"Fishing" and a very cool dinner

Today we saw something that we had heard about, and that was the "fishing" that sometimes goes on in the... well, ditch, quite large ditch, with a strong current, outside our house.

First we noticed a guy pulling some wires around at the side of the road

So, after parking the car, I went back out there to have a look. I asked if i could take some pictures, and the guys had no problems with that.

The wires the one guy had been pulling around were attached to this little generator... do you see where this is going?

Yes, exactly, they had a metal rod they were sticking down into the water, basically zapping the fish so they would float to the surface.

And when that happened, the other guy would catch them with a little net.

Unusual, but effective. I didn't actually see any of the fish they caught, because I had to get ready to go to a dinner we had been invited to.

We had been invited to this couples house. 

This is a family from a village far into the mountains that had the gospel shared to them by people from our organization many, many years ago. They now have a thriving church and have sent out many missionaries of their own. This couple have moved into town to have better access to the material and help they need to do translation work that helps the outreach program going on.

It is so cool to see these guys serving the Lord, and it is an honor to be able to call them our co-workers, and we hope, Lord willing, to someday be able to help them in their work, we just need to get this language study done. Now how is that for motivation to get cracking on new vocabulary?

First couple of weeks in "Hammer Town"

It is now two weeks since we arrived back in this country, and since we started living in our new home town. Literally translated this town is called "Hammer," but its nick-name is "Generator Town" and we have spent our days finding out why that is... since we came here, we have had power cuts twice a day... So we have already gotten used to living our life to the quite boring background music of a benson generator. But I have to say that is worth it, since it is the ply way to keep our fans and air cons running. People in this town say it is very cold when it is 28 Celcius or lower...

Here are some random pictures from our first couple of weeks here:

When you need work benches for your kitchen, you don't go to IKEA, you draw it in great detail

Then you go buy your sink, and have it tied to the back of a motorbike

Take your drawing and sink to a Tukang Kayu (wood worker) at a place that often looks like this, and there you explain for a very, very long time exactly what you want. This guy had a lot of questions, and a few of the questions he asked multiple times to make sure nothing is done wrong. Which we appreciate.

Here you can see part of our new apartment. Alia, Anne and Max are watching Norwegian cartoons.

Jackfruit! Huge, huge fruits! I have heard that they can weigh up to 11-12 kilos...

We are so thankful to the Lord for these two, and the fact that Alia loves Max. She is so sweet and friendly to him.

"Hammer town" is very dry, in fact one of the driest towns in this country. Here's some proof: dessert climate and cactus. 

One of the first days here we went for a walk with some colleagues to a place just outside of town.

One of the other Norwegians in town. He and his family has helped us a lot. Thank you very much!

It is very difficult to find Fanta with orange flavor here. The most common flavor is "stroberi," which is... not great to be honest. The green one is supposed to be... something... must be an acquired taste I think. I still haven't acquired it.

Common sight: cow in the road, making the absolutely crazy traffic just a little more unpredictable.

I know this was quite a random selection of pictures, and we will post some more consistent post soon.

A re-post

Just wanted to post a link to my sister-in-law's blog.
She posted a blog about our family yesterday and it is so beautiful, I thought maybe you are interested in reading it, too.

So eloquent, so nice.... here it is:

http://www.inthefarnorth.com/2015/03/empty-spaces.html

Fleisch and flights

I am writing this blog post from a guest house that we get to stay in for two nights before flying to our final destination and new home tomorrow morning.

We came here last night after 3 flights - tired but thankful for a really good trip.
God blessed us with an extra seat for Alia and a baby crib for Max. Alia slept 8 hours straight on an 11.5 hour flight - that is amazing! Other than that she was happy to eat snacks, watch 'Frozen' and run around in the airports. Max did very well, too, sleeping, eating, diaper filling and repeat.

Thank you to everybody who prayed for our trip - it worked!
Feel free to continue to pray for us as we settle in yet another place - this time hopefully for longer.

 last picture of Alia in Germany - at the butcher she is educating herself about different cuts of meat...

transit in Amsterdam - loving their little trolleys

 we build a little tent for her and she loved it

(this is after she woke up - a little confused still

 on the third and last flight (I had not slept in 30 hours)

this one just because it is cute - we are so thankful for how much Alia loves her little brother

birthday and blessing

It was Alia's birthday last week and we got to celebrate with a bunch of family which was awesome, especially considering that having lots of cousins, aunties, uncles and grandparents at her birthday parties won't be the norm for this little girl. There were waffles, chocolate cake and lots of pretty clothes as gift for her. Needless to say she had a blast!

 She even got her own individual cake made by her cousin. Blowing out the candle was one of her highlights of the evening, so much that we did it a few times, just for fun :-)

 While the older kids went outside with Erlend to grill some marshmallows, inside there was always somebody willing to cuddle these two bundles of joy

 Alia showing of one of her awesome presents from Germany (Danke, Matze und Juli!) to Uncle Pada and cousin Sisa

She is wearing almost all the clothes she was given for her birthday :-)

Max got to cuddles with his beautiful little cousin 

Erlend and I used to cuddles her a lot when she was little

 I know she has a funky hairstyle, but since her special Tante Sa styled it the day before, I was not allowed to change it.

On Sunday Erlend got to share in church about our future plans 

Alia will miss the kids songs so much

Max being prayed for by his grandpa and a good friend as part of the 'child blessing

 Being blessed is exhausting so little man had a nap with grandma

Alia's trip to the caves

Alia's first blog post:

Today I went to see the big cave on the other side of the island we live on.

We drove to the closest parking lot, because that is a lot nicer than walking the whole way...

First we walked up to a small cave neither of us had heard of before, but someone had put up a sign to show the way to it.

It is called Trollkjelen (The Troll's Cauldron) and was pretty cool. I liked that it had water running into it, but because it also made it sound a bit scary, I stayed away from the opening

I liked the gravel road best. First of all it was easier to walk on, and also it had awesome little puddles that I could jump into :-D

After a long walk from where we parked the car (it was like 8 minutes!!) we came to the trail up to the cave. Papa tried to tell me that the cave was really cool, and tried to get me exited about walking up there, but I wasn't paying attention, because I found something way cooler: a small stream next to the path!

I was also asked to pose for this picture... I have no idea what those pictures were supposed to be, but I do know that having to be in this photo distracted me from picking up small rocks that I wanted to bring home.

"Yes, i know the cave is behind me, but look at this cool pebble!"

"Look another cool pebble!"

On the last part of the trip to the cave, the pebbles got a bit bigger, and I needed help to get to up there

One of my favorite parts of the trip was to take breaks

"But... there's no more pebbles on the ground in here :-(

Oooo! a cone... I wonder who thought the trip up here was so easy that they brought something totally unnecessary with them... 

The cave turned out to be pretty cool. My favorite part was the dusty floor that looked like moon landscape.

Even though the entrance is huge, the cave gets smaller pretty quickly.

There's another room further in, but it was dark in there, so I preferred to stay out in the light.

The local legend says that the cave is very very deep, and that once a dog walked into it, and a while later came out trough another cave on a neighboring island... whiteout any fur!!! ooOOoo

The entrance seen from the back of the cave. Papa took the picture while I was busy playing with the dusty ground.

I tried to jump on this stretcher that someone had carried all the way up there, but it was broken... 

Seriously? Stairs? why not the whole way...

Back on the gravel path... much better.

In the background there you can see parts of the island my pappa is from. On that part of the island there used to be a 200+ meter high radio transmitter, but someone did This to it.

After getting back to the gravel path, I wanted to go back to mamma and bebbii, that is my name for Max, because Max is hard to pronounce...

At home, mamma and pappa were trying to take passport pictures of Max... I think he found the experience quite shocking...