Trust the process

Last year's term ended. Four months with up and downs. Let's review what we accomplished.

We have a variety of goals for our project that we hope to achieve. 

Therefore, we have a focus on our different activities during the week as well as on ourselves. 

Except of learning to live in a different country with people you don't know before, we gain a lot of other competences. Living in Sweden involves speaking a language other than your native tongue. By using both English and Swedish as our primary communication languages, we are able to strengthen our multilingual skills. We also use language to develop our social, personal, and learn to learn skills. This involves the ability to cope with uncertainty, constructive interaction with others, and awareness of ourselves. By writing in our blogs and journals, we develop our ability to express ourselves as well as gain a digital understanding. We also increase our ability to put ideas into action. A previous idea is to open up a young adult group. We will keep you posted how it is going. 

Through out the project, we are also gaining new knowledge about Nonviolent Communication as well as God's creation - the earth. 

If you are interested in peace, you are more than welcome to join the Ickevåldsforumet by being part of the Svenska fred basic course on January 15 from 14-16 o'clock at EFS-kyrkan i Luleå. 

Overall, we experience personal growth in all facets of life, but we also experience growth in the routine tasks we do at EFS-kyrkan.

Gemenskapsmåltiden is one of them. We welcomed an average of 24.8 people each Tuesday at 17 o'clock. Besides Swedes, we had people from a total of 19 different countries. There were also 27 people who came more than 5 times. This allowed us to establish a connection with some of them. All in all, we opened our doors for a total of 112 people. We are grateful to each and every one of them.  Additionally, we can offer  food from our own garden here in Sundet. At least 5 times during this period, we ate meals with not less than 50% from our garden. 

We could also carry out this action during International Mötesplatsen on Thursdays. This event started in September. That is why we are overjoyed to announce that we had an average of 17.1 people with a total of 66 different people. We even met 17 newcomers to the church. In sum, 20 people felt (maybe) comfortable that they came more than 5 times. We are really pleased for the chance to eat with all of them and for the tiny Mässa every other week. 

It might be hard to simply converse, which is why we also give people the option of joining us during open church. From 13 to 15 on Thursdays, we provide a variety of activities. Whether it's baking, crafting, sitting in the chapel, studying the Bible or just resting and enjoying Fika in a group. It is time to let go and do anything you want in that moment. 

During the last period, we were an average of 6 people but with a total of 20 different persons. For this term, our goal is to reach out more and let people know about this opportunity. 

Feel more than free to join us any time. We are happy to welcome you at EFS-kyrkan. 

Visit their homepage if you want to know more about all the activities which take place at EFS-kyrkan.  

At EFS-Kyrkan, we also welcome young people every Friday from 18:30 to 22. (Psst, we already upload an entry about KUL, check it out) We are delighted to have received an average of 24.8 youth. We also have a variety of ages. Our youngest participants are 13 years old, compared to our oldest ones, who are 22 years old. Despite this difference in age, we get along well with each other because we are all equally loved by God. We are also pleased to note that several youth attended more than five times. 

KUL will reopen on January 20th , 2023. We are looking forward to a fun-filled term. 

    

As volunteers, we are looking forward to this term. But we also want to thank everyone who was a part of the previous term. We accomplished some fantastic things, but we also recognize that there is always room for improvement. 

There is always the possibility of spreading God's love even further.

Information about the statistics:

All of those figures include the volunteers who work for it. 

It is possible that some numbers are not perfectly in line. (+/- 1)

-Alicia Köhler