A Turn of Events

As most of you know I was planning on taking a relaxing trip to Germany and Croatia after my time at Vejlefjord. I was supposed to meet my parents in Germany and then head to Croatia where I would meet a couple of other missionaries to enjoy a little sunshine and scuba diving before returning home to Seattle. Well, life had different plans.
As I write this post I am sitting in bed wide awake at 4:50 in the morning. And the bed I am sitting in is in my room in Sammamish that I haven't stepped foot in for over 11 months.  About a week ago my dad was admitted to the hospital with an infection in his leg. As a result of that the trip to Germany was cancelled and I would stay in Denmark a little longer and go straight to Croatia.
On monday as I was hard at work painting and getting the school ready for next year, I had this unsettling feeling in my stomach. All day there was a little voice in my head that told me, "Jeff you need to go home." That evening I got an email from my mom that she needed to talk to me. We decided that it was best for me to come home now, and cancel my trip to Croatia. So after a little frantic packing I was on a plane on Wednesday morning.
Back in Seattle is a surreal feeling. As I was driving home and to the hospital everything looked familiar, yet it seemed like a foreign country. And don't get me started on how weird it was to drive an automatic car after 11 months of a manual. Your left foot feels like a useless tool, and shifting from P to D is equivalent to a mathematical equation. But, I am happy to be home with my family.

To The Students

Its raining now.

It is one day after you all have left. The school is once again eerily reminiscent of those first weeks when we first arrived in Denmark. So much has happened this year, and yet at the same time I feel like it has gone by so fast that I haven't had a chance to do or say anything worthwhile. I will miss you more than I am able to express with simply words. You have become such a close part of my life it feels like something inside of me has left. I am relieved I won't have anyone asking me to open their door (at least until I get to WWU) or drive them somewhere. But at the same time would give anything to take another trip to McDonalds with a few of you piled in the back of Bamse. Unfortunately I know that once I am back in the States, I will begin to recapture my old life and slowly many of the memories will begin to fade. As life continues for myself and for you I am reassured by one thing, even though we are no longer living at the same school, talking about the same things, or going to the same school functions. We will have the this year as a bond between us and will always be able to look back fondly on such a fantastic year.
God Bless,
Jeff

I wish all of the students that I met at Vejlefjord the best in life and I hope we meet again, if not in this life when we get to Heaven.

Nearing the End

It's hard to believe but my time here in Denmark is rapidly coming to an end. I only have one more week of school, then most of the kids will be leaving and I will have to say goodbye to them. Some of them probably for a lifetime. I do want to make it back to Denmark someday and hopefully I will be able to meet some of the friends I have made this year.  The kids here have truly become my good friends and family. I will miss them so very much. I have learned a lot about myself this year and I knew for a fact that teaching is the right career path for me. Though now I'm sure if I will stay in the states. There are pros and cons to teaching both places. But we'll just have to see where God sends me.
There is one kid in particular I am going to struggle to say farewell to. His name is Mathias. At the beginning of the year he was hyper and annoying. He was hard to spend any time around because it took so much of your energy just to deal with his. But after spending some time with him, he began calling me big brother. At the beginning it was weird for me, but then it got to the point were I considered him my little brother as well. I have seen him grow so much, he can control his hyperactivity more, he is easier to be around, he listens, and he respects others. I have learned so much about him and his life. I am so glad I have had the opportunity to have him in my life. He truly is part of my family now. Saying goodbye is going to be torture, but nevertheless I have to bear it.

Mathias. If you are reading this I wish you the best in life and hope you don't forget me because I will certainly never forget you. You are the little brother that I never had. Thank you and I love you.

When in Rome...

In April I had the chance to go to Rome for a few days with a few other missionaries. It was a long weekend and we got some people to cover our duties so we could enjoy Italian food for 5 days before we had to return to miserable school food. Without any problems we arrived in Rome at 11:30 pm and had to take a taxi to our hotel. For some reason I can never seem to book hotels with easy access to the airport or metro stations. This trip was no exception. Though our hotel was very nice for what we paid, we were in the middle of a business district / ghetto. So "Rome" was a 20 minute journey away. The hotel didn't have a shuttle service, but did have a car that we could book to take us to the nearest metro stop.
When we arrived at the hotel after a long day of traveling we were all so excited to fall back into a cloud of pillows and down comforters, instead we fell back on a concrete slab and nearly broke all of our backs simultaneously.

Our first day out on the town was Friday. We had a tour booked at the Coliseum. Though it was nice to hear a little of the history of such a fantastic piece of history, I will admit I was taking pictures and simply admiring it more than listening to our guide. After seeing the coliseum we needed food. Something we were looking forward to since landing. Though the tourist office was unable to give food advice they hinted at a restaurant down the road. So we stopped at the first place we saw and devoured fantastic pizza and pasta; though my dish was a little cold. Then we ventured out to the rest of the touristy sites in town. The Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, and some of the bigger plazas along the way. At the Spanish Steps there was a festival of some sort and an outdoor concert.

I was stoked to see the Kony campaign still hanging around in Rome :)

Getting back to the hotel was a little bit of a gamble. The hotel's car would only take us to the metro station. Getting back was up to us. So we hoped on the bus that we had seen drive by our hotel hoping it would take us there as well and not the other direction. After what seemed like the longest bus ride of my life, through the ghetto no less, we saw our hotel out the window. After a long day of walking we returned to our rock hard beds.

The next day was our tour of Vatican City. We had planned on grabbing a bite to eat before our tour at 1:30 but the bus took so long to pick us up we didn't have time. Besides, we wanted to see about adding something to our tour. Once inside we found a cafeteria which we though would save the day. Instead we found the most wretched pizza on the face of the earth. You'd think in Italy we might have pizza that is at least homemade, not a frozen pita bread with tomato paste smeared around in unappetizing clumps. But after our failed attempt at satisfying our hunger we entered the Vatican museums. Some of the rooms and artifacts were indeed interesting, but our main purpose there was the Sistine chapel.

After walking all through the museums and seeing the Sistine and St. Peters we decided it was time to relax a little. We got some real food and headed back to the hotel for some pool time.

On Sunday we decided to find a market. One of the girls read that there was a big market in the Trastevere district of Rome... Whatever that meant. So we set out in search of the big market. But of course on Sunday the buses run different, so we had to get on a bus we had never been on, running a route we had never seen, and our only instructions were it stops near the metro. That last bit scared me. Near is a relative term. As it turns out we missed our stop. But the bus driver said that the bus eventually stopped where we needed to go. After another long bus trip we arrived at yet another Roman ghetto and began walking. After walking for a half an hour we decided to turn around. By the time we figured out which way to go we decided the markets were going to be closed and we gave up searching. We headed back to the hotel defeated. After getting up early to catch the bustle of the market, sitting for so long on a bus, and then walking so much we were beat. Since we had already seen everything we wanted to see we headed back to hotel.

Monday was our last day. The forecast was for rain. Since we didn't really pack for rainy weather we figured we would just go to the mall since we didn't want to just wander around in the rain. When we woke up, I noticed the weather looked promising. So I told the others I was going to take all of my camera gear and go on a hike. They decided the weather didn't look promising enough. So they went to the mall and I headed off into Rome. I wound up walking just under 7 km (4.5 miles). I had the greatest time! There was no rain the whole day, and by 12 o'clock it was sunny and warm. I was really able to just walk around the back streets of Rome and take as long as I wanted setting up a shot. The best pictures I have of Rome came from that 6 hour journey. This is some of what I got:

SPQR is the Latin abbreviation for "The Senate and People of Rome"
it is written, carved, and engraved everywhere.

We had a great trip!

This Post Can't Wait!

Koenigsegg. To many of you this name means nothing. To me it is the name of my favorite supercar. Hailing from the great land of Sweden (Don't tell anyone from Denmark I said Sweden was great.) you can't deny the first time you even see a picture of one of these cars, you can feel the passion and craftsmanship put into each and every one of these handmade beauties.

I have liked Koenigsegg since I came across a car-picture website in high school. When I realized that their factory was only a few hundred Kilometers from Vejlefjord I told myself I had to get up there this year.  I thought it wasn't going to happen but on a reward trip to Copenhagen for staying in Danish class all year we realized we were only about an hours drive away.  I couldn't say no. I convinced Jill, our Danish teacher and good friend, to drive up and visit the factory. Not knowing if we would see anything or if it would even be open to the public.  We embarked up to the small town of Angelholm, Sweden. We finally arrived at an abandoned military base. The sign out front was big, but there was no other signs on the main road.  Very easy to miss if you weren't on a mission to find it. After taking a few pictures we went up and opened the doors to the main office. We were greeted by a nice receptionist who told us we were not allowed in the factory or to see any cars because they were all custom-built and the customers didn't want anyone to see them before themselves. She tried to talk her boss into letting us just see one, without pictures but he wasn't going to budge.  So she said she would call to Stockholm and see if there were any for sale there we could see.  When she came back she said there were a couple in Malmo we could go see. That was only an hours drive away, much better than 8 to Stockholm.

Before we left the factory for our drive to Malmo we went into their small shop and decided to buy a few little things to remind us of our trip.  As we were in the middle of paying for things, one of the other missionaries said, "Is that him?" The store manager said, "Yes, that is Christian von Koenigsegg, the owner/founder/CEO of Koenigsegg." Three boys in that room instantly turned into little girls. If you didn't know better you'd think we were 13 year olds meeting Justin Bieber.  We asked Christian if we could get his picture.

After talking many pictures with him, we started talking and mentioned we were all from the States and were spending a year abroad as volunteers and had driven not only from Copenhagen, but from Vejle to see his cars. I don't remember his response exactly because at this point I could hardly breathe and it is all kind of surreal.  But he said that if we had come all that way we couldn't leave without seeing something. So told us to bring our cameras and follow him to the workshop.  The first thing we see when we walk in is this:

After a good 15 minutes of talking with him and taking pictures of the car he said we could go watch one of the new models the Agera R get Dyno tested. Unfortunately the technician had just finished the test, so we didn't get to hear anything up close but we got to see one of the only Agera Rs in the world right now. This particular car has been ordered by someone in America, but he wasn't allowed to say.

After saying goodbye to Christian we returned to the shop to finish buying our souvenirs and collect all the belongings we had just dropped in our frenzy to meet Christian von Koenigsegg.

I am one happy man.

Can't Think of a Title...

    Over the past few months I have been getting to know the boys in my dorm a little better. Since being on duty requires me to be mostly in other buildings I felt like I didn't really know the guys I was living with. So I started a meeting in my room twice a week where we meet, have some tea or hot chocolate and cookies or something else that I was sent from home.  We have talked about a wide spectrum of topics, but mostly just sitting and laughing with and at each other.

A few weeks ago one of the guys from my building decided he was going to leave Vejlefjord and spend the rest of the year at home. So we had a goodbye picture.

    For those of you who were following the Kony campaign or saw any of the videos that came out since the first one, last Friday night was an event called Cover the Night. Basically a publicity campaign to continue to get the name of Kony famous.  I decided after seeing the first video that I wanted to cover the night with the kids here for the the weekend. So last week I was talking to the head pastor at the church here and the principal of the school.  It took little convincing to get the school to pay for posters and get the principal's permission to take the kids who would be at school for the weekend off campus and around town to put up the posters.
    Every Friday the students who stay for the weekend are supposed to go to a vespers-like meeting called Andagt. Usually put on by Lasse, the pastor, or another guest speaker, I talked to the pastor about playing the Kony 2012 video and he said that would be perfect. The one who was supposed to talk had something come up so Lasse had nothing.  I played the video with the hopes that a few of the students would like to come with me.
    Now you should know, it is very hard to get some of these kids passionate about a cause. Here in Denmark, the common mindset is that outside of Denmark doesn't matter, and the country is too small to make a difference.  So many people don't get involved in any kind of cause or activism.  Especially the kids. My hopes were that I would at least get a couple of kids to come and help.
    After the video had finished I asked if anyone would like to go with me to town late that night and put up the 750+ posters I had printed. Everyone raised their hand. EVERYONE. Granted there were only 18, but the fact that all of the kids cared enough was amazing. Some of the girls said they wanted to help but didn't want to go to town. I told them they could stay at the school and put up posters. So at 10 pm we loaded up 3 cars worth of kids and hit the streets with posters and tape.

It was a great night, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Kony 2012

I have been wanting to write about the Kony campaign for quite some time. But I kept getting caught up in all the responses. First the criticism, then the response by Invisible Children to all the criticism, then the criticism of the response of the first round of criticisms.

First things first. If you haven't seen the Kony 2012 video, see it here.  It is a 30 minute video on Youtube created by a charity called Invisible Children calling for the capture of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Central and Eastern Africa.

Now, I know I am a little late talking about this and most people have already made up their mind as to whether or not they think the Kony campaign is a positive, effective way to stop Kony, or just another "slack-tivist" way to make people feel good about themselves and their motives. I for one, have known of Invisible children for quite some time. And I think that they are a fantastic group of young people willing to do anything to help the victims in Africa.  So in this blog I would like to defend some of the big criticisms I have seen online and in the news about the Kony 2012 campaign and Invisible Children.  You can also click here to hear the CEO of Invisible Children talk about some of the questions that have been posed since the new video was released.

One criticism I've noticed is that people say Invisible Children (IC) does not care about individuals and simply wants popularity. The critics ask how IC can simply refer to the women as "The Raped" and the children as "The Abducted." My simple-minded answer: when you are talking about numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and have already made many films documenting some of the individuals the founders of IC have met, befriended, and helped, what else are you supposed to say?

Some people have accused IC as being a "slack-tivist" campaign.  Saying, "Advocacy, however, does not end at trendy t-shirts and cool graphics." I don't think anyone expects advocacy to end with those things. One of IC's top priorities is to promote the knowledge that the crimes Kony is committing exist, pose a real danger to the people (especially children) of Africa, and to tell the world that he needs to be stopped.  In order to tell the world about Kony and his atrocities, people have to be willing to post it to Facebook, wear a shirt or bracelet, and tell their friends about IC when they have a chance.  And yes, IC is taking advantage of social media and the power it holds. They would be stupid not to.

Another huge question people are asking is about their finances. Why do only 32% of their profits go directly to Africa? As their website explains, IC has a three-fold mission.

1)Make the world aware of the LRA. This includes making documentary films and touring them around the world so that they are seen by millions of people.
2)Channel energy from viewers of IC films into large-scale advocacy campaigns to stop the LRA and protect civilians.
3) Operate programs on the ground in LRA-affected areas that provide protection, rehabilitation, and development assistance.


Last year the organization spent a combined total of 80.46% on the above objectives.
I have also seen criticism of how much money they spend on their movies. Again, another top priority to IC is making quality media to inform the people of the world.  Be honest with yourself, in today's 3D, Hi-Def, Hi-Res world do you think a low-budget film with bad editing and cheap graphics would attract the amount of attention they want and need? No.

Overall I think the criticism is bogus. People raised good questions about a company they hadn't heard of before. And that company promptly responded on their website.
One last thing, when a critic starts asking questions and bringing up all these points against a decent charity, and says," I'm worried that the real reason I went to seek out the downsides of the Kony 2012 phenomenon was simply because I'm a snob who enjoys bursting people's bubbles. . ." (Alex Miller, Vice.com) I don't really want to hear anything he has to say.

What Norway Taught Me.

There are places in the world that shoot the Global Warming theory to bits. Yep, that's what I learned.
Now to tell you about my trip.

We began last week on Sunday with a long night in Copenhagen Airport. Our best option for a place to stay Sunday night didn't work out so we wound up bumming it in the terminal.

After a long day of flights we finally arrived in Tromsø. We had to rush out to our first activity, Dog Sledding! When we arrived we were ushered into a small wooden hut with a roaring fire and the smell of home cooking in the air.  We knew what was coming. Reindeer stew. Though I'm not a vegetarian, I was hesitant to taste the food. Especially after smelling the cup of soup. Almost got a gag out of me. But I muscled it down.

After dinner we went and got suited up in very large, puffy, warm snow suits.  They smelled like wet dog.

This was one of the more calm/less stinky dogs there.

                                                      Puppies!

The next day we checked out of our hotel and wandered Tromsø.  Tromsø is a quiet university town. Probably because it is the northernmost university town in the world.  This is the Arctic Cathedral, somewhat boring but cool architecture.

 While we wandered the streets we found the glass company of Tromsø.

Later that evening we boarded the M/S Lofoten. A traditional boat owned by the Hurtigruten company. It was a very tiny ship and of course the cheap missionaries got the cabins down in steerage.  The first night on the boat we saw nothing. It was a cloudy night with very rough seas.  It took us quite a few hours to fall asleep as we slid from one end of our beds to the other.

But at the sound of the ship's horn we awoke to clear skies and frigid temperatures. The boat was pulling into Honningsvag. The city (if it can be called a city) claims to be the northernmost city in the world. Located at the 70th Parallel, there isn't much there except snow.

 While we walked around Honningsvag we witnessed one of the most awesome modes of transportation I have ever seen. People young and old were riding these sleds. They had a seat in the front for apparently groceries or your small child. And in a city where there is no such thing as pavement, only ice and snow, they work perfectly for propelling ones self along the road.

Contrary to popular belief, not all oranges are 100% orange. This little sticker however, is assuring me that this particular orange is genuine.

 Ok I take it back, this is more awesome than the sleds. But I have a feeling this kind costs a bit more...

As we were ready to board our boat again we were greeted with the most glorious sunset.

That night was much better for viewing the Northern Lights.  A few hours after the sun set we went up on deck and witnessed a fantastic display of God's creation.  The heaven's do reflect His glory! Unfortunately it was also another rough night at sea, so the pictures I was hoping for didn't happen, but here is proof that I saw them. The pictures you see really can't describe how amazing it is to see this huge green, yellow, and red curtain stretch all the way across the sky. It was so close you felt you could reach out and touch it. It was a fantastic night, we didn't go to bed until around 3 am, when the lights decided they were done with the show.

The next day we pulled into Kirkenes. After checking into our hotel we went in search of the Snow Hotel we had heard so much about.  On our walk we discovered the Adventist church of Kirkenes, I wonder if this is the northernmost Adventist church?

 At least he doesn't drive it in this weather.

 After almost missing it we found the Snow Hotel. Isn't it fantastic! No, your right it's worthless. After seeing the pictures of the inside I guess I was expecting something a little more, elegant.  It is basically an igloo.  For a price I could have gone inside, but we decided it wasn't worth it, and we were all freezing. Elmer's toes were numb. And for good reason, it was -27º C with windchill.

After a long night of movies, searching for Northern Lights and a little sleep thrown in there, we woke up for the long return trip back to Denmark.  Even though something went wrong on every leg of that journey, it wasn't that bad. Our delays were actually welcomed because we were starving.
I am now back safe and sound in my home away from home, and all the snow here has melted. Not to say I'm ready for Spring, but I'M SO READY FOR SPRING!

Vi Ses :)