THE BRO BLOG: 06.2007

The Swedish ATM

First off there's no such thing as an Automated Teller Machine over here... They are called the "Bankomat"

So here's something new that happened today that definitely shocked me...

My ATM card got eaten by the bankomat....Boo.

Everytime I withdraw money from the account back home, I'm charged an international fee, along with a foreign bank fee...so the more money I can draw out at one time, the less charges. Simple enough? Not for the Swedish Bank.

Turns out I tried to withdrawal too much money at one time, and the Bankomat said, "No way sucker! I'm going to eat your card!"

I wasn't mad... I was just in awe. I always hear stories about people getting their card eaten, and now I've become the poster child for it.

That was a very quick transistion... from näive to posterchild...

I called my home bank too, and I spoke with the lost/stolen 24 hour department. Turns out getting your card eaten by an ATM machine doesn't count as lost/stolen.

Does it count as lost/stolen if it was eaten by the Bankomat?

Scavenger Hunt

We have had an American Team from Jacksonville, FL here for the last week, and it's been an absolute blast! We have had the Vårberg Festivalen, where we had upwards of 100 people come out and hear about the good news of Jesus Christ! Four people this week decided to follow Christ, and that DOESN'T happen here in Sweden! God is changing lives! Woo Hoo!

One of the fun things we did this week with the American teenage team is a Scavenger Hunt. Since my team won, here's the video of each of the kids on the team. It was a pleasure to spend time with these kids this week, and I hope you guys enjoy another episode of the BroBlog.

SpiderMan

Turns out Spiderman comes in Swedish....

Utfart

European signs can be very funny to an American...and here's one that made me laugh...Hope you enjoy!

Conversations

One of the usual things that Forrest and I do on Thursday night is go to the local pub (where our church meets on sunday afternoons) and try to initiate conversations with people there. And this thursday, one conversation definitely happened...

I was able to speak with a man named Richard. He is from Iraq, but has lived in the Michigan, Florida, Ecuador, and Sweden. He fluent in 4 languages, and when I was introduced as "the American," he took a liking to me very quickly.

Eventually, we got to speaking about spiritual things. He told me what he believed about being a Buddhist, and how he hated Islam for what it did to him. He described Iraq as 100x worse than it looks on TV. But the more and more that we spoke, his Islamic heritage really became his religion of choice.

Here's the coolest part...As we were speaking, he found out that I was a Christian, and he asked me to tell him about the experience of me choosing to follow Christ! I was able to lay out how Christ had changed my life, and near the end of the conversation, he said: "I envy you...there's a 'godness' in you that I haven't got."

Please pray for him! God is at work here in conversations more than anything else. Please join with me in asking him to change the lives of the people and relationships that will start through our visiting the local pubs.

God's Peace