I am a sixteen-year-old girl from Norway, and I will now tell you about a typical day in my life.
A little over a year ago my family and I moved, and I started at a new school. I was there for a year, but didn’t like it. The surroundings and everything made me feel so bad (you can’t homeschool in Norway). My grades went down in some subjects, because I didn’t want to do what I felt was wrong. After graduating 10th grade at that school, I knew I wanted to go back to a place where I would feel good as a Christian.
Now I go to school in the town we used to live in. It’s about 40-45 minutes away, so every day from Monday to Friday I set my alarm at 5:15 am to drive with my dad when he’s on his way to work. I arrive at my school usually about 6:40 am, then I call the lunch ladies working there, and they open a backdoor so that I can get inside and wait. My class starts at 8am, so in the meantime I wait in the cafeteria doing my homework or listening to either a tape or some Christian music.
When class starts, I go upstairs and have normal lessons with some recesses in-between. Usually I meet my friends at lunchtime, and then I go back to class and have some lessons before going home. The school I’m going to isn’t any better than most schools, everything is so worldly, all the time I hear about the parties, noisy music, people using bad words. All the time, everywhere, I see it and still I feel happy. Why?
Now, I’ve heard about brother Branham since I was little and have always looked at myself as a Christian, but now I feel even more so. Every time someone asks me about my skirt or hair, I LOVE explaining it, telling them that I’m a Christian, and every time I start feeling sad about something, I remember how God has a plan for everything. He makes my every day so good and meaningful, and how can I not be happy about that?
When school’s done, I must wait for my dad. Sometimes I don’t need to wait more than a couple of minutes, other times I must wait 1-2 hours, all depending on when we both end. Normally I go and find a place to sit down or just walk around listening to a tape, then it suddenly doesn’t feel so bad to wait. When my dad arrives, we go straight home. We get home at around 4-5 pm. After dinner, I take our dog for a walk and then spend the rest of the evening at home. Every Wednesday we usually have a service. We’re not many, but we have wonderful meetings, singing and listening to the tape together. So, I end my day thanking God for it and getting ready for a new day.
When we go to the weekly service we’re around 20 people including children. On the bigger weekend services, people from further away in Norway come, and sometimes even people from other countries come. It’s amazing every time we get together and listen to the tapes, many or few! For my family, it takes about 45 minutes to drive. Sometimes we go to house meetings at one another’s; other times we rent a building.
I tried to not write this as a long letter explaining every detail of my days, but I want to show you that it’s so easy to forget about God when we live our busy lives, but there’s always a time you can give Him, praying, listening, reading, anything that gives you time with the Lord. The devil might want us to forget about God, but that still, small, voice inside tells me something different.
By reading all the testimonies on the website and just hearing the Word, I get encouraged. I know now that I can always give time to the Lord! Even when everything seems to go the wrong way, I can always find comfort in the Word and know that God has a plan. I can’t explain how happy it makes me just to write that!
I am young and I do mistakes all the time! But the Message pulls me back! We all have different everyday lives, but no matter how we live we have one thing in common; we are Christians living in this world. We are so many Christians spread all over the world, and thanks to Brother Joseph and everyone at VGR, we’re able to fellowship around this Word. It makes me so happy to think about that! I know that I’m not alone, even though it sometimes might feel like it, I’m not.
I hope that this may reach someone and encourage you to remember that YOU are not alone, and that God has a purpose for all of us!
GOD BLESS YOU!
Sister Sarah Pedersen
Norway