About a week back my facebook informed me that 23rd of November is the national "Mot til å glede-dagen" eg. "Courage to make someone happy day". The concept is started by the organization MOT, which works to combat substance abuse and bullying in schools. On this day they encourage everyone to make people around them happy through small gestures such as smiles or a helping hand.
(The organization behind the day, which by the way also has sponsored my basketball team for years: thanks!)
Some friends of mine and I decided to take the challenge. And so on Tuesday Natasha (Connect China last year), Katrine (Act Now Peru last year), Carol (Focus Bergen now) and I headed to downtown Bergen armed with loads of coffee and banana cake. Target: foreigners waiting in line on the curb outside of the immigrations office.
(This was more or less what we expected to find at the immigrations office in Bergen, allthough this picture is from Oslo)
Well, I guess God had other plans for us. For would you believe that for the first time in history there was absolutely NO line there. Not a single freezing foreigner in need of coffee. Oh well, we thought.. Good for them, and there should be other cold people around. We started walking around town, offering coffee and cake to street magazine sellers (who generally told us they didn't have time to drink coffee) and foreign people sitting around asking for money.
Especially one Romanian lady made an impression on us. She looked like the sweetest grandmother, in her coat and coloured head scarf. She gladly shared a cup of coffee with us, and told us in broken Norwegian: "My hands were so cold, but now Jesus has sent me a cup of coffee to keep me warm".
After rounding up basically every street magazine seller and beggar in the city centre, we still had lots and lots of cake and coffee left. We decided to widen our search and went to the main square, where we occupied a bench, put up a small sign and started asking people passing by whether they wanted coffee or cake. We had lots of different reactions:
- How much is it?
- Who are you collecting money for?
- Which organization are you from?
- Which church made you do this?
We tried our best to explain that the coffee and cake was free, that we did not want any money, and that we were doing it on our own initiative. Most people didn't believe us and some even started looking for hidden cameras, thinking they might end up being the highlight of some comedy show later that day.
Some people still came to share a cup of coffee with us, and we soon discovered that love is a more powerful currency than money. When love takes the place of money, big things start happening. We saw an old, respected baker engaging in a 20 minutes' conversation with a lady selling street magazines. He ended up buying one of the magazines, paying twice what it was worth. We saw a man confessing to have social anxiety come over and share a piece of cake and a conversation with us. We saw beggars dancing off down the street. But more importantly we saw people having their eyes opened to the joy of making others happy; not simply by giving off a coin or two but by spending time seeing, loving and serving others.
For me the whole day turned out being an experience I really needed. I needed to see that there is still room for community in Norway. I needed to see Norwegians laying down their scepticism and individualism and daring to receive. The awesome thing about God is that He usually doesn't send one person to help another, but two people to help each other. I have regained some of my faith in the Norwegians. I guess all we really need is for someone to take the first step.
Vakkert!
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