New Terrain

Start of Christmas Break!

brandonborn — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 08:31:00 GMT

Blog post

What a crazy last week of the semester... Staying up late every night, games and team activities, plus preparing to say goodbye to everyone! It's been insane, and right now sitting in the Cairo airport I honestly feel like I could pass out from exhaustion.

So the week started off with some teaching from a teacher that I still find hard to listen to... But after that the rest was done by a lady who has worked with ywam for many years so she shared her different experiences and gave us some awesome tips! Alongside that we played some sort of team game every day and I think I've got to say, my outreach team is pretty epic! We ended off the teaching week with one final game on Wednesday that lasted till close to midnight. The object of the game was something similar to capture the flag, but instead of 2 teams, we had 7! This made the game significantly harder and finally got to the point where teams had to quit in order for the game to actually end.

Thursday.... Ahh Thursday... Such a relaxing and fun day.... I think besides 2 hours in the morning I slept almost the entire day till 4, where a couple of us had to rush to get dressed for the Christmas dinner. Christmas dinner was just spectacular, we had thick juicy had and boiled potatoes with garlic bread and different salads. It was great fellowship and it was preceded by desserts at the kathedral! I hadn't eaten so much chocolate and cake in such a long time, it felt amazing to be eating so many delicious home made desserts from people here at the base. While we were eating some of the students had organized songs or skits to do up on stage and it was great! There were skits on soup eating ginea pigs, there was yodelling, carolling, and so much more fun stuff and it was all closed with dance. Just about everyone got into it and it was the least classy, most fun dance to watch and be part of!

Unfortunately at 11:30 on Friday I had to leave. All my stuff packed for both desert and winter on my back, ready to go and conquer the world!

I arrived at the bus terminal with only a second to spare and got on to the completely empty bus and as it turned out, that was quite a blessing. I ended up talking to the bus driver for the entire hour ride to the airport and learned tons of cool things about Ålesund and was offered some sweet opportunities for when I came back. So I'm really hoping that I'll be able to take him up on some of those and enjoy the city in a new way!

My first flight took me to Oslo, where unfortunately my flight was delayed, this started a trend for the rest of the trip... So after Oslo I got to Brussels, now Belgium waffles , but I did get out of the airport for a whopping 15 minutes! After rushing back into the airport, I got on my weird, flight to Athens.

I arrived in Athens at 1 am and waited over an hour for my backpack to arrive, but by 2:30 am I was ready to hit the town!

Athens was a total whirlwind of a night, I hit McDonald's twice, made some interesting friends, slept under a fig tree in the rain and enjoyed a super fiery sunrise the next morning! It was such a crazy night I don't know exactly how to explain it in text without sounding crazy, so I'll save this section of the trip as something I'll tell ya'll about when I get home!

Oy, typing this all out on a phone is not fun...

Anyways, so after my night in Athens I got a little lost... I was wandering around trying to find headphones when before I knew it, Athens turned upside down on me and I was walking down streets I knew nothing about! With only about 3 hours till my next flight I was starting to panic, but luckily, it started to dawn on me that I may have just been walking around the centre where I started the trip off with. So after walking another 20 minutes I found the McDonald's, (my safe haven) and the bus to the airport. I was safe and next all I had to do was argue with the people at the airport when I got there.

So apparently when flying to Qatar you need to have every single detail of the trip planned and ready to be shown when you get to the counter, and for most of you who know me, you can guess, I certainly didn't. I had to explain, in precise detail why things were missing, where I was staying and how I was leaving. It was an interesting process and it ended with me talking to a supervisor, signing a few papers and swearing an oath... Boy what an experience!

I did finally get on my flight and I landed in Cairo around supper, and had to wait 5 hours till my final flight to Doha. Now the Cairo airport is kinda dirty and didn't have a whole lot to it, so there's not much to say there. I don't have wifi here so Ill just sit for 5 hours straight listening to music and writing this, but it's nice to relax and just people watch.

Anyways that's all I've got for now, but I'm excited to write about my next leg of the story, seeing my family and enjoying Qatar!!!

Week 12!

brandonborn — Mon, 7 Dec 2015 08:59:00 GMT

Journal Entry, week 12

November 6^th 2015

This was definitely one of the best weeks so far when it comes to lectures, Ezra, who was our speaker, was a really powerful speaker who really connected with a lot of us. He brought up different points that I would never have thought about when it comes to living a Christian life. The one day that he was talking about music really impacted me, seeing how he was able to show the true heart and motive of many really popular bands was quite eye opening. Even the Beatles had off mindsets that were really in the motive of doing what you want, doesn’t matter what people think, it’s your life so live it out as you want. There’s no regret or even sympathy for other people. It was incredible seeing what different bands were associated with. Unfortunately now some of my favorite bands have a background so it’s tough to listen to them without getting convicted, but oh well it is what it is.

The rest of the week was really chill with rain falling every day, so not much for adventures outside, but it did feel good to relax, play a few board games and just enjoy each other’s company. I did get some really incredible news on Wednesday though. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was my phone full of updates about how I was featured on National Geographic, with the Low Light story. So it was a pretty insane way to wake up, then not even an hour later I got an email from one of the editors for Matador and she wanted to do a story on my photos in Alberta. If that wasn’t enough, later on in the day I got an email that I was finally accepted as a professional photographer by a huge printing company, even without half of the criteria that they normally need! To end off the day, I was messaged by a photographer back at home and she was judging the Cold Lake photo contest this year. She didn’t find a cover image for the magazine, so she wanted to test out some of my shots and see how they would look with print on them! Within that there were several smaller, like start up magazines in Edmonton and different people asking for prints. All these offers just absolutely boggle my mind when I think about how crazy that day was…

Saturday was a lot of fun as well, myself and a few other students from the base here went to help with Blue Cross, kind of like a youth program here in Norway, with rock climbing! It was really perfect, not too many people showed up, so we got a semi-formal lesson on setting up the gear and getting ropes hooked up. By the end of the day I was able to an entire line set up and I knew how to use all of the systems that they had brought. We’re going to try and make this a weekly thing when we get back so that we we’ll be able to do some outdoor climbs later on and even, possibly, set up some high lines up in the mountains to walk across!!!

American Thanksgiving

brandonborn — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 03:23:00 GMT

November 29, 2015 American thanksgiving. After a crazy week out exploring the areas of Aalesund and learning to push ourselves in photography we were ready for a bit of a break. Unfortunately, we rushed right into another lecture week that was a bit questionable to many of us. It was made out to be a really powerful week, but in the end a lot of us were left with an odd feeling in our guts. The good news of the week was that the lady who was speaking this week was an extremely nice lady with a very motherly nature. I did learn and find out a few things about myself on the last day during the last 30 minutes of lecture week. We had a quiet time where we were supposed to sit and process what we had just learned and while we were doing that I had a really good talk with one of my fellow students. We talked about how hard it was to relate to the speaker and how life doesn’t have to be like the way she described it. So it was really good to know someone sympathized with how I was feeling throughout the week.

The entire week was rainy and gross, so unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to go on any exciting adventures or explore any new spots. So the highlight of my week was watching 6 episodes of Modern Family in a row…

The weekend came around and turned life around pretty quickly. Friday was a creative day and we spent the morning sharing photo stories from the week before and it was just incredible to see how people captured different moments around Aalesund. The realization too that all of the events shown in the story happened in the same week was really neat too. To see how different people spent their time in different ways to get different emotions into their stories. My story, which I was a little secretive about, was about the surfers in Alnes. Alnes is a little town about an hour away from Aalesund, and on the Tuesday of last week the weather was perfect and the waves were the best they had been all year. I got to spend the day talking to locals and surfers, photographing them at the same time and enjoying the incredible scenery! It was just one of those perfect days I will never be able to recreate in a photo, but the memory I’ll cherish forever.

Friday night was long, but awesome. We spent the night in the kitchen playing live fruit ninja and lighting stuff on fire. We enjoyed several really good heart to heart talks and just all round had a blast. And after a long week like we just had, it was really well needed. We finally went to bed at 5am…

Saturday was our impromptu American thanksgiving and because of Friday night I slept in till noon. As soon as I woke up I was drafted into the kitchen crew and from there on helped make thanksgiving for the 75 plus people that came to the base. We had 9 turkeys, 4 giant pots of potatoes and several other dishes that had to be made all in those few hours. It was real blast being in the kitchen trying to make everything come together and in the end it turned out perfectly! My main job was carving the turkeys and I did it alongside a vegetarian! It wasn’t till we were almost done carving the turkeys that I remembered that she didn’t eat meat, but she was a real boss ad got right into cutting up the meat and setting it up for everyone else to enjoy. Safe to say being in the kitchen was a real joy and I’d certainly do it again if I got the chance.

So for it being one of the slower weeks we’ve had it was still pretty great and more memories were definitely made.

Norge Life

brandonborn — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 09:30:00 GMT

November 22^nd 2015

Sorry it’s been a while ya’ll! It’s been a really wild last 2 weeks full of hiking, free tours good food, snow, swimming and so much more!

Last week was a big week for my photography. I made it on the cover of Outpost Magazine Canada as well as made the daily top twelve on National Geographic. This helped get my second viral photograph and I’m stoked to be able to share the beauty of the northern lights and God’s handy work in the sky! Along with that, we spent our days in lectures learning about the prophetic, playing games and hearing stories of how God has spoken through different people to predict the future and help uplift people. It was really neat letting God speak through us and seeing how with enough faith God can use our mouths to predict and tell people about part of their own lives. Personally I didn’t have any crazy experiences, but some of the people here in the dts came out with many of the same predictions and prophecies.

Last weekend we enjoyed the rainy weather and started white girling it. I spent time in coffee shops with friends and started wandering around malls to finally get out of the house after a long week of lectures. It was really pleasant and I enjoyed a hot chocolate buffet, where you get a cup of hot chocolate and get unlimited chocolates and candies to top your cup off with! On Sunday I was really blessed to be able to join 62 Degrees North, a large tour company in Norway, on a trip to GeirangerFjord and back. It was a perfect day with blue skies and just perfect sweater weather. The views were amazing and it was ideal to take photos because the trip there I had the entire boat to myself, a private tour of the Fjord. It was really amazing being able to see the fjords from a sea level view, I saw cute little villages, sailors on old boats and even an Apricot farm that was located between the bottom of a cliff and the fjord, accessible only by boat and being only a few hundred square feet in size! The tour itself lasted around 6 hours and came back to Aalesund right at sunset. It was perfect and I really enjoyed spending time with the crew and learning about their past from the bit of English I could get out of them.

The next week was just incredible, it was a creative week and we were given an open photo assignment where we had to go out and make our own photo stories with our own connections. This is actually what drove me to make the connection with 62 Degrees North to Geiranger.

The week was super chill, we got to relax and think about our assignments very deliberately and try to make the most insane connections possible. So for most of the week while I was waiting for emails back I got to kick back a bit and hike and relax! On Tuesday on one of my hikes I landed on a bit of a hidden gem that finished off what my photo story was going to be about. Right now I’m trying to keep it a bit of a secret, just till I present my photo story, but after I will post photos from it on my social medias!

The rest of the week was mostly spent relaxing and editing since my photo story was done, But since I had made a connection with the Aquarium, Caleb and I went and Got ourselves a private tour on Friday. It was really neat actually, we saw what goes into keeping an aquarium running and we learned where they got all the fish and what happens to all the fish once they die. It was also really neat because Aalesund has one of the most down to earth aquariums in the world, with all the water being naturally fed from the ocean into the tanks and almost all the fish being caught off the shore of Norway by their own scuba divers. It was quite a fun day, but what made it all the better was… Snow!

We got snow on Friday and it has stayed till today! So we have made the absolute most of it! We had snowball fights and went sledding. We snowboarded and went swimming, we went hiking and drank fresh hot chocolate in the oldest house in Alesund, and just all round had one of the greatest weekends to date!

Sorry it’s been short, but I really have to catch on some sleep, so I’ll do my best to keep my regular posts up!

Cheers ya’ll!

November!

brandonborn — Mon, 9 Nov 2015 08:05:00 GMT

November 8^th, 2015

Two Months In

With yet another lecture week under the belt it seems like time is flying by way to fast here. I’m over 2 months in since I left home and I’ve got to say it seems odd that now I refer the YWAM base here as home.

The week started off with a huge windstorm and lots of rain, but in my normal fashion I wanted to go on a hike anyways. So a few of us headed off towards Hessa, the opposite side of Aalesund, to see if we could manage a hike. Unfortunately when we got there, it started just dumping on us. Rain and wind whipped at our faces leaving us a little lost as what to do.

The bus dropped us off at the end of the line, and we stood there in the rain trying to decide what to do. As we were standing there a local lady told us about the aquarium and how if we just walked a short distance further we could spend time inside the famous Aalesund aquarium. Having heard lots of stories about the aquarium it sounded like a plan to us. We wandered around inside, seeing all sorts of strange Norwegian fish and playing around with the penguins and seals. For such a small aquarium it sure packed a pretty good punch, and we really had a blast tooling around in front of the giant aquarium and talking fun silhouette pictures.

The lectures for the rest of the week were really cool. We had a speaker from England come by and share with us different techniques on how to share the word of God through our individual arts. She had lots to share on how we need to be accountable for our own choices when it comes to pursuing our art and trying to make a life out of it. A life devoted for God with our art.

It was interesting the different things she talked about and made us consider. She got us to think about our happy, creative place and how it helped our creativity, what were the different elements in our happy place that made it so easy for us to express ourselves there. After we finished that we talked about skills that made us who we were. Things that we thought we were good at and could use to further God’s kingdom. Also the opposite was included, we talked about things that we thought we struggled with or different things that got in our way of being who we are. It was a bit of a struggled for me realizing how easily I can be distracted by different road blocks, but also how I’m good at hiding the road blocks from others. It was a great learning week for me and I grew a lot in ways that I can learn to love God and myself.

This week I also had the pleasure of meeting a fellow who came all the way from London just to hang with the photo track. Studying commercial photography and having grown up with one of the guys here in Aalesund he quickly became part of the family. Joining us for all sorts of adventures and if he was awake then also for a few of the lectures. He was honestly one of the most chill guys I’ve met apart from my family here, so I’m hoping that at some point in the future our paths will cross.

Friday was our creative track day and we were honored to have Mats Grimseth come and speak about photography with us. This Norwegian adventurer has one of the most inspiring stories I’ve ever heard. Starting photography at the age of 15 he quickly made a name in his local town. Working every spare hour with the newspaper trying to further his name. His name was soon recognized by larger and larger brands and before he knew it he was in Austria at the Red Bull School of photography. Postponing the end of high school so that he could pursue his dream of becoming a professional photographer. He quickly achieved that, becoming the lead photographer in many different Red Bull events. His work being shown across the globe. With all his success he was looking for something a little different to do with the rest of his life. So he followed his “Boyhood” dream and bought a sail boat and for the last couple months has been sailing the west coast of Norway, on his way up to the Lofoten Islands.

The craziest part about all that is…. He turned 20 just this year.

His story really inspired all of us. Seeing that no matter what your age is, what your background is or what your style is, you can be a success if you work hard enough and believe in your work.

So safe to say it was another crazy success of a week and I’m looking forward to start another great one this week!

Stranda

brandonborn — Mon, 2 Nov 2015 21:36:00 GMT

November 1^st 2015 Mini Outreach

Butt soccer, evangelism, old people, great food and hiking, that is what my last week consisted of. Five of us from our base in Aalesund left and headed off for our mini outreach to Stranda, a town 2 hours away on the same fjord as Geiringer. Safe to say it was the most beautiful little town I have ever been in and the people we were with were some of the most incredible people I have ever met.

We arrived on Monday to a house smelling of fresh salsa and cooked meat and to our delight our hosts had made nachos with fresh moose meat from Sweden as well as the best salsa I have ever tasted. After our meal we enjoyed an early rest in our super comfy beds so that we would be ready for the events coming the next few days.

Tuesday we spent the early part of the day in a meeting with the local church talking about what different options we had for ministry and evangelism. The pastor was a really neat guy who was super zealous for the youth of Norway and was really excited to have us come speak with the kids of the area. He fed us fresh picked pears and told us of his summer home off on the coast and even invited us to stay in is summer home if we were ever in the area. Shortly after we were finished at the church we went home and prepared ourselves for the youth and night.

The youth night or Krikk as it was called here was just insane. The kids, who were from 16-19 years old, were all so happy and open to have us join up in their games. Wes and I were thrown into a soccer game that had a few changes to the rules. Initially we had to sit on our butts and scoot around instead of running, next it was crawling, then jumping on one foot, and then a few other. It was one of the most unique games I had ever joined in on, but the kids were fantastic and welcomed us into the games without any hesitation. The night concluded all too quickly, but we made some really cool friends there, and I really hope while I’m here in Aalesund that I’ll get a chance to go back and see some of the guys again.

Our next day had a bit of a slow start. We found out that there was a works session for most of the kids in this part of Norway so the confirmation classes we were supposed to speak at were actually cancelled so that left the last 2 days we had here empty. Even though it was a drag that we didn’t get to continue with those classes, we really made the most of it.

The day continued with now the only confirmation class we had. We did our shpeal, but didn’t get a whole lot of interaction from the kids unfortunately. The pastor on the other hand was full of questions, and really good questions too. Not a single one of the questions was the typical Christian questions so it challenged us, but we had a blast answering them. Sometimes even being surprised ourselves that we had answers to the questions he was asking.

That night we had the honor of joining an almost 200 year old missions group. This group was founded back in the 1800’s and has been helping with missions and praying over missionaries ever since. It was a really neat experience and the folks who were there were really neat. Most of them were quite elderly, so they spoke limited English, but of those who did speak English, we heard some incredible stories and were lucky enough to share ours as well. The same pastor who we were with at the confirmation class came to the mission’s night as well and blessed us with a few Swedish hymnals. Now I’m not going to lie, he wasn’t the greatest singer, but it was really cool hearing him put it all out there for us and sing like there was no tomorrow!

The night came to an end with some snacks, more handpicked pears, a lot more conversation, and plenty more stories.

The last 2 days we didn’t have any plans because they were all canceled. So instead of sitting around and doing nothing our host took us on some adventures around Stranda. He showed us his favourite hikes and a few local churches and farms. The views he showed us were absolutely incredible! Walking hundreds of meters up above the fjords looking down into the valleys full of farms and tiny town houses. The last two days were just magical, every moment seemed like a dream. The weather was perfect, the company was great and the views were just insane.

At one point on our last hike I left the group for a bit and hiked down to the edge off a cliff where I thought I could get a better photograph, but when I arrived I couldn’t figure out how to capture the moment with my camera. I just sat on the moss and blueberries, feet dangling off the edge and embraced the view, thinking about how incredible it is that God was able to create such a work of art. The fjords so deep and intricate, the mountains so strong and solid. The moss so soft and comforting. Every little detail, perfect in every way. It was just one of those moments you never want to leave.

Before we left to go have our last supper in Stranda we took a paddleboard up into a mountain lake and ripped around for a bit is some super calm, super cold water. Poor wes had purple feet by the time he was done on the paddleboard, but it was certianly worth the trip up and down again.

Our last day ended with the meal to end all meals. We ate at my adopted Norwegian grandma’s house again at we left having eaten, basically, out weight it food twice over. The main course consisted of delicious salmon and potatoes with fresha pears and carrots, but it was the dessert that really got us. Wes and I having eaten half of the dessert that was on the table. Ice cream cake, lefsa, and berries and syrup. Eat time we finished our plate of dessert more was thrown on our plates, and since we didn’t want to be rude…. We just kept on eating till finally we finished everything off that was on the table!

We said our goodbyes and thanked our hosts over and over again for such an amazing week and then rolled out. Reminiscing on the experiences we had the entire time.

Lecture week

brandonborn — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 18:50:00 GMT

October 25^th 2015 End of Lecture Week

Man what a week. Our speaker, Mary Jean, a lady from Colorado who has been teaching at bible schools for 40 years came by to teach us about finding Holy Spirit in the Bible. We heard crazy stories about different things she did around the world, and different events that happen around the world and it really gave us all quite the perspective on how fortunate we are. It was shocking to hear about how they use pieces of plastic with scripture written on it to share the Word with people in North Korea. Or how in China the fact that for every 400 Christians there’s only 1 bible for them to use. How many people will never get to read or even see a bible is just insane when you think about how we have all have several sitting in our homes that haven’t been opened in years. It’s saddening but also very hopeful because the rate of growth for Christianity in Asia is skyrocketing!

This week we also found out where we would be spending two months next year on outreach. My group, some people I never expected, were given South America. A place a I never expected, but am super stoked about, plus the people I’m going with are just awesome. Honestly I wish I could just pack up and leave already, get on the plane and go to South America and see new places and meet new people! We don’t know the country that we will be going to yet, but personally right now I really hope it’ll be a country on the west coast or down south, Chile, Argentina or maybe Peru. Where ever we end up though, I’ll be super thrilled to be seeing a new continent and to be helping spread God’s kingdom.

In terms of application of what I learned this week, I definitely found out that I need some structure in my mornings. A list of items that I will follow and do every morning to learn about what god wants to show me. Things like listen to the bible through audio recording, followed by reading the same piece of scripture and praying. Just simple things that I haven’t been diligent enough to do yet when I wake up. I really think I’ll learn a lot quicker by doing these things. Find more revelation and truth than I have ever before in my life. I know already just from being here I’ve learned a lot. Ways to share my testimony, to talk about and share the Word with people on the streets, as well as to study the bible in new unique ways. One of the ways that I really enjoy is to reflect on each chapter I read with a short excerpt in my journal about what I think God may be telling me. Some of the things that I write down quite surprise me, but I’m going to keep trying and see where it leads me.

In conclusion, this week was really beneficial for me. I learned a ton and had to stay a bit more focused because it rained for the majority of it. Forcing me to stay inside and study or write down my feeling. We still had a few cool adventure, fires by the ocean, working for free cake/coffee, and showing new folks around the city of Aalesund. Safe to say there hasn’t been a dull week in in Norway yet!

Adventure Week!

brandonborn — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 23:44:00 GMT

October 17, 2015

Adventure week,

Exploring Norway with friends and a camera make for some insane memories. This week I saw some of the most famous fjords in this section of Norway, as well as seeing the popular Trollstigen road! We sat around a fire in the middle of a giant valley and watched stars before heading off to bed in a farmhouse. It was a real memorable week for sure.

So after last week at Molde with circuit riders almost everyone was completely exhausted, because of this our leaders decided to give us Monday off which was a real treat. We relaxed and celebrated Canadian thanksgiving, eating pizza with mashed potatoes and gravy as our main course. It wasn’t quite like at home, but it was nice to get dressed up and be a bit festive.

After thanksgiving I went and explore the Sunnmore museum at sunset and had a wonderful hour spending time alone just thinking and enjoying the scenery. The clouds that night were a perfect red hue and the air was calm, nothing stirred and the water cast a perfect reflection of the houses along the water.

The next day was the start of our creative week, we were given an assignment to create a photo essay for a day in the life of _________. So my assignment was to be done with Rebecca, one of the students here who is an avid hiker and comes from Switzerland! Along with this assignment we were introduced to the fact that we were going to be adventuring around the Sunnmore region for the next 3 days, seeing Stranda, Trollstigen and Geiranger!

Wednesday came around and we started our way to Stranda to go and explore the mountain and see Strandafjord early in the morning. As we started packing into the car the sun began to rise and the colours shown, proving that the rest of the day was going to be just swell. We arrived at the base of the mountain and were greeted by a lady in an old beat up van. She let us know that we would be taking turns riding up the mountain in this sketchy vehicle. With the back open and our legs dangling we started up, bouncing and laughing the whole way we thought at points that we would surely fall out of the back. We arrived to the top safe and sound, a little bit shake, but nonetheless, safe and what an insane view we had. Looking down at the fjord and the city of Stranda was just beautiful, the air was cool and crisp, filling our lungs and giving us that wonderful mountain energy.

After the mini hikes up at the top of Stranda, we were blessed with free coffee and hot chocolate at the chalet. We warmed up and shared stories, feeling pumped about what we just saw and knowing that it was only just the beginning of the rest of the incredible things we were going to see the next day.

Thursday was another early start, heading off to Geirandgerfjord instead this time. The trip was to take around 2 hours, but the time seemed to just fly by because everywhere we went was so stunning that our eyes were glued to the windows. Trying to take in every second of the adventure, not wanting to miss any single bit of whatever was coming our way.

Geirangerfjord was even more stunning in person than any photo I’ve ever seen of it. The scale of the walls and the knowledge that the water below was just as deep as the walls were high was just insane. Just below from the viewpoint we were at was the village of Geiranger and the chocolate factory I will be shooting at in the next couple weeks. We explored the village for a while then continued to Trollstigen.

The road to Trollstigen was absolutely beautiful, almost like a moonlike land covered in rocks and mountians. We stopped just on the other side of the ridge to Trollstigen and looked back down the valley of where we just were and what a sight it was. I even recognized the spot from photos I had seen online before, but it was nothing compared to the road we were just about to witness.

Trollstigen was just perfect. The road, the valley, the mountains, everything just seemed surreal. Like who would come up with the idea to put a road in that spot. The designer of the road is a real genius to be able to figure out a safe way to set it all up. After hanging around the lookout point for a while we headed off down the road itself. Curving, dipping, and racing down it in our big blue vans was something in itself.

Not far from the bottom of Trollstigen was the farm house that we got to stay at for the night. A little cozy house that was donated to YWAM by this super nice old couple that wanted to help our ministry here. The house is right in the middle of the valley of Trollvegen. Where the walls are so high that for about a month in winter no sunlight hits the house.

It was a great night and morning full of games, fires, music and laughter. We all had such a great time that it made it hard to leave.

With adventure week being over we all shared our photos from the trip, caught up with our friends back at the base and then rested up so that we would be ready for lecture week starting on Monday.

Photos: Adventure week

brandonborn — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:19:00 GMT

Molde

brandonborn — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 22:11:00 GMT

October 10, 2015 can’t remember what week I’m on….

Well this week started off with a bit of a surprise, we got to go on a roadtrip to the town of Molde where we stayed for the next 3 nights. In Molde there were the Circuit Riders, a group of YWAMer’s who are travelling around, helping young people grow in faith and learned to spread the word of God. The entire weeks was a little bit insane, having only 12 hours of sleep over the 5 days and having 9 hours of lectures each day it was busy to say the least. Even though it was busy we had a blast and made so many incredible memories!

The second night in Molde, we were lucky to have the Northern Lights come out in an incredible display of colour and speed. It was as if the sky was on fire with green and red flames. Dancing and curling around with the stars for everyone to see. Many of the people from my school had never seen the lights before so it was just awesome to be there to experience their first encounter. The smiles that gleamed off their faces and just the look of awe was just so cool to experience!

While I was in Molde I met a group of people from YWAM Cambridge who were just the coolest! A bunch of us bonded quickly and started on just like we were old buddies. I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to make to London at some point and meet up with them for a weekend.

To backtrack, the reason I barely slept at all while I was in Molde is because there was a lack of fire alarms in the building we were staying in…. so, we had to have people on Fireguard overnight. Myself and a few others volunteered for this crazy job and enjoyed every bit of it! The last morning of fireguard I laughed till I cried over and over again. Being so overtired that almost anything could be hysterical for us.

I am so glad we got to enjoy the view of a new city and meet incredible people, as well as learn a ton about Jesus and ways on how we can spread the Word with others. All in all it was just the perfect week and even though I felt like I could pass out from exhaustion at the end of it, I would 100% do it over again any time!

Week 3

brandonborn — Sun, 4 Oct 2015 18:37:00 GMT

Oct 4^nd, 2015

Week 3, Creative week

Well our first creative week here at YWAM I’d say was a great success, we spent tons of time on our cameras, learning many new kinds of tricks and techniques. I got to experience a portrait session and got a chance to shoot some myself. While learning all these new techniques with our camera, we were also quite emerged in different kinds of worship. Just on Friday we had a night of evangelism and healing, and many people were healed right before our eyes. Sickness was cured, aches and pains lost and even an allergy to pineapples was fixed. It really is just incredible what God can do when you give him the opportunity to help.

Hiking is Alesund has been just incredible again. On Monday we climbed up and old abandoned ski hill to catch an incredible view of Alesund. As we got to the top our track leader Wes told us about how you can go further and see the back side of the fjords, so of course we decided we wanted to hit up that section as soon as we could. Saturday was the next day where it wasn’t raining so we took the chance and matched up to the top… Man what an incredible view and just perfect lighting! It was almost as if the mountains were glowing and the sky was dancing with the clouds. Some of my favorite shots were taken this day and I’m super stoked to go out and take many more like this.

After the hike on Saturday we came home to get ready for the multi person birthday bash we were setting up, and Caleb and I were in charge of cake. The party was actually quite sweet, we had a large dance party with a DJ, lights and desserts. Felt almost like a Christian night club!

Once the party came to a close relaxed, had some fake tattoos drawn and watched the new Disney movie, Inside Out, which was yet again another great movie. Unfortunately because of that movie, I managed to fall asleep after 2am…. Again. Many, many late nights here, but it’s all been very worth it!

Photos: Week 3, Alesund

brandonborn — Sun, 4 Oct 2015 18:29:00 GMT

Alesund

brandonborn — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:23:00 GMT

Finally made it to Norway, after years of dreaming I’ve finally made it to the top spot on my bucket list, and so far it hasn’t disappointed. The trip here was incredible, five planes, 8 buses, 2 trains, 2 taxi’s and a ferry. For anyone who has seen the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, I feel like I lived that movie out.

I arrived at the base early, being the second student to arrive. The first, Audrey was a hoot to be around and we got along very quickly. The following day the “original six” arrived and we all bonded immediately before the rest arrived. It was good to have a solid group of friends before the boat load of people arrived on the 14^th, but we all quickly got to know each other and now about a week later we’re all a big family.

Base life isn’t quite what I was expected, it’s really freeing and easy going. People are nice and no one is nagging each other about rules. With forty-four people in the DTS chores go by quickly so that’s not a problem either. It feels great to kind of be in charge of my own life and have to take care of myself. I do my own laundry, help clean the house, organize my stuff and I have the freedom to come and go if needs be.

The adventures we’ve had here have been great so far. We’ve seen the fjords, done a couple hikes and even gone swimming in the ocean! People aren’t quite as sporty like I’m used to, but knowing this is a creative DTS I kind of expected that. With that being said, they all seem like they’re up for an adventure anytime which is awesome, plus football has been played here regularly, which has been fantastic, even though I can barely coordinate kicking and running at the same time. Just last night we had a spontaneous adventure up sukkertroppen, (Sugar Top) Mountain, which was incredible. Just a short 45 minute hike and you can see the entire city of Aalesund and across the way to the fjords. It seems like no matter where you go in this town you can get a great view of something.

Classes started yesterday with a bang, our speaker Mr. Payne was awesome, he was funny, he was relatable, and he had tons to say about truth and why it was so important in our lives. He spoke of the truth box and how we can sometimes trick ourselves into thinking a lie is the truth… Deception the greatest weapon used by the enemy to trick ourselves into see God and our own selves, wrongly.

His first point in the lecture was how information is great, but acting out Jesus is better. If you know everything about God, but do nothing to act upon it you are no better than the Pharisees in the Bible. You learn the truth, but you don’t act on it. Living a lie that rules are what will get you to heaven, where in reality the truth, Jesus, is the only the way into the gates of heaven.

Safe to say i'm having tons of fun here and i'm really looking forward to what this adventure throws at me next!

Trondheim

brandonborn — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 04:20:00 GMT

September 11th, Trondheim

Currently I am sitting in the old Vikhammer Hotel, just up the hill from where I pitched my tent for the two nights I'm here. First impressions of Norway are great, the landscapes are incredible and the little colourful houses are just incredible! The locals have been very helpful, but also abrupt and right to the point, so I haven really met anyone to this point. Vikammer is a small town just outside of Trondheim, so this morning I spent a good hour, after grocery shopping, trying to figure out the transit system here, but all the work payed off and by around 1pm, local time, I was wandering the streets of Trondheim.

Trondheim was unlike any city I have witnessed, up to this point in my life. Structures were both ancient and new. On one side of the street there'd be a cathedral that was almost an 800 years old and right across from it would be a mall that looked like it had been built in the last 10 years. Statues and landmarks littered the streets, many of which were of Viking analogs, which seemed to be guarding the city. Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway with a population of 180,000 people, but it certainly didn’t seem that big. As soon as you left Main Street and the epicenter of town you get this small town feel again, with small grocery stores on street corners and tiny bakeries along the side streets. I saw the main ports in Trondheim as well as the famous colourful houses, which are so famous of Norway, lining the waterways. Unfortunately my SD card bugged out on me today, so I didn’t get a single photo of Trondheim to share with all of you, but I can promise you it was very beautiful.

To get back to my campsite I used yet another form of transportation, train. So for any of you who have seen the movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, I feel a little bit like I’m living out that movie. Having ridden all within in 24 hours, but I’ll also be adding boat to that list in about 14 hours here. So when I finally arrive in Alesund, I will have taken 5 flights, 8 busses, 2 taxis, 1 train, 1 ferry and roughly sixty kilometers by foot. Not half bad I’d say.

Anyways, I'm going to try and get a little shut eye so I can get up early to pack up and catch my ferry tomorrow.

Cheers all!

Iceland

brandonborn — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 06:03:00 GMT

September 9th... Icelandic travel

Well flying into Iceland was beautiful, the moon was reflecting off the endless ocean and bits of northern lights could be seen from the plane, but arriving was a little less majestic. Coming off the plane it was pouring so everyone was soaked by the time we got to the terminal. I got through security no problem, but realized once I was out that Reykjavik, the capital city, was about 45 minutes from the airport. Being that it was only 6am at this point I wasn't worried. I jumped on a bus and headed to Reykjavik.

I got to the capital and the rain continued to pour so I quickly cut my original plans to hitchhike north and set up camp right in Reykjavik. By the time I walked to the campground it had been about 30+ hours of no sleep, so I took care of business, set up the tent and had a nap.

I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Reykjavik, seeing the museums, art shops and funky downtown atmosphere. Reykjavik was by far more musical city than I expected. Bands playing outdoor gigs and record stores on every block. Supper that night consisted of almonds and fruit juice, right before I had an early night.

The next morning I woke up at 8:25, five minutes before the bus I had booked the day earlier left. Unfortunately my phone died in the cold weather that night so my alarm never went off... So I jumped out of my tent, pants barely on to catch my bus just as it was rolling away.

We headed south, complete opposite of my original plans, headed towards Vik. We made stops at 2 of the most famous waterfalls in Iceland and saw the black sand beach. The black sand beach was quite insane, waves a good 10ft high were crashing on shore, and when I first arrived an unusually large wave crashed on shore and almost took and old man for a ride. Wouldn't want to surf in those conditions!

On the bus ride back we had to take a small detour down a quad path because the main highway was closed, so after crawling around for 30 minutes in the bus, joking around about getting stuck, we finally made it back to the highway and home.

That night was a long one, it hailed so when the weather finally calmed down I manage to sleep in till after noon. So with not having a ton of time to do anything out of town I hit Reykjavik once again. I had lunch at the Chuck Norris Grill, which is highly recommend if you ever make it to this part of the world! From there I hit a few more museums, volcano, northern light and I even stumbled up the penis museum... Didn't stay there very long.

On the walk back to the campground, the wind picked up and it went wild. It topped out that night at 76km/h with gusts up to 120km/h. Safe to say, not a lot of sleep that night either, but it lead to some cool conversations with a few people whose tents broke down that night. All of us wet and cold we hunkered down in the laundromat, telling stories for the rest of the night. And I was even honored to take a shot of Icelandic vodka with a true 7th generation Viking! Not something that happens every day. Now seeing it was already 5am at this time I figured I’d get a head start and walk the bus depot while it wasn’t stupidly windy… well oops I was wrong, ended up stopping at a bus stop to strip down and change into some clothes that were a little more waterproof. From the bus depot I went to the world famous, and part of the top 25 wonders of the world, Blue Lagoon. It was quite nice to relax in some hot pools and saunas after the cold last couple days.

Now we catch up to where I am now… sitting, waiting for my plane that is leaving 12 hours from when I am writing this. So now not having eaten anything except a few fibre bars in the last 24 hours I will try to conserve heat and energy by having a That 70’s Show marathon on Netflix with the free Wi-Fi here!

Cheers all! I’ll have photos up soon hopefully!

4 Days to Go

brandonborn — Wed, 2 Sep 2015 03:11:00 GMT

September 1st, 2015... 4 days till I begin my biggest adventure yet.

Summer is coming to a close and time is running short, but I think I have made great use of this summer and these last couple days. Since I graduated in June I've made more memories than I ever imagined I would. From Alaska to Banff, to even just around my backyard, I've done lots and I'm kind of sad it's coming to a close.

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind, I’ve been packing vigorously and trying to spend as much time with as many of my friends as possible. Lately I’ve spent nights by the fire with friends, watched drive in movies (yep a buddy of mine has a legit drive in theatre in his backyard), or even sprayed glowstick juice all over each other while paddleboarding at midnight. This last week has really been great, and I have so many people to thank for it.

Quickly I just wanted to share some of my top memories from this summer.

My Favorite part of this summer, even though it rained almost every day, was exploring Alaska with my Family. For a grad gift my parents let me pick any place that WestJet flew to and sent us all there for a camping trip. Seeing that I love glaciers Alaska was right on the top of my list, and it sure didn’t disappoint. Since WestJet didn’t fly directly to Alaska, we actually had to start our trip in Whitehorse, which turned out to be a really cool place itself. Our first night in Whitehorse we ended up camping at this super hippy like campground where it almost felt like you went back to the 70's. From Whitehorse started driving south to Alaska, Yes we went south, to Carcross and then on to Skagway. Now Skagway was something else, a tourist mecca that was designed to look just like an old gold rush city still booming. There were wooded boardwalks and even an old brothel hanging around still. We only stayed one night in Skagway because the other night we spent just below the Laughton Glacier. To get to the glacier we had to take the Whitehorse express several miles up into the middle of nowhere and get dropped off. From the drop off spot we had just 3 miles to hike to get to our own cabin that we rented, and only another short mile to get to the glacier. It was incredible seeing the Laughton glacier and being able to camp out in a cozy little cabin just below it.

From Skagway we took a ferry down to Juneau where we camped out next to the famous Mendenhall Glacier lagoon. This was just incredible, waking up every morning to the chilly air and seeing the giant ice heave just across the lagoon. One morning we rented Kayaks and got to paddle around with the icebergs and up near the glacier, but not too close in case the glacier decided to calve on us. Our last night in Juneau was a blast, it was the 3rd of July and since Juneau has light almost all night they celebrate the 4th of July early, 12:01am the morning of the 4th of July, the first city in America to shoot off their fireworks.

Haines was the next and last destination on this trip. This little town of maybe 500 people was the site where the U.S. and Canada almost went to war. The States for wanted this location badly so they quickly set up a fort and a garrison expecting Canada to retaliate, but nothing happened and now this Beautiful town sits, close to vacant.

Another one of my top moments of the summer was exploring as much of Banff in one day as possible. My brother Conner and I decided that one morning while we were in Calgary we were going to try hit as many famous locations in Banff as possible. So the next morning we woke up at 4am, picked up our adopted sister from Calgary and headed for the mountains. The trip didn’t start off smoothly as we had a few issues finding Vermillion lakes and Johnston Canyon, but after we bypassed those the trip was just on the up and up. We hit Moraine Lake, Bow Lake, Lake Louise, Peyto Lake, Bow Lake, and finally Vermillion Lakes on the way home. Stopping only once at Bow lake to let the rain pass and to have a much needed lunch. After spending a solid 12 busy hours in the park we were all exhausted and decided to make our way back to Calgary to rest up. Seeing all these famous locations in person really was a highlight, it's cool to see great photos, but to see how beautiful all the lakes really were was just perfect.

Lastly ill just add a few quick highlights from the last few week in Cold Lake, seeing I’ve already written way more than I thought I would.

My brother and I last year decided we would try to canoe around Cold Lake, and it turned out to be so much fun that we just had to do it again this year, but also complete the final leg that we had to skip last year. This year we made killer timing and without really trying made it all the way around the lake in 28 hours. Where last year it took us over 3 days and we still didn’t complete it... Oops.

Who doesn’t like a late night swim under the full moon? Well decked out in glowsticks and elwire a few of us went don’t to the lake with paddle boards and just tooled around in the freezing cold water and enjoy the calm night... Well calm besides all our yelling and terrible singing. What started out as just simple swim and paddle board soon turned into an all-out glowstick juice fight. Quickly we were all covered in glowing toxins and the water had an eerie glow to it, but it was certainly a night to remember.

I won’t add anything more to this post, and I’ll do my best to keep my future posts shorter. If you're interested in seeing pictures or hearing more about any of these let me know or check me out on Instagram and Facebook @BrandonBorn!

Photos: Top Shots

brandonborn — Wed, 2 Sep 2015 01:45:00 GMT