SEEDS OF NEW LIFE AND GROWTH IN SCANDINAVIA
Warmth and mutual encouragement flowed across the national boundaries as Victor and Sheila Shefford from the Jesus Fellowship visited Multiply partners in Sweden and Norway

The first leg of the journey started with a visit to Per Arne and Christina Imsen of the Agape Fellowship in Gothenburg. Agape has been reshaping and growing in the last three years, with an increasing number of young people and they are beginning to form 'friendship links' with other Gothenburg churches. "When Christina came over at Easter for the Jesus Fellowship Alive Festival," says Victor, " she felt God was calling Agape 'back to their roots' which was community. Phoning Per Arne back in Sweden, she found that God was saying the same thing to him. As a result, the church is now considering renting a seven bedroom property to make a start as an extended family."

Agape owns a multi-use building that operates on lines very similar to Jesus Fellowship's "Jesus Centres". A main meeting hall, occasionally used by other churches for conferences and worship, is backed up with wash facilities, a cafe, bedrooms, offices and rooms for reading and activities.

Next stop in Sweden was a community near Orebrö, to stay with Gunno and Monica Anderson.The community has about twenty members living in three houses - many of them families with children - and other members living outside. The community runs its own school and hopes to branch out into other businesses as they sell off the bakery, with its unsociable hours."

I was very impressed with their group of excellent young men," says Victor. "They are devoted to Jesus and the Kingdom vision and determined to carry the community forward in the 21st Century."

Travelling west across the border into Norway, Victor and Sheila stayed in Oslo with Jan Egil and Lille for their visit to Pilgrimsfolket community. Thirty people - a third of them under thirty - belong to the group and the last few years has been for them a triumph of faith over adversity. Faced with eviction from their original premises because the land and property was being sold, the group sold what they could and worked hard, clearing off all debts within a year. Soon after, the Oslo authorities showed Pilgrimsfolket a disused warehouse for sale just five minutes walk from the city centre. This is now their centre.

The warehouse has been renovated into a well-equipped five-storey community building with a worship room, offices, book shop and counselling rooms on the lower floors; a large dining room kitchen and lounge on the third floor and bedrooms on the top floors. The community also has its own school.

A daughter fellowship and community is also being formed - in Romania. This is the result of a call Jan Egil received from God to go across to preach the gospel in Romania in 1999. While there, he heard that the Romanian government planned to evict an entire village and demolish the buildings. Jan Egil was able to raise money to buy the village and arranged for skilled men to come over from Norway to train the inhabitants how to restore the buildings, setting up sanitation and water supply. Many of the villagers who had been nominal Muslims are now turning to Christ and a small community is forming.