More pictures

If you are Facebook friends with us you can access the three photo albums I made from our time in Spain. It is just a few pictures, but for us it brings back many memories.

We also want to thank everybody who puts pictures from our different adventures on their walls. It is a great way for us to keep the memories alive!

We miss you SO much!

We had a great week, last week, with typical swedish summer celebrations with a lot of friends from the past and the present. But today is a grey day, with lots of rain, cold winds and lots of cleaning up from last week, and unpacking things that have been in suitcases since we came home from Spain. Today is a day when we think about our time in Spain and our spanish friends even more. We miss you! Hope to see you soon!

Arenius en España

There are so many things to say about our three months in Spain. I could easily write a book about all the impressions and experiences, but I think the book will have to wait. Many people ask us if Spain was what we expected. My answer is “we did not know what to expect, but it was much better!”

The best thing, for me personally, was to see how Stella and Aina loved living in Spain, learning the Spanish culture, trying to communicate with our new friends and talking about the differences between Sweden and Spain. Stella and Aina were also close to my work in the churches. So they always had an idea of what daddy was doing when he had “ensayo” or meeting with the band.

We did missionary work in Spain, which means that we were not paid for our work, but we asked for money from churches and others who wanted to support us. It was great to trust God to help us with enough money, and it was great to see how Stella and Aina understood that we have been living for three months like this, and God provided.

Hopefully my daughters will be inspired to go into the world, share their gifts and trust God to provide for them. But whatever they choose to do I know I will love them just as much!

Swedish church music

I am at a conference in Sweden right now with thousands of christians from all over our country. An hour ago I came back from a seminar about the future christian music of Sweden. In my opinion it was a terrible seminar! Sweden has some of the most gifted singers and musicians in the world, and especially in the churches. But for 90 minutes we were just sitting and talking about the good old days. Or maybe that’s not fair. For 80 minutes we were talking about the good old days, and for 10 minutes we talked about that we hope that somebody else will change the music in the churches so that it becomes good again. That was depressing.

There are so many things we can do, if look at ourselves and into our own hearts and ask the question “what can I do?” No matter if you are a musical person or not, if you always wait for somebody else to do something, NOTHING will happen!

Lumen

The second weekend of June I was in Trnava, Slovakia, where we had a concert with Praise Unit at the Lumen festival. The concert was in the centre of the city on an outdoor stage. It was hard for us to imagine there would be thousands of people in a Slovakian city jumping and singing with the Praise Unit songs. The festival was great and the people took very well care of us.

The festival was organized by the catholic church, which gave me a lot to think of. I had just come home from Spain, where I felt that some catholics did not want to communicate with me, because I was from a different church. But at the Lumen festival there were several catholics who took my hand, looked me in the eye and told me that they wanted me to testify and speak ackording to my evangelical faith, even if the festival was organized by catholics. I hope I remember to greet them with the same friendly attitude when they visit my country!

Spinning around

For the past days I have been thinking about when Praise Unit went to New York a few years ago. More exactly I have been thinking about when some of us went to the Six Flags amusement park and spent ten hours riding America’s highest and fastest roller coasters. We bought “speed pass”, which meant we did not have to wait in line for the next ride. So we just went from one ride to another, and spent more time in the air, than on the ground that day. After that day my head was dizzy. It was difficult to go to sleep because I could feel my brain spinning around and I almost fell out of bed.

I have a similar experience right now. Not because of roller coasters, but because of all the things that have happened in the past weeks. My head is dizzy from all the places I have seen and all the people I have met lately.

But right now I am relaxing in a caravan in Sweden with my family, and just thinking about all the blessings in my life!

Taking a break

I took a break from writing on this blog in the beginning of June, when we came to Dortmund for the big gospel festival, Gospel Kirchentag. Since then I have been busy with some other travels, and the things that were waiting for us in Sweden.

I want to write a few more messages here, about our adventure in Spain, Gospel Kirchentag and other things, and then this blog will take a break until the Arenius Familia goes on a new adventure, or I have another reason to continue writing here.