Holsby

After leaving Strandhem on Wednesday, we traveled to the small town of Holsby to stay overnight at the Holsby Torchbearers Bible School.  In the morning on Thursday, we met with the leadership of the school: John (Director), his wife Christine (Registrar), Luke (Principal of the school), and Jonathan (Director of the Camps and Retreats).  We also met with some of the staff who will be working this summer with students, confirmation classes, and families that visit the school for short-term camps and classes.  A new offering this year at Holsby is a three-week bible school class that will serve about 20 students.  We had some good times of sharing and prayer with the leaders and staff.  We also had a good walk in the woods (a very Swedish thing to do) with John and Luke, with some time to pray along the way.  Specific prayer items for Holsby include: visas have been difficult to obtain for non-European students to attend Holsby (pray that this process would go smoothly and it would not prevent any student from attending in the Fall);  a number of students have shared, once they are at the school, that they have suffered in the past from physical or sexual abuse  (please pray for the healing of and the forgiveness by these students); there have been a number of renovation projects completed at the school (prayer of praise for these improvements); they have not yet received enough funding to build their indoor gym on the property (please pray for wisdom as to whether to proceed with this or be waiting to see how the student body grows or declines); the summer school was not expected to draw many students (maybe 10), but they have 22 students attending (prayer of praise for this number of students; also pray that this will be a program that will be a blessing for the students and can be continued in future summers); Jonathan the Camp Director has been waiting for months for a new visa (please pray that this would be issued soon so that his employment at the camp is not disrupted and his financial support from the Government can be restored).

John, Christine, and Luke after our morning prayer time looking at books we delivered to them from the Gospel Coalition.

Luke, John, and our team as we started our walk in the woods.  The forests and landscape around Holsby are very beautiful and quiet, providing a great environment to study the Bible.

We stopped at location on our walk where there was a very large stone which was engraved with names and dates by people who were leaving Sweden forever in the 1700s and 1800s to go to America.  This was a common thing to do by people emigrating during this time.  Many of these engraved names were still visible, as you can see below, although difficult to read.

The summer staff at Holsby.  They are currently spending about two weeks preparing for the summer camps and family visits to the school.

The sign welcoming you to Holsby.  They will be changing the name on the sign soon, as they officially go by "Holsby" and not "Holsby Brunn" anymore.  "Fackelbärarna" means The Torchbearers  in Swedish.

Kristianstad and Örkelljunge

Kristianstad

On Wednesday morning we traveled from Lund to the city of Kristianstad, where we met with church leaders at Östermalmskyrkan.  Marcus and Lisa are pastors at the church and Cecilia is one of the church leaders.  Similar to some of the other churches we have visited in Sweden, their church is attracting many immigrants and refugees.  Currently they only translate their services into English, but they hope to have more languages in the future.  This was an enthusiastic and motivated group of church leaders.  Specific prayer requests for this church include: they are currently providing leadership training to better reach Muslims in the community (pray that they will reach more immigrants and that more Muslims would find their hope in Jesus); they would like to reach more immigrants (pray that their church would be more widely known as an accepting place for them);  they hope to build their small group ministry (pray that they would have more people join small groups, that there would be a better vision to connect to the different cultures); families are having difficulty staying intact in Sweden (pray that marriages in the congregation would be strong and that parents would be committed to raising their children in a Christian environment); pray also for the youth in this congregation, that they would stay in the faith and that the Holy Spirit would provide healing to those that need it.
.

The exterior of the church building in Kristianstad.

The leadership team at the church.  Marcus, Lisa, and Cecilia (L to R).  

Paul and Karin in conversation with Marcus and Lisa in the worship space at the church.

Strandhem Bible School (located near Örkelljunge)

After our time in Kristianstad, we traveled to the Strandhem Bible School where we met with Magnus and (very briefly) with Daniel.  Magnus is currently the director of the school, but he will be trading places this year with Daniel, who is currently one of the teachers.  Strandhem is a school connected with a small evangelical synod of Lutherans in Sweden.  The school, however, educates students from a variety of church traditions.  The school started in 1976 and is still going strong, but Magnus noted that several other bible schools in Sweden have closed recently.  They have 25 students registered for the year that is just ending and would like to grow their numbers in the future.  They recently built some new classroom buildings to better serve their students.  Specific prayer items for the school include: class size (pray that the number of students enrolled next year will increase); some students have significant uncertainty about their faith and beliefs (pray that these students would find authority and truth in the scriptures and that they would become believers); pray for strength and endurance for the staff and leadership at the school during the transition in the directorship position and during the next school year.

The exterior of the main building at the Strandhem bible school.  The school is located in a beautiful lake setting, very reminiscent of northern Minnesota.

Magnus (at right) the current director of the school and also one of the teachers.