Leknes Maranatha project

At the end of July our family and a group of Finns drove up to Leknes, in the Norwegian Lofoten Islands, to work on an SDA church. In this picture we're stopped for lunch in Sweden along the Torneträsk (Tornio lake).

This is my family crossing the Arctic Circle, somewhere in the wildernesses of northern Sweden.

Every morning Rauno came in and cooked porridge for us. I helped in the kitchen crew, where we washed the dishes and prepared all the food. Lunch was taken out to the work site to save time.

We stayed at the Opdøl school, about 5 km out of Leknes. From our windows we could see a lake and mountains on the other side. One of the mountains is Himmeltind, that has a radar at the top that kept turning round and round, glinting off the sun.

While waiting for their church to be finished the congregation met in different places. We met with them in the gym of the school we stayed at. One Sabbath we had potluck with all kinds of delicious foods. The dessert table was heavenly! The church members were all very warm and friendly. Laura and I decided we could move to Leknes, even if just for the music :)

This is Alf with one of their cows. They lived nearby and Laura and I went over to see his newborn calves.

One afternoon as we were cleaning up from lunch I asked Laura to throw me the car keys. She had great aim :) and the keys landed right in the middle of a pot of pea soup...

The outside of the Opdøl skole was a piece of art done by a local. These at first sight were big white Shire horses in a line, but on a closer look we also found a silhouetted line of people heading the other way. It was interesting.

This is a view of Leknes from up on the side of Himmeltind.

The church building on the first day. Our main goal was to do the roofing. The women also painted boards and cleaned up in the yard. Larry worked on the tower and most of the men were on the roof.

The view from up on the roof.

The grade of the roof was rather steep, but it was fun to climb around on.

That's me! down on the right, helping lift the sheet of roofing.

On the last day they worked all day and finished this whole side of roofing in a great effort. The last sheet we had to leave for the norwegians, because it required more work and the sun was already setting on us.

Here is our group (give or take a few)