Cookin'

Me cooking in the kitchen!

Yes, I’m currently back in the USA, but I still wanted to share what I did in Norway! Ok, back to me serving in Ålesund. I have to say they run a pretty tight ship in the kitchen, the meal plan is organized in advance, the menu is international just like the students at the base. They have a different main dish recipe every night and try not to repeat meals throughout the DTS year.  Rice however, seems to be popular, seriously I think I made rice everyday one of the weeks I’ve was cooking.  The students enjoy Chinese, Norwegian, Italian, Mexican, French, American cuisines.  

YWAM students dishing up

One of the responsibilities I took on was doing the dinners at the base each night. Dinner is ready and on the serving table by 4pm.  There were two of my favorite recipes that made it on the weekly menu (in place of others), chicken cacciatore and ribollita soup.  Meals are served buffet style. When the food is set out I got everyone’s attention, tell them about the meal, picked someone to pray and choose what table gets to be first dishing up their food. Mondays and Wednesdays I had students in the kitchen with me, helping prepare the dinner that night, which was a lot of fun.

Coffee cake for breakfast!

They helped me learn some Norwegian while in the kitchen together and it’s always fun just getting to know people and talking about food. This also provided the opportunity to teach them some new kitchen skills to tips too. One guy made the comment after I was explaining the “why” behind what I was doing, “that sounds like chef talk”. That question comes up a lot, are you a chef? Students who graduate culinary school don’t get the title, chef. Chef is something we used in school to refer to our instructors, which creates a lot of respect around the word for me. So I don’t call myself a chef, mostly for that reason. Kokk is the Norwegian word for cook, by the way :)  

Front entrance to the cafe

As far as breakfast, lunch and supper, the students normally take care of that themselves. I did two breakfasts for them just to switch up their routine and have something other than bread in the morning. Since it is a creative school and all I had fun with the coffee cake (recipe I got from Belize) and served it on colorful tray in coffee cups. The other breakfast I did was a big batch of scrambled eggs with different toppings for them to put on, cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil and green onions. The students weren’t expecting it so I think the breakfasts went over well with them :)

Food at Lyspunktet

Lyspunktet, what an awesome café (Christian owned and operated)! Everything from the atmosphere to the food, to the employees, to the standards upheld makes this place extremely successful in my eyes. And yet another testimony to God’s favor. Lyspunktet doesn’t serve alcohol and when it first opened the local pub and bar owners laughed at the concept of only coffee house/café. It has been around for several years now and has really become a well-known hot spot in Ålesund. Praise God! 

It worked out very well that they needed someone to cover a few shifts and I was there ready to serve so they put me on the schedule.  I did cooking, serving, clearing, washing dishes and closing. Probably the most crazy time was when there were 15 chocolate milkshakes ordered in a row and the blender over heated! I had to do them one by one with their old fashioned drink mixer. Little crazy, little messy but all good :) It was nice to see familiar faces there too, some of the students from YWAM help out at the café as well.  I pray for continued success for Lyspunktet and the students at the base!

God bless,

 

Auntie X 4!!!

Me & Krissy moments before delivery

Khloee Faith Mitchell

Indescribable what being in the delivery room with my older sister Krissy felt like, as my niece was being born. My nose was running, the tears of joy were coming and I was just praying to our Lord and King Jesus Christ!  8:41am this morning she was born. What a miracle, was one of my first thoughts, all the sudden there is this tiny baby with that newborn hiccup sounding cry and I was beyond amazed. 

Khloee and me

My sister did beautifully and the caesarian section was done in less than an hour. Praise God for babies and the gift of life! It's another one of those incidences where you are able to see God's faithfulness. There was much prayer for a healthy baby and smooth delivery in the months leading up to today and everything went so well. We have a good God!  

Watching the nurse wrap Khloee up nice and tight in a swaddle I thought to myself, she looks like a little jellybean and that may be the nickname I have for her :)  So precious, so sweet and in the delivery room before she was born I told Krissy that I’m getting the sense that Khloee is going to do something special (in life). 

God Bless,

Some Historic Sights

Throwing rocks into the pond with Jeanette.

The three of us took a little trip to the Sunnmøre Museum. A fun cultural side note first. Byron and I picked up Jeanette from her daycare before this outing and I saw first hand one of Norway's corky (I think) traditions. Outside of the daycare I noticed this long row of baby strollers neatly parked under a little roof, as if it was made specifically for them. And it was, Norwegians have their babies sleep outside! The fresh air is "proven" to help them sleep better. I saw this more so practiced with moms who are visiting someone's house or at daycare etc. But it is totally true. Most likely, there were several babies bundled up tight and peacefully sleeping outside when we walked by. Just a fun fact that surprises me and I can't blame them, the air is wonderful here.
Alright back to our sight seeing adventure. On the property of this outdoor museum there is a  church (where Byron and Martha got married). We took a quick peek inside the picturesque church then strolled down the trail to a beautiful pond and where some Viking house are. We saw houses for livestock, a school for orphans and a few houses that looked like they were probably mansions back in the day. Beautiful craftsmanship and I took note of the use of wooden pegs. There were houses from the 1600’s even, pretty cool. We saw a few Viking ships too. Another cool outing in Ålesund.

Wooded peg securing front door step.

Earlier this year back home in Ballard, a group of us from church went to “Viking Days” at the local Nordic Heritage Museum. We toured the museum, did some crafts and had fun exploring the interactive Scandinavian inspired outdoor activities. Anyways, there was an activity where you could make your own pegs hammering wood through a piece of metal with several sizes of holes in it, creating a wooden peg. So walking around this outdoor museum in Norway, looking at how all these buildings were constructed I see all these round pegs. It brings be right back to this cute memory of watching Josh determined to make peg after peg and not wanting to stop :) We saw a few Viking ships too.

Another historic sight I saw was this house that has quite the story behind it. Here is my short version. So, alcoholism was huge in Ålesund in the early 1900’s.  Despite the preaching on repentance, the town soon experienced a great awakening. Around that same time a Christian man, Anders Nord heard from the Lord that a great catastrophe will soon happen and if he and his family stay in their house they will have nothing to fear. 2am on January 23, 1904 a local margarine factory went up in flames. 

House untouched by 1904 fire!

The fire spread fast through the town of wood houses and buildings, people were fleeing to the shore and to their boats for safety, but Anders stayed in his house as the Lord said. Ten thousand people were homeless because of the fire but his house was unharmed by the fire and stands to this day. Praise God for his faithfulness! The town was rebuilt in the charming Art Nouveau style we see today.

God Bless,

Happy Halloween!

Jeanette and I carving pumpkins.

Now I feel the holidays approaching! Just love the cold crisp air, the leaves blowing in wind and the smell of fresh pumpkin. It took searching in two stores but we found pumpkins to carve, mine came to about $6.00 (USD)! But it was worth it. It's one of those activities that brings you back, you get a little messy pulling out all the "pumpkin guts,"  get to be creative designing a face and get practice your knife carving skills! All good. It was such a fun afternoon :)

Mine & Jeanette/Byron's pumpkins.

Although Norway doesn't celebrate Halloween, a few Americans here keep  some of the traditional activities alive. For example, they had a pumpkin carving contest at the YWAM base. That reminds me, canned pumpkin like we get in the states isn't sold here, only canned pickled pumpkin (yuck!) It is a common item on the wish lists for the missionaries here, lets just say Barry's luggage was pretty heavy coming into Norway :)

Jeanette with face paint from church.

There can be lots of discussion on Halloween from a Christian stand point and such, one of those things where knowledge can change a holiday for you. I like to keep things simple and sweet to where it all comes down to where your heart is. It's funny too because only God knows our hearts. The past two Halloweens I've been a believer, I've volunteer at a Church Halloween Carnival, a "safe zone" with games, crafts and of course candy.  The church down the street, Philadelphia Church, coincidentally enough is doing the same thing, calling it Hallo Venn (Hello Friend). I might have to go and check it out, love to see all the kiddy costumes! Pumpkins from the base (below).

               Happy & safe Halloween to all! 

God Bless, 

Awesome Ålesund!

View from the dinning room of the YWAM Base

Wow, what a change. Climate, temperature, people and food! And I’m enjoying all of it! Bread is still a big staple here, as I found in the Mediterranean as well. Lots of bread, sometimes they have it 4 times a day. Fun fact: Most Norwegians have 4 meal times, breakfast, lunch, dinner then supper.

Bread, jam, brown cheese, ham & cheese

In Norway I’ll be serving at the Creative YWAM Base in Ålesund. It is a prophetic school of the arts.  With the vision of developing the creative abilities and giftings God has given and use them to express and communicate His heart. There are different “tracks” students come to focus on; fine art, acting, music, dance or film. These students are here 9 months doing what’s called a DTS (Discipleship training school) where they cultivate their craft, learn and grow in the Lord, perform and participate in an outreach as well.

Byron, Liam, Jeanette & Martha Eggehorn.

This is the first location where I actually know people (missionaries) from my home town, more specifically, Byron and Martha Eggehorn. Both of them are part of the YWAM staff and Byron’s brother Barry is a guest teacher for Creative Week, that happens once a month. Flew in from Seattle to teach 5 days on song writing. Such a talented, creative family and it’s been so much fun spending time together! There are 30 students and about 22 staff and since it’s Creative Week at the base there are guest teachers too. I have been cooking dinner for the students and staff and really loving the transition from the computer business work I was doing in Albania to cooking with colorful foods and awesome smells and just hanging out in the kitchen with people. YWAM also is associated with a really cool café in downtown Ålesund, called Lyspunktet (point of light), I’ll be serving there too. 

Barry teaching in the music studio.

Everyone has been so welcoming at the base, it really is a close knit group of people. Once a month there is Family Night for staff, guests and previous YWAM students to fellowship, pray together, enjoy a treat etc.  It was so sweet that they prayed for me and did what Barry calls “popcorn prophesy”, about my stay here in Norway.  I’ve never had that done for me before, it was very special and they shared some cool things. We’ll see what the Lord has in store, it’s all good so far! 

God Bless,