The center of our mission work is our church. A place where we can do more than just help people with jobs and school fees. We teach them about righteousness, honesty, marriage, raising kids, moral, integrity, stewarding of money, and a lot more. A place for both kids, youths and adults. We have people of all ages in our church, but a pretty unusual thing in our church is that a big number of our church members are young boys, in their teenage years and twenties. This is quite unusual, but they have found a fellowship, and it is amazing to see how they gradually recover from drug addictions, gets their lives on track, improves their school grades and behaviour. That gives me a lot of hope for the future of our community!
Church means something different for us than it does for many others. Especially here. People goes to Sunday service, and then they run out the door as soon as the service is over, and then they don’t speak to anyone until they come back next Sunday. If they do talk to someone, it is to give money to the church secretary so that they can be assured that if they get sick the pastor will come to visit them. If they don’t, they’re not considered a member.
For us church is so much more than about Sunday services. The church is not the building, and it is not just those that comes to the Sunday services. It is everyone that gets together about one common truth: Jesus is our saviour, and the rock of our life, that we believe have the best ways on how to grow and build strong families and society. We heavily emphasise the importance of fellowship both after and outside of Sunday services. We drink tea together and sit in groups and build our fellowship every Sunday. We visit each other, and we walk the extra mile to help each other.
We are surroundered by so many broken families. People full of traumas. Youths that have lost their parents in horrible ways and never been taught how to handle life. Mothers abandoned and left alone with five or ten kids. Old men that have never learned how to be good fathers or husbands. Almost everyone comes from broken homes. One of the roles that we want our church to have is to compensate for some of the pain and lack around us. We want the single mothers to get help and have people that support them and fight for their rights and help them practically. We want the grandmothers to get support and help to live a dignified life. For the orphans to find fathers, mothers and siblings. That the weak will be helped in carrying their burdens, and that the strong will find purpose in serving the weak. This is what church is supposed to be. A family that supports and helps each other. A place where you can connect and build friendships that are stronger and more faithful than what even biological family can be, because you have something stronger that connects you together. A well functioning church is one of the most beautiful things there is, and I am so proud of the church family that we are building, stronger and stronger, week by week.
All photos: Stig Ove
This post is also available in Norsk bokmål
