Salvation, spring up from the ground

As many of you by now may be wondering how the week of touring went, I'll tell you:
We saw people saved!

We're singing a song called Salvation on the tour (by Charlie Hall). And it has one line in it that goes: "let all the prodigals run home", and that's exactly what we saw. We saw many coming back to Jesus, people who once had been Christians but had fallen away. They now took a new stand for Jesus, recommitting their lives to him. It was GREAT! Not just hat, we also saw a number of people getting saved for the first time!

We had a lot of fun on the tour, laughing much, and worshipping in the mornings, eating and sleeping at churches and having our shows in the night. Our days were like this: driving to a new place, putting up the stage, sound and lights, and then hopefully have a run-through of the program, or at least have a sound check. Then people arrived, the girl danced, we sang and our leader had a presentation of the Gospel and their need to be saved, and then we prayed with the ones who responded.

In one boarding school, one night, we invited people to receive prayer, and I got to pray with three people. They were already saved, but they were touched by the message, and wanted prayer. So then I got to pray with them, and I had forgot how much I like doing that. I got to pray into their lives, and ask Jesus to touch them. It really made my week being able to pray with people.

And now I'm really looking forward to Christmas, and to this week. On Tuesday, we're going to Petra's last show in Norway, on their farewell tour. I am really looking forward to it. (You can say what you want, but I grew up listening to them).
Then on Wednesday we are going ice skating with all the staff on base, and on Thursday it's the first of December, and then I'm gonna eat marzipan and drink julebrus (Christmas soda from Hamar). Woohoo! And the week after that, we're going on tour again, around to places in eastern and southern parts of Norway. It's going to be great.

That's it for now. Check out my photo gallery with pictures from the Reboot tour. It's at http://pauliephoto.blogspot.com
Have a blessed time preparing for Christmas and enjoying this time.

Peace.
-paul andreas

Pictures from Reboot

The girls dancing Found&Lost

More pictures in my Photo Album

typing again.

Right now, I'm running back and forth between to computers. On one, I am doing the final touches on the Reboot 2005/2006 DVD. Ok, not that kind of DVD. It's the kind that has music on it, and some pictures that move to the music, and then it fits together. It fits so well together that it's gonna be the playback/multimedia/video-thing for the whole tour. And I get the privilege to make it.

Well, on the other computer, I am writing in this blog of mine. The one that you are reading to get to know my deepest thoughts, sometimes getting disappointed and sometimes greatly encouraged. I'm glad to be at your service...

So what's up in my life, you ask.

To start with the latest:
I was at a meeting yesterday with a team from the Philippines. It was a pastor and the national leader of YWAM in the Philippines. It was really encouraging to listen to them, and it was a worship team from our base that led worship.
Then, they asked all under the age of 30 to come forward, so that the ones older than 30 could pray for us. Two generations coming back together.
Then they went around praying for people afterwards, and they came to me. They prayed straight into my life. It was awesome!

Please pray for the upcoming tour week. This week, we're going to the west coast of Norway with the tour, to the area in and around Bergen. Pray that we wil function well together as a team, and that people will get saved! It's purpose with this tour, to see people saved. And Jesus has done it. The Holy Spirit will convict them. We are people who have the privilege of going together with God in His plans.
Please pray! We need it.

Updates will follow.

-paul andreas

PS! Really nice talking to you again, Lori!

And, the DVD is coming out good, if you were wondering.

More than pictures

I told you about me going to Frankfurt on the book fair. I'm back, and hva been back for some time now. Actually, I was there for only four days, so you do the math.

It was good quality time with my dad, as well as busy days meeting with most of the large Christian publishers in the US, looking at a lot of books, and being tired after the day's end. But even though it was tiring, it was really good and alot of fun. We got to see the books coming out this year, and now we know all the inside secrets of the American publishing houses. But I can't tell them to you ;) Or I could, but then I would have to...

We ate out, and went shopping, and were invited to a release party of a book. I've never been to that kind of thing before. It was the release party of the book "Jesus" by Walter Wangerin. He's a good speaker by the way.

Today I was out shooting footage for a music video for the Reboot tour. Kristin Skaug was the movie star, and you get to see it if you ever come to one of our shows. www.uioskien.no/reboot

And, yesterday I fainted. I got out of bed, walked over to my closet, and everything went black. I found myself in a pile by the door of my room, and Hans, my room mate, was shouting my name. I was out for three seconds, and was really dizzy afterwards. So I spent the rest of the day in bed, reading and relaxing. But now I'm doing much better. A bit tired, but still. I'm doing much better today.

This was a very diverse and random post, but I just had to update all you people about what's happened in my life lately.

Canada is still cool (literally).

-paul andreas

Canada!

Canada is cool.

That's at least what they said in Frankfurt.

This picture is from the bookfair in Frankfurt, and they thought Canada is cool, so then it is.

Just a tiny update from Frankfurt, you'll get more later, but at this time of the day, we have dinner. Gotta go.

-paul andreas
(expecting loads of comments on this post...) 

For those in need of an answer.

Hi there. It's been some time since my last appearance on this screen, and by now, the rumors have started flourishing: Has he rid himself of his dreadlocks? Has he gotten plastic surgery? His face can't just turn like that just over night, can it? And people all over the globe are running around, confused, angry and in distress because of the lack of initiative from my part to give any confirming or unfirming evidence to those craving an answer.

But now it's here.

My hair is still dreaded. Not scary, just dreaded. And, no my face has not been the subject to either an accident nor a plastic visit to the hospital. It's just a piece of photographic fun.
For starters, you will need a camera and a friend to take the picture (the friend is needed for a clear shot, but you can try holding the camera yourself. Then you will see why you need friends...) Then you shake your face from side to side, letting your cheeks follow the movement of your head. Then your friend takes the picture, preferably before you start laughing or stop cheek-shaking because ofdizzinessyness it brings. Sit back, look at the picture, laugh your head off, and then take another one. (Don't take me literally on that one. Hard to do a cheek-shake without a head, you know...)

Apart from taking pictures of my cheek-shaking, although that takes up most of my time, I still work here at YWAM Skien. Right now, we're planning our new tour, booking and changing some on the program and stuff like that. There are also some graphic design to do, as well as totally redesigning our website.

And, tomorrow, my dad is taking me to Frankfurt, Germany, where we will be at the book fair there. We will be finding books to translate into Norwegian. (So, if you have any good books you've read lately, give the names to us, and we'll check them out.) That will be great fun, some quality time with my dad, as well as a completely different work duty for a few days. I'm really looking forward to it.

Later.
Until then, no more rumors, ok?

Much blessings from the Lord of lords: Jesus Christ.

-paul andreas

The Prison with our newly designed banners.

Having fun with a camera can give the most incredible results.

After a long time coming, a long post is coming

It's now been ages and a day since I wrote in this thing last time, so I thought that if this is gonna seem to you as a news update thing, I better start writing.
That's what this is. Writing again.

SO since the last time, I have been busy with the startup as a YWAM staff again, here in the city of Skien. We've been doing a lot of different things lately, the most changing is moving into a new room, and settling in with a new room mate and a new room. It's smaller, but it's been promised me a single cell after Christmas, so we have a good deal, Hans and I.

I've been using my designer skills to design lately. (Would have been fun trying to use them to climb a wall, but, that's not they're for, you know...) But, yeah, I've kinda climbed a wall with them still, as I made two huge banners that hang outside our base, they measure 5x1 meters, that's 15x3 feet. Big. They turned out better than I expected, and the picture will soon be tried posted here.

Yeah, of course. We went to Italy as a get-to-know-each-other-as-staff-trip, because we got it for SO cheap, that it would have been cheaper than traveling inside of Norway, almost. So then we went to Bergamo, an inland city an hour from Milan, with a really beautiful old part of the city. It was this old Italian city with city walls, with old churches, small really narrow streets, cozy restaurants with Italian pizza AND ice cream (yum!). It was great, and my first time to Italy. Not the last, I hope.

Now we're preparing to celebrate YWAM Skien's 10 years jubilee, and most of our time is focused on that weekend, next Friday through Sunday, as well as the DTS starting this coming Wednesday. I think it will be good.

God is good. He's done more in my life, and blessed me with a lot of friends, and I am really grateful for that.

Blessings from Him, Ephesians 1.

-paul andreas

Hello!

The soon ending summer vacation - but it's all good.

Tomorrow I will get to see most of the Skien staff again after a long summer.
I'm really looking forward to it, and hope you are too. ;)

Been a while since I've been on here posting, but that doesn't mean I haven't done anything.

Since I last wrote, I've celebrated David's birthday together with him at the U2 concert in Oslo July27th. We even got to be inside that fence right in front of the stage. 37 000 behind us, 3 000 around us, together with us inside that closed area. It was a big experience. Especially my visual senses were satisfied together with my audial (can you say that? My listening senses. You know, Sound). They had a huge stage, with some extremely cool lighting effects. Just hiring 12 people to run your in-back-drop-spot-lights shows that you, as a band, value the visual as well as the "audial".

Yeah, and after that, I went to Ålesund for a week, meeting up with my best friend, Jan-Erik, who was driving the sightseeing train in Ålesund for four weeks in July. And, I got to see where Birgitte lives when not in Skien, as well as doing some fishing, both by fishing rods and by nets. Cleaning the net, though, was a long lasting experience...

That is mainly what my days have contained these last few weeks, together with other things spread out in between, that are making an interesting and beautiful photograph.

God has done some deep stuff in me, so my feelings are so much better now, and I praise Him alone for that!

Let Him be God, and don't try stepping up believing you can take his place. Not even in your own life can you do that. Your "own" life doesn't belong to you! He paid for it.
It's His.

until next time: Draw closer to Jesus!

-paul andreas

Mae | The Everglow

Mae | What Is Mae
Sitting here listening to The Everglow by Mae.
Was introduced to it by David, my brother, and it's SO good.

They have the most perfect melodies and harmonies, creating something new of the now soon olding rock. They're one of those rock bands who succeed including piano in their rock, making some really cool collaborations between the strings and the keys.

Uplifting and good lyrics. Not the typical cliche, but more the artistic outcome of a life lived.

Ok, just check it out, ok?
I've made it really simple for you guys.

Will write some more pretty soon.

-paul andreas