Greetings from Uppsala, Sweden!! We are at the beginning of our third week here in Sweden. We are leading a team of 34 students and staff in reaching out to the 50,000 university students here in Uppsala. So far things have been going really well. We have had a few surprises and some obstacles at times, but they end up making some pretty funny stories.
One of these is that when we checked in the first day at our hostel we went to our room....it is tiny. Like even by Europe standards tiny! I measured the other day and it is 6ft 8 inches by maybe 7ft....maybe. Brooks and I looked at each other and after saying, "how are we going to do this?" started laughing. The students rooms are a little bigger but we are all learning about patience and grace this summer. I will try to post some pictures of this, but we really do think this is hilarious and have laughed a lot.
We have been able to form a new partnership with the Baptist Church right beside of us and they are now letting us use their kitchen. That has helped us to save money which is big cause when we got here the dollar had dropped and prices had gone up, so for example in a restaurant a coke is running between $4-5. Pretty crazy.
Ministry has been going well and we have already started to see God do some pretty amazing things. Some of the girls where able to meet a girl named Johanna. She had studied in the USA during high school and lived with a Christian host family. Towards the end of her time she became a believer and then moved back to Sweden. That was 3 years ago. She hasn't known any other Christians since then. We met her on campus doing a free bike wash for students. She wanted to meet up and said that for 3 years she has been praying that God would bring her in contact with other believers her age. Our girls are now meeting with her and teaching her how to read the Bible on her own and the basics of Christianity as well as taking her to church with them.
Another cool story was when we meet Maya who is a doctoral student from Iran. She said that she is an atheist due to the religious persecution that women faced in her country. She actually lives in Stockholm (40 min south) and commutes. She wanted to get together more to talk with some of our girls because she was curious as to why they were so interested in religion and how they talked about freedom because it was so opposite of her experience.
We have also met a guy named Eric. Upon first meeting him, Eric told us (in his own slightly more crude way) that he believed the Bible was full of crap. We said, "Oh, have you read it?" He said yes and then his friend that was with him called him a liar and they argued (which was really funny to watch). He asked us what we thought and we began to explain about a relationship with God and the Bible. By the end of the conversation he said that he wanted to meet up again to talk more. Even more crazy was that a girl that came over to bum a light for a cigarette from Eric and asked what we were talking about. We said God, and she said, "This is so cool!! I have always wanted to talk with someone about this but nobody talks about that kinda thing here!" We asked if she wanted to meet up later to talk with some of us and she said yes.
So although Sweden is one of the darkest places in the world spiritually, it is obvious that God is at work here. Someone recently compared it to trying to keep an inflated beachball underwater. You can try but it keeps coming to the surface. Swedes keep trying to use knowledge or possessions to keep the need for God down, but He keeps coming to the surface, despite their efforts.
Thanks so much for your prayers. We hope to keep you updated more often!
In Him,
Britton&Brooks
