1/8 – Day 11: Iceland - Koerleikurinn

Throughout the night my room-mates were coming and going. They all did it as quietly as possible, but I woke up every time. And every time I just enjoyed the fact that it was dark in the room (I did not have darkness at night since that night in Copenhagen) and that I could just turn around and sleep again. For some reason the matrass and the pillow were particularly comfy.

I delayed getting-up until all the others had gone. I felt like I could stay in bed all day. My ears did not open during the night, and all the hollow places in my head felt blocked. At about 8:00 I tried to call Gudrun, the lady that I was told had a key to open the house of prayer for me, but she did not answer. So I prayed a bit and just lay there wondering what to do. At 9:00 I called again and this time she answered. She agreed to meet me at prayer house at 11:00 and I said I’ll go down to reception to ask them to speak to her and get the directions for me to get to the prayer house.

After getting dressed and packing slowly, I went down to reception at about 10:00 and asked them to call her. Some sort of misunderstanding evolved between the lady at reception, Gudrun and me, resulting in me having to explain to the lady that I was only in Iceland for one day and that I wanted to pray at the prayer room and that Baldur had said that Gudrun would open for me. From the barely visable frown on her face and the fractions of words I could grasp of her side of their conversation I came to the conclusion that Gudrun was not told about me at all, and that the thing that kept on trying to close the door in my face at the airport when I arrived was at it again.

With something that looked like frightened disgust covered with a thin layer of professionality the lady finally ended the conversation and explained to me where the prayer house was and how to get there from the youth hostle. She also confirmed that Gudrun would meet me there at 11:00.

I put my things in the luggage room and started walking. My rout took me through the youth hostle’s campsite and an almost blue-green park under a bleek cloudy sky. As I walked I kept on singing the Fisherfolk song: God has called you, He will not fail you, so trust in God, and obey Him. I really wished my soul would ‘get it’ and stop fretting.

The explanation I got from the lady at the youth hostle took me to a retail area of sorts with various large warhouse-like buildings. As she predicted I found the entrance to a place with a logo that looks like praying hands at the back of a furniture retailer in one of the warehouses.
It was about 10:40 so I quickly went to the supermarket nextdoor to look for some Vitamin C and some drinking water (The tap water in Reykjavik tasts of sulfur).

I came back to the door just before Gudrun arrived. To my supprise she hugged me when she greeted me, and I knew right away that she was a sister in the Lord, and that all of my internal turmoil that morning had been caused by a bit of smoke and mirrors from the enemy.

She took me through the door, and up the stairs and into the largest ‘prayer room’ I had ever seen. Taking up about half of the loft above the warehouse, the room was bigger than many churches I have seen. It had more than 100 chairs arranged in rows to face a stage with musical instruments. Before the stage there was a large ministry area with pillows and blankets and flags. In the back there was a fellowship area with a coffee counter and some tables where papers and bible study material and things for drawing was laying around. The whole place had a very user-friendly homly kind of feel to it.

Gudrun made some coffee and we sat down to explain ourselves to each other. She was glad to find out that I’m a believer (not even this was a foregone conclusion for her) and we soon discovered that we are spiritually on the same page. Their whole group/fellowship, allong with almost every other believer she knows in Reykjavik was at an out of town event. The only reason she did not go herself was because God did not tell her to go. But she had the feeling that He was busy with something, because the previous evening the Holy Spirit kept on waking her up to pray in toungues at various intervals.

When she heard my story she understood that this was the reason she had to stay. She was willing to give me a stone from Iceland, to bless me, and to send me to Zion with a message of salvation from Iceland.

She felt that the Lord had been very particular in leading me to this fellowship, since it is a unique place of revival in Iceland. Baldur is 29 years old and only came to the Lord one year ago from a background of drugs and abuse of many kinds. He was saved radically and started a fellowship for his friends in his house soon after he was saved. God has been using him powerfully with many miraculous healings and deliverances taking place almost daily. Within one year they have about 100 people coming on a weekly basis to this prayer room where they meet and minister Mondays-Fridays. On Saturdays he is at a fellowship in Keflavik (where the international airport is) and on Sunday everyone goes to their own churches. Normally the place is almost always open, they get food donations and people are free to hang around as long as they want. The ministry remains focusses on people trapped in various adictions, and they have a vision to start rehab/decipleship homes for people who want to leave the street to follow Jesus. It is called Koerleikurinn, which as I understand is the Icelandic for Agape or the love of God.

After we shared Gudrun prayed for me for the journey and for my health too. She prayed in Icelandic and I could not understand what she said, but I could feel waves of power going through my body. When she was done I felt much stronger. As I prayed for her I really had a revelation of her as a representative of the Bride of Christ in Iceland. I felt so honoured to have met her.

I told her I had to read the book of Revelations and asked if I could stay to do it. She showed me how to lock the place behind me, and then she left. When we hugged and said goodbye I felt as if I was greeting bloodfamily. I could not stop thanking her and blessing her and thanking God for her. I’m looking forward to seeing her again, even if it may not be in this life again.

I was left alone in this big place to read Revelations. I was tired and it was hard. At the end of chapter 9 I lay down on the floor in the ministry area and slept a little. I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke up fresh and strong. I finished reading the book and when I came to the last chapter I again felt the urgency with which the Spitir and the bride are saying ‘COME!’
When I walked back to the youth hostle in the late afternoon the sun was shining and I was suddenly able to see how beautiful everything is. I had the strangest feeling that I will be back before too long.

At the youth hostle I quicly went onling again to get all the info for the people I would meet in the Faroes that night. Then I took the bus to the little domestic airport in the heart of Reykjavik from where the Atlantic Air flights also depart.

The flight was delayed for about an hour. And when we finally flew the 80minute flight was ear-torture again, but I did have a beautifull view of sunset on the desertlike volcanic interior of Iceland aswell as the little icecap and what I think must have been one of the volcanoes.