My grandfather

At the morning service today we sang "Mi padre (My father)". We were in the church in Malvarosa and the pastor was talking about how God comes to us as a father. So my song fit very well in the service.

Again Thorine and Stella played the flute, and this time I also played the drums with the worship team. Always new challenges! :)

A couple of days ago we were at the house of some friends, and there David mentioned he was encouraged to see God as his father, not his grandfather. That is so true. A grandfather is usually somebody that comes in and out of your life's situations, but a father is involved in everything you do (in one way or another). You can love your grandfather, but he is not as close to you as your father. God wants to be your father.

"When I live my life against your will
You tell me that you love me still"

Mas canciones

Yesterday was a day of composing. From morning until evening we were more than 20 people in the church on Quartz street, who composed new songs and worked with old ideas. I think it's so cool to meet people who want to write new songs for european gospel choirs. Some of the people who were there yesterday were new to composing, but other people have written many songs, and I have heard songs that I hope will travel around the world. The best thing, if you ask me, about the spanish composers is the desire to glorify God in music. In my home country many great christian composers are tired of church music, and don't know how to find words to make worship songs fresh again. I think we have a lot to learn from spanish composers!

Dunka Dunka

"Dunka Dunka" music is what old swedish people call the music of the young that they don't understand. My problem is that nobody understands my taste in music. When I was a kid we could not listen to my "Dunka Dunka" music in the car because it was "disturbing". Now, when we drive around in Spain, my own kids don't want to listen to dad's "Dunka Dunka" music, because it's "disturbing". Is it just me or are we a generation who have to use headphones if we want to listen to our favorite music, so that the older or the younger people don't complain?

Worship

I have lead worship in christian fellowships only a few times. It is something I love to do, but I am not sure if it is my gift. Most of the songs I write are songs about life, which of course includes God a lot, but only a few of my songs are songs of worship. For me it is easy to direct a choir or an ensemble of different musicians or even an orchestra, but to be the worship leader in a church I think I still have a lot to learn. Maybe it will come to me soon?

Tonight I practised worship songs with my friends in Malvarsoa, and I felt really good to be a part of it. I will also join their praise team at the service on Sunday, but Ruben will lead the group, which he is very good at!

Minutes

In Santo Domingo, our little "pueblo", there is a school where the students get their education in english. Our friend Alina works there, and today she had invited me to speak to one of her classes. I just took a walk down the hill, and came into a school which is very different from Karolinska skolan, where I work in Sweden. But I think I was able to communicate with the 14 year-olds that I met today. I spoke about why I work with music. Then I also taught them "Minutes" and explained the idea of that song. I will have another class on friday and I hope it will be just as fun!

Oh happy day

Our friend Sara is always invited to sing wherever she comes, and now the people of Valencia also know her voice. Or at least the people of Coro Gloria. Sara teamed up with the choir and did some good old gospel. "Oh happy day" of course, but also "He's got the whole world", my arrangement that Sara does the solo part for on the Joybells CD. We also tried to remember Jericho, and got a lot of help from Eva who turned the song into a nice duett with Sara. I just enjoyed listening.

Quiremos dar te gloria

We wrote a new song today. I had my first composition workshop with Coro Gloria today, and in a few minutes we had the basic idea for a new song. It was only a small part of a song, but it was fun to see what we could do with it.

I tried to present some things that I believe are important when you compose music. It was a lot of interesting questions and good thoughts about how to compose from the other singers and musicians. On saturday we will meet again to spend the whole day together composing. Maybe there are some complete new songs after that?

Spanish parking

I don't think anybody is surprised if I say that traffic in Spain is very different from what we are used to in Sweden. I don't want to go into that too much now, but I had an experience yesterday that I want to share. At 14.00 many shops close for siesta, and I needed to get to a music store before they closed. My friend Paco, who has helped me with my computer and phones, told me about a music store that was only five minutes away from his store. It was no problem to get there in time, but to find a parking place was difficult as always.

In search of a parking place I made a left turn, after another car, and we both came up on a street where there was some kind of flea market going on. I would have thought that this street was closed and it was impossible to park or even drive my car there. But I was lucky because the car in front of me made its way through the flea market, by honking the horn and pushing people out of the way. I was a little bit scared about how the car in front of me made everyone and everything move away, but I was lucky too, because it was my only chance to go anywhere. Without that car, I would have been stranded.  Then the worst thing happened...

In the middle of the flea market the car in front of me stopped. An old lady came out of the car and started taking out the scarves that she wanted to sell at her stand in the market. I had been following a vendour, a person who wanted to be in center of the market, which I really did not! Now I was really stuck.

My only way out of there was backwards, so I started backing. By honking the horn a LOT and driving like a spanish person I eventually made it out of there and came back on the road. I backed my car three blocks through a flea market. Something I have never tried before. But I made it!

On the beach

Next sunday we will celebrate the morning service in the church in Malvarosa. Yesterday I was at the rehearsal with the singers, and we will meet again on thursday. The church is just two blocks from the beach, which my family enjoyed yesterday. While I was in the church Stella and Aina was trying the different playgrounds on the beach, and bathing their feet in the water. Thorine and Sara, our friend from Sweden who is with us this week, was probably less in the playgrounds and more at one of the café tables.

We had dinner at Lemon Grass, the restaurant that has become the favorite place to eat for Stella and Aina. Sara, who has swedish days and nights in her blood, was trying to not fall asleep at the dinner table, while Stella and Aina explained that it's perfectly normal here to have dinner at 23.00 on a monday night, even you are six years old.

Siesta

Today was a day of rest, which we needed much! We usually don't take siesta when others do around here, but today was siesta almost all day. But we started the day early (yes, 10.00 is early for us here), and went to church. Again Thorine and Stella played the flute together in church, and Thorine played to many of the hymns as well, and Laura accompanied on the piano. It was beautiful music and a beautiful feeling to have the family involved in church. 

We have eaten so much good food together with friends lately, so dinner today was "thé och mackor" as we say in Sweden, and that was a good way to end an afternoon of relaxing.

In a few minutes I will go to the airport to pick up Sara, one of our friends from Sweden who will spend a week here with us.

Blau

I left the party in Xativa a little early today, so that I could visit the choir practise of Blau Gospel. Some of my friends from Alcoi were there. Pau and Deborah were there of course, and I met some new friends. This is another spanish choir with a great sound, and I enjoyed being part of their fellowship for one evening.

Eat before you eat

Me and my girls have become spanish in our eating habits. Well, not completely... we still prefer a swedish breakfast with bread that takes more than 2,7 seconds to eat and cereal that is made of something other than sugar. But for "comer" and "cenar" we all like the spanish way! Last thursday we had a great dinner with some friends in central Valencia. While Thorine and I enjoyed talking to our spanish friends and eating great food, the children had time to present the swedish and the spanish Eurovision contestants to each other. Stella and Aina showed Loreen, and Maria and Inez showed the spanish winner, on the computer.

Today we were with some friends in the antique city of Xativa and enjoyed Gaspacho. Not the cold tomato version that comes from coast, but the hot pasta/chicken/meatball/vegetable-version that they make in the same oversized frying pans where they make the paella. It was delicious!

If you ever eat with some spanish people, but you are not sure if the food is spanish, this is how you can tell:
You eat before you eat! If the actual meal is Gaspacho or Paella, before the meal you eat peanuts, oysters, mushrooms, chips, peppers, yellow things, pickles, cheese, sausages, ham, brown things, peas, beans, onions, more sausages, green things, more cheese, bread, olives and maybe some red things. Then you eat the actual meal. It works very well for the Arenius family, because it means a lot of time to chat with good spanish friends!

The cross

In Dénia Pau showed me the cross on top of one of the mountains next to the school (there are always mountains in Spain). He told me it takes four hours to walk up there, and then there are four hours to walk back. I think a lot of spanish evangelical churches are doing the slow, tiring, walk up the hill right now, and very soon they will be able to stand next to the cross at the top, look around and see all the beautiful things that God had prepared for them there! The work will not be over then, but at least it will be some time to enjoy the view!

School

On our way home from Torrevieja we passed Dénia, a city on a peninsula that has the Mediterranean ocean on three sides. There is a school, Alpha y Omega, with 400 students, from little children to teenagers. It's a christian school with extra teaching in music and arts and foreign languages. Pau and Deborah showed me the school and told me about its history and what they do there. I was fascinated and and inspired! A lot of churches in Spain have great people, great singers and musicians and a great vision, but not so many material resources. Here in Dénia there are also resources, which they seem to use very wisely.

Pau and Deborah are also directors for Coro Blau, a gospel choir where also Charly, my friend from Alcoi, function as a director. It is a choir that has singers from three different cities and I think they inspire people in even more cities.

Meeow

If you have been to one of my workshops you know that I like to work a lot with the "meeow-muscles", which you practise by saying "meeow" like a cat. Aina noticed that we sing a cat-song here in Spain, "Christo meeow meeow". The real lyrics are different of course, it's "Christo me ama", which means "Jesus loves me". But Aina's version is cute.

Svenskar

Right now we are in Torrevieja, a city in Spain, which is full of swedish people, "svenskar". Actually it is full of people from many countries, and particularly in the summer time. Johan, is a swedish pastor who works in Torrevieja and we have spent half of the day in Torrevieja with him. The "Arenius Familia" was invited to his church tonight, to serve with music and testimonies. This was family time of a completely different kind than yesterday.

I taught "Let yourself be loved (En la soledad)" to the congregation, and lead worship. Thorine played a hymn on the flute, and I accompanied on the guitar. Aina and Stella sang a swedish worship song, and for the first time ever Thorine and Stella played a flute duett together. Thorine introduced our work in Spain to the congregation, and I did a bible study from Luke chapter 5. It was good old tradtional church, and it felt great to have the whole family involved.

We met some visiting "svenskar" at the church and we had lots to talk about. At the dinner table Johan told us a lot about his experience from living as a swedish person, with an evangelical faith, in Spain.

Again I am thankful for all the things I have learned today, and excited about what will happen tomorrow!

Family time

If you have the kind of job that I do it means working a lot of weekends and a lot of evenings, which is usually (hopefully) family time in many families. The worst part about my job is the fear of being away too much from the family. But sometimes it works out really well. Like today, when we visited a huge zoo with animals only from Africa. Yesterday it was packed with people, because it was holiday here, but today there were only a few tourists walking around. It felt like we had the zoo to ourselves. My favorites were the hippos, but I think my daughters preferred the surikats. 

Our backyard

When my parents came to visit we went for a walk up the hill behind our house. From the top of the hill we have a pretty good view over this part of this beautiful country!

Gracias a Zaragoza

I had joy, I had peace

After one week of practising with the singers and musicians of the gospelchoir of Alcoi, we are now back in Valencia again. Even if I had a good time the whole week, I think the concert we did today was the most fun for all of us. The church was full of people and we shared testimonies and songs that I think will fill Alcoi with joy for a few more weeks.

It is sad that it is over now, because I made a lot of new friends. But I hope that one way or the other I will be back .

Some singers from the choir are interested in going to Gospel Kirchentag in Dortmund, and I really hope that works out. Slowly the spanish choir for Gospel kirchentag is growing... 

A Good Life

I just felt like quoting myself. This is one of the songs from the first Praise Unit CD:

It's a good life
It's a good life
Living with Jesus in my life

It's a good life
It's a good life
I've got a good God on my side

Concert tomorrow

At 18.00, tomorrow Sunday, the Alcoi gospelchoir has a concert at the Mt Zion church in Alcoi. We will do some of my songs, but also songs from their previous repertoire. There will also be a special appearance by Thorine, which is something to look forward to!

We have been singing and playing together the whole week and the singers and musicians sound great!

Sväng

I need help from all musicians in the world to find a universal word for what we in Sweden call "sväng". If you translate "sväng" into english it really means "turn", but in music it means that the music has a groove that makes you want to dance or at least nod your head up and down. Great musicians are often able to create great "sväng", but all you need is one musician in the band who is playing in a different style, and then there is no "sväng" at all.

You can have different opinions on "sväng". In my opinion there is a lot of "sväng" in music that comes from James Brown, Aretha Franklin and many of the african american gospelchoirs. Other people prefer the "sväng" in Rockabilly music or Country or other. I also like music with no "sväng", like some of the progressive artrock. Rush, Yes and Genesis are groups that I like a lot (their music from the 70´s), but there is no "sväng" in the music (except maybe "Yyz"with Rush and "Roundabout" with Yes).

The english closest word I know is "groove", but if we're splitting hairs the actual swedish word for groove is "stuk". The groove describes the certain feeling and rhythmic sense of a song, where as the "sväng" is just there or not. You can have a good groove or a bad groove, but with "sväng" you have it or you don't. Spanish people also talk about groove, or sometimes "sentimiento" which is better explained as "feeling". "Feeling" is vital for "sväng". First you have "feeling", then comes the "sväng". In german there is also groove, but I have not heard a german word which is close to "sväng". Maybe the english word "swing" is the origin of "sväng", but today it is two completely different things.

So are swedish people the only people that like to talk about "sväng"? Is there a word in another language which is similar, or should I try to implement "sväng" into all other languages? Or can we live without it?

Alcoi

South of Valencia, on the road to Alicante, is a city called Alcoi (or Alcoy if you speak the "other" language). Again it is mountains and valleys on your way to get there, and this city lies surrounded by mountains, and a little more trees than I we usually see in Valencia. I am working the whole week in a church called "Mt Zion", which is the same name as my "second" church in Staten Island, New York, the african american church where I often went to the 8 o'clock service before I continued to my church, Salem EFC.

Laura had told me that the choir in Alcoi is good, and she was right. I get excited when I work with these singers and musicians and sometimes I forget that my spanish is not so good. It happens that I smile and express my joy with a loud voice. Then I look around for people to share my joy, but all I see are people who are trying to understand what I am talking about. Well, I guess it's alright as long as we have a good time together.

On sunday we have a concert at 18.00 and if you are in Alcoi around that time you should come and enjoy good music and good fellowship.

Chimo

A couple of days ago I wrote that the short version of Joaquin in valencia is "Chimo". Today I heard it for the first time about me, from the choir in Malvarosa. But I heard a lot of other things too. They are nine singers and four musicians, and they have a lot of love for worship music. We practised some songs and we talked a lot about how to bring your music to the people in the room, and how to focus on the important things. I think we learned many things from each other.

I have three more evenings together with them and I feel that we have meaningful things to work with!

Bandurria, Udd and Guitar

We invited friends to "our house" in Valencia last night. The dinner was a mixture of swedish and spanish food, and languages spoken were a mixture of spanish, english, swedish and sign language. I have already said so many times on this blog that we are grateful for the friends we have here, but is worth saying again. Sergio and Jorge encouraged me to try the gift I got from Zaragoza, the Bandurria. Sergio joined in on the Udd, which is an instrument that looks like a bigger Bandurria, also with twelve strings, and Jorge joined in on the guitar, which is an instrument that looks like Bob Dylan without Bob Dylan. The three of us formed a succesful trio which might show up on Youtube before you know it.

The famous spanish processions

Yesterday we went to a part of Valencia where the catholics do their world famous easter procession. It happens all over Spain around easter and is popular both for tourists and those who believe in its religious meaning.  If you want to know more about it I think it is better that you watch Youtube clips, because it takes too long for me to explain. The closest thing to this that I have experienced before was when Thorine and I watched the halloween parade on sixth avenue in New York. Maybe somebody says that I should be ashamed when I compare the holy easter parade to the pagan halloween parade. But to be honest they looked the same in many ways. When I looked in the eyes of the parading people yesterday, I did not get the feeling that they were celebrating that Jesus rose from the dead. But...

...on the other hand...

...who am I to judge? What do we do to celebrate the resurrection of Christ in Sweden? On resurrection sunday I think many swedish christians do one of the following:

-sleep a little longer in the morning
-have a picknick in the woods with family or friends
-wash the car
-pick flowers for the kitchen table
-have a cup of coffee on the doorsteps

And how many other swedes are honestly affected by this easter manifestation by swedish christians?

Hmmm, maybe we should come together and do a procession after all? A procession where we parade while singing songs that without a doubt celebrate that the King is alive!

Easter saturday

Every year I wonder what this day was really like 2000 years ago. The first easter saturday. The day after Jesus died, and the day before Christians, like myself, believe that He rose again. Technically this day is the only day that everybody, christians, atheists, moslems, and so on, believe that God was really dead (except maybe hindues who believe that He was reincarnated into a cow or a lizzard or something else). Did this day, easter saturday, have any effect on the world? Did the Apaches in North America or the Massais in Africa notice anything different on this day?

What I do know is that easter sunday, or resurrection sunday, has changed the world more than any other day in history. No matter if you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, or if you believe that He is still dead, you can not find any other day in history that has changed the world so much. That is something to think seriously about for a while...

Oh, la sangre!

Last night was the Good friday (viernes santa) service in "our" church in Valencia. As in many parts of the world several churches came together to celebrate unity and together remember what the death of Jesus means to us to today. There were three pastors that preached and the message was about fear. It was interesting to me because I have spoken about fear here in Spain, and also wrote in this blog about it. "No hay miedo" -no fear! Fear often stops us from becoming who we are meant to be. Jesus can take away that fear. If Jesus conquered death, then he can conquer anything, and he can take away the fear that you or I have for certain things in our life.

My biggest fear last night was that the last pastor never would stop preaching. It is funny how some preachers believe that God could create the universe in only six days, but He needs 45 minutes to say "you don't need to worry".

Coro Gloria was great and I wish they had sung more songs in the service. One of their songs was "Oh, la sangre" which Thorine and I sang in english when we were members of the Credo Choir in Stockholm, 20 years ago  -"Oh, the blood". It was great to hear it in spanish!

We took advantage of my parents presence here by asking them to put the kids to bed, while Thorine and I went with some dear friends to a restaurant at the end of the evening. A great way to finish the day!

Mis padres

A couple of hours ago my parents arrived. They will stay with us over the easter celebration in Valencia. When we sit down and talk about what has happened so far on our trip, I think again about what an exciting time it is in Spain right now and that I am so grateful to be part of this. In media it is so much talk about the financial crisis in Spain. But even if the crisis effects a lot of people it also brings forward a lot of people who wish to work for good things and share good news. Like the people we meet in the churches here and the singers and musicians. Thorine and I and our daughters have introduced my parents to a lot of our spanish friends and their work, as we had the first "fika" (a swedish word) a little moment ago.

Tomorrow it's goodfriday and Coro Gloria has a concert in the evening.

March pics

If we are Facebook friends you can watch the album I made with some pics from our first month of this adventure.

Some pics from Zaragoza

Aina posing at the Plaza del Pilar.

Stella posing on a funky bridge. 

Piano-class. Which song is this?

All the time

Last monday I met with the musicians in a church in Malvarrosa. I will go there for some mondays and learn about their music ministry and see if I have some ideas for them as far as how to work with their church music. If I went up the street from the church I came to a neighborhood, much like those where many african american churches in the USA are located. A neighborhood that gives you the feeling that "this swedish tourist should not stay long here". My song "All the time" was written in a neighborhood like this in Newark, NJ. So as I drove down this "bad" street I started singing this song:

"God is good all the time
 and all the time God is good"

Home again

We came back to Valencia late last sunday. Stella and Aina have been so full of adventures the past months, so now for three days they have wanted nothing but staying in the house and playing in the garden. It is wonderful to see how they enjoy our spanish "home". Of course they also have to go to school, which they do together with Thorine in our living room or in the garden. Daddy is boring, because he is working so much, but at the end of the day we still have a lot of family time, and time for adventures.

Jocke

I think I was about 19 when I wrote my first song for Joybells. I could not think of a good name for the song, so Magnus, the leader of the band, named the song "Jocke", which is what you are often called in Sweden if your name is Joakim. In my own opinion I did something impressive when I wrote music and lyrics and arranged it all for a gospel choir, when I was only 19 years old! But when I look back today, the song was not really that good. It had a few moments of quality, but over all it was mostly weird. Many 19 year-olds have written songs better than "Jocke". But it was a good start for me as a composer. Of course I was very nervous when I presented the song, and I did many things wrong. But I overcame the fear to present one of my own songs and I learned many things from it.

Last week we had a composing seminar in Zaragoza, where everyone had to write a song in only 15 minutes. It was very interesting and all the songs were good in one way or the other. My teaching was mostly about how to overcome fears you have as a composer, and other things that stop you from being creative.

We will do composing seminars in Valencia too, with Coro Gloria. They already have a lot of great original songs, and I am sure I will learn from them too.

By the way, if your name is Joaquin and you live in Valencia they call you "Chimo".

I am the new student

Yes, I have been teaching a lot this week, but I am definitely taking the place of the student today. I got a gift today which was not only a huge surpise, but very exciting for me. A bandurrio (don't know how to spell it) was given to me! A brand new bandurrio!!! It is an instrument often related to Zaragoza. The look is kind of like a small guitar, but with 12 strings, and you play it more like a mandolin. I know I will have to study and practise a lot to learn this instrument, but it will be worth it. Thank you so much Zaragoza-friends!!!