can always read it over it won't ever be the "first" time again. 

That's all for now:) I'll post more later
love you all!! -matisse

Missions in Cities

We had Tim teaching us for half of this week. He talked about how to do missions in local and global context. It was so awesome. He spoke about all the different ideas that can be missions that are out of the box. He also talked about International Justice Mission, Because Justice Matters, 826 Valencia, and the Lava Mae project.

Some really great points He made 

• Contextualize yourself instead of syncretizing with the city or place you're in which basically means understand the culture, the history, and the beauty of the place you live in without molding yourself into the society. In the world not of it. Adapt and be amongst the people. Be like Daniel. "Contextualization:
  Attempts to communicate the gospel in word and deed and to establish the church in ways that make sense to people within their local cultural context, presenting Christianity in such a way that it meets people's deepest needs and penetrates their world view, thus allowing them to follow Christ an remain within their own culture."Darrel L. Whiteman
• Missions is not about what you want to do. It's about what God is doing. Because basically it's super easy to get caught up in the vision and idea of what you're doing but not realize why you're doing it or who you're doing it for.
• Don't come into a place and tell the people what they need but listen and be present and observe and see the people. See a need, fill a need.
• Don't shut yourself in your safe community but go out into the world or your neighborhood and be with people.
• "We don't invent our mission in life, we detect it. Because God's already placed it inside us we just have to peel back the layers and find it. We are blind to the fullness of our potential by either pride or unbelief."
• Train yourself to see the positives, not the negatives.
• Don't try to gain Gods love. Just receive His love.
• Make your own grass green before you try and get to the other side of the pasture. 
• Be present where God has placed you.
• Work where you live, live where you work in missions. Don't try to reach people if you aren't willing to live with them and be around them.
• There are such rich gifts in cultures 
• Don't adapt so far into the culture that you lose your Christianity

Settlers, Fish spreading, and Christmas Stars

Hello everyone, here is an update of my past week.

I played the board game Settlers of Cantan. It's really fun and it might be a tad bit similar to Risk.. You have settlements and try to build more settlements and roads and cities while the other players are doing the same and you get points for your settlements or roads and the player with the most points wins.  I also played a card game called Ligretto which is a ton of fun too!

This is fish spread called .. something that I can't remember but yes. It is seriously amazing.

I also got to go into town and try kebab. It was a huge tortilla with beef, lettuce, and dressing wrapped up. Maybe one of my favorite things yet. Unfortunately I couldn't finish it but I almost did.

These are Swedish car candy.. They're good and I might have eaten half of a bag before I realized it

We put up our Christmas star and it makes our room so koselig.

Good Morning :)

Hello friends and family,
        It's currently 9:48am this lovely saturday morning in Norway. So far today I have

• woken up
• eaten a breakfast that consisted of open faced sandwiches with spreadings of nugatti ( nutella) , eggs with white cheese on top, and a knekkebrod with cream cheese spread
• made my pack lunch of brown cheese and sausage with cheese

And my to do list for the day is

• go into town 
• help Elisabeth (my roommate) shop for a dress for her brothers wedding
• go to the new shopping mall that opened on tuesday *sigh It should be insanely busy today but yay for new shops!!
• look for cute postcards, nose piercings, maybe a sweater, and hopefully earrings

So it's now currently 11:47am on Sunday and I didn't get to post the above but now you can see how my day of shopping went.

There are so many cute yarn shops here. Knitting is taught in school so almost all of the girls and some of the guys are really good at knitting things like socks, sweaters, blankets, and everything else.

Elisabeth, Ingrid, and I

We went to the new mall and all of the Christmas decorations were up in all of the stores and everything was so lovely.

 We got to go to a shop that's from Denmark and it had the most darling knick knacks everywhere and I want to buy everything in the entire store but I don't really need it:) so I just window shopped.

These little Christmas gnome men are my absolute favorite. They're called Nisse and they're the Norwegian version of Santa Claus. They're known as "gift bearers" and I think they're adorable.

Norwegian Christmas book

More Nisse

Chocolate:)

So this is Christmas soda. Depending on who you talk to the red Christmas soda is the "real" Christmas soda.. or the brown is the "real" one. It's also completely wrong to drink it any other time that near Christmas because it's traditionally very special for some families. I tried the brown one and it kinda tastes like carbonated bubble gum. Also, God Jul means Merry Christmas in Norwegian :)

Small marshmallows in cartons!! Love. Basically it's buying the Lucky charms minus the cheerios.

.15 cent bobbles/ornaments

Ingrid, Frida, and I dress shopping:) 

I found this lovely dress but didn't get it. I did find a plum colored sweater, earrings, postcards, and my nose piercing so it was a successful shopping trip plus Elisabeth got the dress so yay!!

Norwegian Kroner with King Harald on it!

I tried out the fast pace app on my phone... It went a lot faster than I expected but here are some shots of the grocery store and a cute bed bath beyond type store. Enjoy!! Merry almost Christmas

xx- Matisse

Teal Nail Polish

So in February 2013 I was sitting in church on a sunday morning next to one of my friends and noticed her nails. They were this absolutely perfect shade of teal which is kind of green and kind of blue but I personally think there's more blue in my preferred definition of teal.

Side note- I love having my nails done. If they're painted and manicured I just feel so much more put together, like I can basically be super women or Lois Lane that day. I think it's just part of my hopeful (not hopeless) romantic personality. Coco Chanel supposedly said

and I will be the first to admit that I've left the house before looking like a mess but the point is that I just feel better when my nails are done. Also, (haha I feel so silly saying this) the color really matters. Sometimes if the color is just right then the rest of the day can be just a little more perfect. So anyways back to the story. I decided after seeing her nails that the color would be perfect for the next week. The only problem was that I didn't have any teal nail polish at home. I had pink,green, purple, blue, yellow, chartreuse, beige, magenta, and any other color but no teal. So on tuesday I was at the store with mama and I asked if I could get some teal nail polish. She said no because honestly there's probably a lot of better things you could spend $3 on. But me being 17 year old Matisse so much younger... (haha not really I'd probably do the exact same thing today) decided that I had had to have it. So after getting the no I decided to ask my papa. No, not my dad but my papa God. I thought well, God you say that you'll take care of your children and give us the desires of our hearts and that you feed the sparrows so I know that I don't need this teal nail polish but papa I really really would love if I could somehow get some soon. And then went on with my day. Forward to the next night, wednesday night, I go to Acteens. Basically it's this girls group from 7th-12th grade and we meet once a week at church and talk about missions and our week and encourage each other and have lessons and snacks and do some mission trips. It's really awesome. So I walk into the class room that night and sit down ready for a lesson or speaker or craft when one of our teachers walks in and says something like "Okay girls, I know we've never done this before but tonight instead of lessons we're going to paint nails." And of course I was half freaking out and half thinking of course papa:) you are so good and always follow through. And then she pulled out a giant bag of all pink nail polish. But I really believe that God cares about even the tiniest details down to the color. So I just sat there and waited and then about 5 minutes later her daughter came into the room late because she had forgotten a bag in the car and then she pulled out a big bag with all different colors. Inside the bag was not just one bottle of teal nail polish but 

five bottles of different shades of teal. God is so good!! I of course got super excited and cried and was overwhelmed with how awesome my papa was for listening to such a simple and kinda silly prayer and told everyone in the room what happened. Then the next day my teacher shared with the people at her work what happened with my prayer for nail polish and then one of the women she worked with showed up a few days later with a lovely present bag full of all this new nail polish and polish remover and cotton balls she had gotten for me because she'd been touched by the story. So my teacher gave me the sweet gift and I was really kind of in shock because it had started out so little then it had gotten all the way to that kind woman. I already had most of the colors so I saved the nail polish and took it with me on my mission trip to Guatemala in June 2013. While I was there we visited a mountain village where we helped with a local program that fed children twice a week. The children lined up outside to be served 

 and while they waited I painted the girls nails with the nail polish the woman gave me. Most of them had never had their nails painted and they were beyond excited. Their little faces would light up when I finished and told them how pretty they looked and how beautiful they were. They walked around skipping and showing each other and getting back in line to have their nails painted again. I absolutely loved every second of it. I also got to paint more nails after dinner when they came out from eating

and while I was painting my heart was breaking because some of the leaders at the meal program told us that most of these children didn't have anyone at home hugging them or loving on them or telling them they were beautiful. They were lucky enough if they got a meal that day and their parents were either absent physically or mentally because they were exhausted from working too much to make enough for meals and schooling. I was just talking to God and asking why papa why are all these beautiful children going without these basic needs isn't there something I could do. And He said that even though it wasn't much when I sat down and took the time to paint their nails they felt seen. They maybe for the first time in a while had someone give them undivided attention, someone looking into their eyes and braiding their hair and holding them close. And for now that's enough. Because just like in the starfish story you can't save every starfish, but for the one that you pick up and throw into the ocean you made a difference. So there's my story about how incredibly good God is. He's so good. He answers the smallest prayers not always how we expect, sometimes in a completely different way or like in the nail polish story where He answered it and used it in ways much larger than I expected. 

Know that when you pray He will listen. 

love love love you guys

Matisse

Randomness

Here's some random details about this past week and everything else I could think of!

• I got to Skype my family for a long time and it was lovely. It's beyond weird seeing them grow up through a phone or computer screen but I'm so grateful that technology exists. I can't imaging writing letter and not being able to see faces or hear voices for so long. 
• I watched Obediah do a front flip because he's super awesome and I got to talk to Bella about life and Henry about football and I miss them each tons and they're so old:(

• I got to speak at a youth group and even though it was maybe 7 people for the first time I wasn't  nervous at all! Yay God!! 
• After the youth group I was running around the car super fast to get in the back seat first haha and I ran smack dab into the thing that you attach a boat or trailer to and completely wiped out in the parking lot and I'm pretty sure this dad sitting in the car saw me along with everyone else coming to get into the car. It hurt really bad but I so wish I had a video because I'm pretty sure it was the funniest thing ever. 
• Alfie, my plant is still alive and well after being in my room and being taken care of me for 7 weeks. 
• I started listening to Christmas music on Nov. 2 because in Norway they don't put up trees or anything until the 23 of Dec. so I'm planning to enjoy everything Christmas for as long as possible. 
• I'm still loving it here!! Everything is so beautiful and the people are lovely. 
• It snowed a couple times this week but it didn't stay on the ground very long but the puddles have all frozen over so I can step on them 

• Everyone has a work duty and mine is in the kitchen one monday tuesday thursday and friday and I love it!! The cooks are amazing! I help fix the food so doing things like chopping up fish or vegetables or peeling 2 kilos of carrots or washing dishes or cleaning something or making rice. It's so much fun and relaxing because I don't have time to think too much about anything except for what my task is. I also get to help set up the tables and light the candles which is my favorite part of it. There's a word in Norwegian that is Koselig and it's similar to the english word cozy or comfy or snug but it's used a lot more. It's almost a definition of creating warmth. It could also be used as a feeling that doesn't exactly have an english translation. Here's another bloggers explanation of it                                                                                                      "There is an important concept one needs to understand and embrace when living in Norway: being “koselig”. Most English speakers translate it by “cosy” but that term doesn’t even begin to cover everything that “koselig” can express. This concept is difficult to translate to those who do not live here, but basically anything can (and should) be koselig: a house, a conversation, a dinner, a person. It defines something/someone /an atmosphere that makes you feel a sense of warmth very deep inside in a way that all things should be: simple and comforting."                                     So basically it means candles every night at dinner and it's like living in a pinterest board of winter lovely cozy things. Koselig. And it's so much fun to use because everything in the winter is so koselig! I'd pronounce it like cooshleague I think but there are so many different ways to say it so I may be wrong :) 
  So I would say for example - The room in the picture is so koselig. The fire is koselig tonight. I feel so koselig. The warmth is so koselig. It's so nice to feel so koselig when it's so cold outside. But that's just what I think it means :) haha I could be wrong 
• It's starting to get darker and darker earlier. It gets dark around 3:58pm and the sun comes up around 8 am 
• I'm really excited about advent calendars 
• Burl Ives singing about Christmas makes me homesick 
• So many people haven't seen the polar express so we're going to watch it in December
• I can't think of anything else :)