Fastelavenssøndag and the American Lutheran Church

This past Sunday was Fastelavenssøndag here in Norway. Basically, it is the celebration of the last Sunday before the season of Lent begins. Though, the only way it is celebrated is to eat Fastelavensboller, which is a roll/bun/biscuit with whipped cream in the middle. It’s kind of like a donut from Kripsy Kreme, but not as tasty because Americans like to make everything sweeter or with lots of spices and Norwegians like to take out the spice or sweetness. So, my Fastelavensboller was a semi-hard biscuit with tasteless whipped cream, but some of the other Fastelavenbollers looked better (that's what I get for waiting until most of them were gone!).

For the past two weeks I've been going to the American Lutheran Church (the week before that I went to a church service in Royal Palace Church!). The church was founded in 1958 because of the vast number of Americans in Norway after WWII that wanted to have an American Church in Oslo. Today, the congregation is mostly an international crowd, because it is one of the few churches in town that holds services in English. The average Sunday attendance is probably between 80 and 115 and it’s kinda nice to see the American Flag every week up by the pulpit, what a nice comfort from home! The pastor is from the Pacific Northwest (I'm guessing Washington or Oregon), I don't know how long he's been in Norway, but I do know he was once a pastor in Germany. I like the church for the most part, it has the traditional liturgy that you'd expect from a Lutheran Church, you know the "Lord be with you" "And also with you." Here’s just a few more thoughts about the church: I’m sure most of you at Crown of Life think we have a small choir. Well this church really doesn’t have any choir, it’s just a group of people who get together an hour before the service to practice a few songs. The first week it was seven people, including the pastor who doubled as the guitarist and another man who also played the banjo (which was kinda cool), but this past week there was only five people. For being small they sound pretty good though. One thing I like about it being an American Church is that the American Flag is up by the pulpit, it’s a very nice thing to see every week. It’s weird what type of things you take for granted and never think its something you’d miss until you don’t have it anymore (like the American Flag or the size of paper, which I’ll save for another day). Well, while proof-reading this blog I noticed I may be getting a little long-winded as well, so I’ll return tomorrow with what the city of Oslo is like…