Dear Friends,

Today, we had the second in the series an Alpha Bible Studies. Everybody in the neighborhood was invited. First, we gave God thank for the food. Then, we all ate a great meal. It was really fabulous because, I didn’t cook it. (The microwave wasn’t big enough). Then, I conducted the leader’s part of the program in English. I have such a perfect translator – she is really adept at following the pace of the conversation. We covered the first half of Philippians Chapter 1. Coffee and delightful cakes came next. After all that strong Swedish coffee to drink, there were no sleeping listeners – just nervous ones. After that, the group divided in half and two group leaders conducted discussion of questions supplied by the Alpha lesson. The questions were aimed at application of the Bible study material. I could tell by listening to them that they were motivated. – in Swedish, of course. There were 22 participants this session – so that is an increase from 17, before. We were very encouraged at the response of the people that came.

I am so fortunate to be here. Last week the pastors of the region held a meeting in my church in Gunnarn. My boss was there. It was his meeting. They actually asked me to give the devotional at the beginning. That was followed by coffee and delightful cakes. It seems that every time I speak, they serve coffee, afterwards. I wonder whether that is because they need the caffeine to recover enough for the main meeting and discussion. I talked about passion - the kind of passion Jesus Christ had when He said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about”, and then, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” It is sad to never find anything worthy enough of eliciting our passion. The openings for church ministry are abundant here, but none find the passion to launch out. It is costly here and the little churches don’t have the finances to sustain new young pastors. Pray that retired Swedish businessmen and women will accept the challenge of serving in tiny villages. Some of them have been Christians for 50 or more years and yet, haven’t found passion to fill in pulpits which have been empty for years. It takes passion.

I am ahead of the game. The freezing weather is on its way. The prediction is for freezing and snow in a few days. So, I am ready. This past weekend, I changed the tires from the summer ones to the winter ones. Winter tires are required by law. These tires have nails sticking out and spaced all around the tread to grip the ice and snow. Now that there is no snow at present, those tires sound like ground up bottles over the pavement. Pretty loud! I did put them on properly, though. There is a little arrow stamped into each tire telling this Florida boy which way to mount the tires. The direction of rotation of each tire is critical because of the way the nails are mounted into the tire. If I had put on all four of those tires with arrows in the wrong direction – can you imagine my disappointment? I could always drive backwards for the winter. Can you imagine what my neighbors would say about this Florida boy driving 25 mile in reverse gear to school every other day? That is definitely the Swedish way.

Love from the North,

In Christ,

George Wilson