what to do...what to do

when I was in Chicago, I felt super guilty whenever I was just sitting at the faith house doing nothing. “why on earth would I just sit here when there is SO much to do and see in this city??” would be my thought process. but now im here in jokkmokk, population around 3000, and I have the entire week off.
and I have nothing to do.
this is fall break for the kids, so we don’t have to be at the school, and we don’t have Swedish classes either. so yesterday, Alyssa and I made flashcards with Swedish words on them so we can practice our vocabulary a bit during this week (or en vecka, as it is in Swedish…see, I remember stuff!) when I asked kids last week about what they had planned for this week during their break, they would reply with “I don’t know” or “sleep.” so I KNOW that all the kids in this town are bored. so why cant we be bored together!?
but that brings me to another thing that’s really been bothering me since being here. I sort of feel like its our responsibility to entertain, to bring fun to this small, freeman-like town. so what did we do for fun in freeman? well…when gas wasn’t so expensive, we would drive around. speaking of which, I just remembered that I dreamt last night that gas was 98 cents! wouldn’t that be nice….anyway! what else did we do. I remember one time we took camping chairs to the parking lot at school…there was also a wheelchair involved…not sure how that happened. but we would just sit around and talk. goof around. that was good enough for us most of the time. other times we would make a fire, roast marshmallows, shoot off fireworks, play guitar. through this all is a theme: we sat around talking to each other.
but that doesn’t seem to cut it for these kids. that’s very boring for them. and I could imagine it would be extra lame if there were some American kids there too who they HAD to talk English to. but to top it all off, we’re Christians. 4% of the entire Swedish population goes to church every sunday. ive heard a number of kids say that that Christians have no fun. so right now I feel a TON of pressure to be a fun Christian, and ive been doing a lot of thinking of how I can make that happen. to be completely honest, ive never really thought of Christianity being fun. I mean, I had a ton of fun in youth group, national convention, and camp. but in all those examples, I had things planned for me, it was up to me to have a good attitude and participate.
so if I never thought of Christianity as being “fun”, then why did I make the choice to be one? probably a good part of it is that my entire family and 97% of the people I know are Christians. it’s the environment I grew up in. im sitting here laughing at myself right now: perhaps this isn’t the best time or place to be asking myself why I am a Christian. and you poor people have to read about it…oh dear. lucky you J perhaps a more accurate question is what do I enjoy about being a Christian, and how can I show that to these kids that I see every day?
…and now I want to come up with something completely profound to redeem myself. I don’t pride myself in being profound, but I’ll do my best.
I love relationships. I love to love. my friends and family mean the WORLD to me. the best feeling in the world is having someone care about you (I could have gone moulin rouge with that, but I chose to paraphrase.) as I said in a previous post, I am a love sponge: I soak it all up! a good relationship equals support, and through these past few months in getting ready to leave and the few weeks ive been here, I have felt lots and lots of support from so many people. but ive also experienced loneliness, times where I feel no one cares. and im sure ill experience that many more times in my life. but I think the reason I love being a Christian is that there will ALWAYS be a source of support and love, and its just an added bonus that it comes from the Maker of all things. to a person who hates feeling alone, it sure feels awesome to know that I never, ever am.
now, how do I show this to the kids. good question. I found a prayer saved on my computer that I found when I took Drama in the Church class at hesston with Michele Hershberger. she introduced me to this book called “God is no Fool” and it was awesome.
Today,
For what I am that I ought not to be,
Forgive me.
For what I am not that I ought to be,
Forgive me.
Be with my mouth in what it speaks.
Be with my hands in what they do.
Be with my mind in what it thinks.
Be with my heart in what it feels.
Work in me
Through me
For me
In spite of me.

I think ill let God work through me instead of me working on my own.

the swedish chef from the muppets is not a correct representation...

so I take a year off from school, but this is totally déjà vu. it feels like a school night, because it is! and I have STUDIES! we are in our first week of Swedish lessons, and let me tell you, Swedish is hard. its like german, but not really. my tendency is to pronounce everything the way I would in german, which isn’t always right. Swedish has 3 extra vowels: å, ä, and ö. to my poor, untrained American ear, there is very little difference between those and normal vowels. first day was pretty frustrating! but I learned super basic phrases like “Jag heter Bethany, jag kommer från South Dakota. Jag bor i Jokkmokk, jag talar engelska. “ (those are pretty basic…you should be able to translate those!) but I have to show off to my buddies at the junior high, so I went around all afternoon saying, “jag heter Bethany! vad heter du?” and they would respond with their name and then ask me another question, to which I was forced to say that was all I knew. and they would laugh!

I like the way Swedish classes are set up. first of all, there are SO many nationalities represented because of all the immigrants. today along with the rest of my team, there was a fellow from Colombia and another guy from Uzbekistan, of all places. but it was just us 5 in one class (the beginning beginners) and we spent all morning working on pronunciation. towards the end we worked on names of food, like apelsin (orange), ost (cheese), and bröd (bread). this will come in handy when I have to work the snack shop and kids order food!

another little hobby of mine since being here is practicing with the basketball team! although, here its not practicing, its “training.” so for an hour twice a week, I condition and scrimmage with the team. hanna first invited me- she is tom and disa’s youngest daughter (they are our…leaders(?) here…im not sure what you call them, but they make it possible for a team to be here). it feels weird for me because they must be just starting, because they are still on the very basics. I set a screen on one girl tonight, and I really don’t think she had any idea what I was doing, because she kind of yelped and gave me a look. ok, not there yet! its fun though in a proud way…ive never felt like anything great, but the girls say im professional and play in the WNBA. I am very quick to tell them that it was 8 years of practicing. still, it’s a little boost to the ego which is nice when you cant understand anything else going on around you. I like to feel like im doing something right...thanks coach epp!

well I think that’s about enough. I got to keep you wanting more!
hej då! (goodbye)

my sweden address

hello!
if you want to send me anything like candy....cards...warm socks....love....here's where you send it!

Bethany Miller
c/o Jokkmokks frikyrka
Klippgatan 8
962 32 Jokkmokk, Sweden

i also forgot to tell a funny story. and funny stories are what im about. so the other day we were talking to kids, and we were going around the table asking names. i told them they would have to remind me of their names later, because we would forget. at this, one girl dashes off and returns with a pen and starts writing her name on her forehead so we wouldnt forget.well it worked. i will never forget sallie.

Jag ar har!!!

ok, so ill admit...i had a swedish friend of mine type that up. its still not accurate because i dont have the right keys..the a's should have 2 dots over them, if we're gonna be technical.

the first few days here have been SO great! i seriously think im going to love it here! basically, my job is to talk to students to get them to use their english. they all know it, some are just more reluctant than others to use it. so what a day looks like so far is we go to the junior high, hang out in their snack shop area and talk to kids. school here is set up more like college, where you might have an hour or so in between classes. so the kids go to the snack shop area and play cards, play ping pong, talk, goof-off, and generally be junior highers! yesterday we went to an 8th grade english class and we were given 4 students and were told to just talk to them. i tried telling them that the trick was to ask us questions so that WE talked. otherwise we would ask them questions and THEY would have to talk! they didnt get it, and we wound up sitting there awkwardly for a while. but its ok. they are still getting used to us and vice versa.

this is melissa. her family moved to jokkmokk from colombia a few years ago along with a bunch of other refugees. she speaks spanish, swedish, and a little bit of english. sometimes i find it easier to communicate in spanish with her! i never in a million years thought i would be using my spanish here! she is my buddy though...she fills my hug quota for the day.

the other part of our job here is to be at "grottan," meaning "the cave." it happens every friday night in the basement of the church, and its basically a place for kids to go and NOT drink alcohol. we were told not many older kids would show up because its simply not cool to not drink, much less be christian and not drink. so we were expecting a handful of junior highers, but were pleasantly surprised when about 20 or so high school kids showed up! it reminded me a lot of what we do in freeman: go over to someone's house, play games (dutch blitz, ping pong, pool) eat food, listen to music...all around just a really cool (and familiar) atmosphere. it really was fun, just a little overwhelming when you cant understand the language!

i cant wait to start taking swedish classes. i feel like i miss out on so much not knowing how to speak their language. but its going to be a delicate balance because im going to want to practice my swedish, but im supposed to talk english with them! so we shall see how that goes.

this is our view on the walk to school every day! its so pretty here...just colder than i am used to!

a few last pictures from chicago

well im down to my last full day in the states! tomorrow afternoon at 4:30 im taking off: taking off from familiarity, warm weather, and peanut butter (apparently you cant get that in sweden...what EVER shall i do?!) but i have some pictures of this last week in chicago that i thought might interest some of you, so here we go!

last sunday a few of us went to willow creek community church..and looking at this picture will tell you its a mega-church. the opening song had break-dancers, which was really neat because they were really good....i just dont know what that has to do with jesus, but hey!

one night this past week (im not sure which day...they kind of run together) a few of us went out to eat at a chicago deep dish pizza place, and then we went to the top of the hancock tower. it costs like, $11 to ride to the top of the sears tower, but its free to go to the 95th floor of the hancock, so we opted for the cheaper route. theres a restaurant at the top but we didnt want to order anything, so when we left the table to go take pictures, the host got kind of mad...oh well! we got some cool pictures!

as you know, sweden was kind of left behind in chicago, so we were invited by first church of the brethren (the church next door) to go to their church retreat friday night into saturday. it was a really beautiful camp a few hours out of the city that reminded me a lot of swan lake! for the first time in a month, i didnt hear the noise of traffic, and it was spectacular. there was lots of time for enjoying nature and just meditating, which are two things ive really come to enjoy. so here's a picture of the whole group! the guy waving his hat in the air is larry, who is the security guard of sorts for the church, so we see him often!

the next time i post, i'll be in sweden!!!! thank you all again for praying for my visa to come- i am extremely thankful. thanks also for taking the time to read my blog. it means SO much to me!
love,

bethany