We conclude our series this week visiting Norway. We pray you have been blessed by this journey and unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of the Grens through Norway.
Other than the tobacco business, what are some memories? In disobedience to Far, going skiing for the first time and breaking my leg. Brought home on a sleigh by a woman who was a German sympathizer. Far never said I told you so. Then the time I was sitting on a railing, waiting for a friend, when I lost my balance, fell straight down the stairwell, three stories. My head came in contact with the cement floor causing a slight concussion. I walked home between Far and Mor, it was just around the corner from our house. Another time: blood streaming down my face from contact with a rock which had been thrown over a wall as my friend Bjarne and I were trying to get away from a town bully. Trying to get from the shoulders of my friend on to the roof next door and falling. Yes, it was the old head in the street again. My second job, selling papers on the street corner. Most memorable of all: the invasion, early air raids, evacuation of the town (until the capitulation), proud German troops marching in under banners with music corps, the goose step, the feared black uniforms of the Nazis. The German officers wanting to see the church facilities. Mor and I only showed them the wood cellar. It didn’t suit their needs. Going to the country with Bjorg and asking farmers if they would give us an egg. We did pretty well. Mar’s bread that I ate out from under the small piece of meat, to put it on the next piece of bread and so to eat all the meat in one bite after the bread. Leaflets dropped from Allied planes, announcing peace; the flags at war’s end, prisoners coming out. The pitiful lot of German soldiers straggling to the pier boarding ships for the journey home which some had wanted long before. Seeing my first banana and wondering what the taste must be like. Looking back I would not exchange those years for anything. There were different experiences and blessings when I rejoined my family in the States but I am grateful to God that in His plan I had those years with Mor and Far. It set the course for my life. “Home” to me will always mean Norway.
**Excerpt originally from The Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter November/December 1993