NewDayNews Recovery Forum
Posted By: Jane <Send
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Date: Tuesday, 3 May 2005, at 2:01 a.m.
In Response To: Jane, pls post the next six months! (Freethinker)
I'll try to be brief.
In Norway I was in a total of 3 homes, Oslo, Bergen and Kristiansand. I was sent to Bergen where the 'bad' people were sent. However we were happy there even though we were considered in trouble. Always on the road, seeing a lot of the fjord country of Norway, glaciers while hitchhiking, climbing through ice caves, sleeping in log cabins, picnicing next to rainbows made by waterfalls, and eating blue berries that we picked on the hills on our free days. Bergen was beautiful and a time of healing for me. I began to feel less lonely and began to enjoy Norway and the Norwegian people. There were no Norwegian brethren in the Bergen home. On my 20th birthday I was sent with an English brother to hitchhike to Kristiansand, our new home. It was pouring rain but we stuck it out and eventually got there in the middle of the night. Then we walked from street to street looking at addresses by the doors hoping to find the right one. We thought we found the right place way up high in an attic apartment. We rolled out our sleeping bags very quietly in the living room so as not to wake up anyone. It really scared the dinkens out of this old man when he found us stretched out on his floor. The Familys apartment was down one floor.
At Christmas time The snow was up to the second story windows, the snow fort in the patio was buried under a new deluge of the winter white stuff and I hadn't seen my body in over a month and half. I had only had one shower in that whole time because to take a shower you had to go into the unheated basement, start a fire in a woodburning stove to heat the water tank which would then heat your shower water. Then after showering you would leave the basement with your wet hair, go across the snowy patio(remember the snow came up to the 2nd story windows) and then up the open air stairs to the apartment. It was too cold to take your clothes off and then to do all that. Brrr.
For a girl from southern California, snowy Norway was quite a change. I learned to dress in layers, lots and lots of layers. One time I counted all the clothes I had on, which included two pairs of long underwear, two knit hats, two gloves (the inner ones and the outer mittens), a pair of levis, two shirts, a sweater, a coat, a long knit scarf two pairs of inner socks and one pair of heavy knit socks, and my provisioned boots. I was still cold but went out litnessing everyday anyway. We could only take being outside for an hour and then would have to go inside a store for an hour to warm up. My nose had turned green from the cold.
I have always been an avid reader. I found myself craving to read anything other than a Mo letter or the Bible. While out litnessing in the little towns on the road trips I would tell my partner that I needed to take a bathroom break. But in stead I would go to the public library that I had spotted and would speed read through the english books in the foreign language section. I always had such guilt feelings but I did it anyway.
The Family members in Bergen and Kristiansand were very nice. The shepherds of the Kristiansand home were Zakarias Lightman and his wife Lydia. They had a baby while I was there and the most poignant moment I have of them is watching them from the 2nd story window as they were at the gate of the patio on their way to have the new baby. Lydia and Zakarias were hugging each other. Their little son Johannes was in his stroller waiting patiently. It was a peaceful loving scene. Just like they were, peaceful and loving. Lydia made being there a pleasant experience and would help me learn more Norwegian. I felt so encouraged when she complimented me on my accent.
This ends the first year of being in the Family. The second year starts with me on a ferry boat to the continent, a storm at sea and waves that dwarfed the boat. We spent an entire day outside the port watching the waves from the portholes, go up and go down. We couldn't get in to port because it was too dangerous to get close to shore. Up and Down. For hours. Just thinking about it makes me sea sick.