2008 has been a great year for both of us. Sanna com­pleted her first year of Social Stud­ies and Kris­ter worked in a com­mu­ni­ca­tion task group in the Army, the last 5 months as pla­toon leader, and he enjoyed it a lot. After the sum­mer vaca­tion Sanna put her stud­ies on hold, and from Jan­u­ary 2009 Kris­ter has taken a year off from work. Why? Read on!

What have we been up to this year? It´s been a few con­fer­ences for us and we´ve been blessed in so many ways. In March it was Catch the Fire in Ven­nesla, Nor­way with speak­ers from Toronto, Canada. A few weeks later 14. April, Kris­ter was watch­ing GOD TV for the first time and he saw Todd Bent­ley live from Lake­land, Florida, USA. He told peo­ple to come to Lake­land and “get some” and so we did The next day plane tick­ets were pur­chased, a car rented and motel room booked. We left Fri­day 18th of April and came back 4 days later. It had been an awe­some week­end in God´s pres­ence. We wanted more!

Dur­ing our sum­mer vaca­tion we went back to Lake­land for 8 days. We met some won­der­ful peo­ple there who truly blessed us with their time and wis­dom. We believe that we will meet many of them again “over there”. After our long week in Lake­land we were headed North to Mora­vian Falls, North Car­olina. On our way God showed up and pro­vided a ride for us from Char­lotte to Mora­vian Falls. We sat at the air­port with a sign ask­ing for a ride and along came a won­der­ful man of God named Phil. He and his son were so good to us and they let us bor­row a car for a whole week up in the beau­ti­ful mountains.

The first week we stayed in a lodge owned by Buck and Elaine Petty and it was per­fect! They treated us so great and we long to see them again. The week after we attended a retreat named Trans­for­ma­tion Sum­mit hosted by Gary and Kathy Oates. It was truly the best week we´ve had together with God. He taught us so much. They host Trans­for­ma­tion Sum­mit in April/May next year also and we really want to encour­age you to look at it.

While we were there we were told about Gary and Kathy´s men­tor­ing pro­gram and we felt that it was the right way for us to go. After talk­ing to them and pray­ing over it we decided to join them as soon as pos­si­ble. That´s why Sanna has taken a break from school and Kris­ter from his job in the Army and Jan­u­ary fifth 2009 we fly over to Mora­vian Falls. God has been with us dur­ing all our prepa­ra­tions and every­thing has worked out per­fectly. We sold our car in a week, sold a lot of our fur­ni­ture to a friend from Kris­ters work, received a place to store the rest of our belong­ings, a visa came through etc. Some­one said that the safest place to be is in God´s plan, and we have expe­ri­enced that these last months. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called accord­ing to His pur­pose.” Romans 8:28.

Dur­ing the Christ­mas this year we´ve trav­eled around in Nor­way to our fam­i­lies to be with them and say good bye for now. It´ll prob­a­bly be at least a year until we see them again. We have visa for one year but we hope to stay for 2–3 years with Gary and Kathy and the rest of the team. We can hardly wait to get started with our new adven­ture. Please keep us in your prayers and we hope to hear from you while we´re in the USA. We will try to keep you up to date with newslet­ters and will also update this blog as fre­quently as we can.

Now it just remains to wish you all a very happy Christ­mas! We pray that God will bless you and keep you. That our Lord make His face shine upon you and be gra­cious to you; The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. (Num­bers 6:24–26)

We also wish you a happy new year! Thank you for the times we´ve had together in 2008 and we pray that you all come deeper into God´s plan for you lives.

Much love from Sanna and Krister