This July, we had our yearly Outreach in the city of Kristiansand, Norway.  In many ways, it was a "new year" and it looked a little different than the previous years. But the outcome was the same in that we had many opportunities to serve the community of Kristiansand.  This year, the group that served was a real blending of the city itself!  The groups represented were Kristiansand Foursquare, Pasadena Foursquare, Asker Foursquare, Missions House, and Shalom.  It was mostly Norwegians who participated in the outreach this year, which has been a goal from the beginning and was an answer to prayer.  The week long outreach included various services such as cleaning the local beach, passing out free snacks, making balloon animals for the children and passing out flyers to invite people to a cafe that was open in the evenings at "Shalom".  All of these things allowed for many opportunities to talk with people and tell them about Jesus and why were serving the community of Kristiansand.  In addition, we had 2 nights of worship on the square, and had a good group coming each night.  It was a joy to serve the community and the greatest reward was that we could bless the people of Kristiansand and give them Jesus!

We were so happy to have a visit from some good friends of ours from our home church, Pasadena Foursquare, in California.  Rick and Vicky Rekedal and their 3 girls, are here in Norway for a family reunion, and have been staying in the Oslo area.  They decided to take a train down to Kristiansand to visit us and their timing was perfect!  We are in the midst of our summer outreach to the city of Kristiansand (more posts to come by the way), and the Rekedal family was able to get a glimpse of the ministry and outreach that is going on here in this city.  We were blessed to host them in our home for 1 night as they took the train back up to Oslo the next day.  And thankfully we had beautiful weather during their stay!