Bronchitis and 24

Bronchitis.......not one of my best friends as of lately. This annoying sickness managed to keep me down and out of the game for 11 full days, before the anti-biotics finally killed it. Yep...11 days. I haven’t been that sick that long since I was a little boy, so it was a very new experience to be so sick. I’m still fairly tired after many nights where I couldn’t sleep more than 3-4 hours before very seriously-sounding coughs woke me up.

24....

I did get fairly tired of our little two-room-apartment, but on the bright side I had time to watch a lot (!) of movies and tv-series on my beautiful laptop. As always the King of Queens was a true friend in times of trouble, but also Seinfeld and all three Lord of the Rings-movies were good companions. And then there was 24, the first season. I had never seen any of the 24-seasons, but that sure is an interesting and cool show!! Wow...what a rush!! Jeannette and I watched the whole season within a few days, and I’m not sure I would’ve liked having to wait a whole week between the episodes.

Danish delicacies

I continue to rejoice in the fact that we have a Danish bakery here in Kiev, where I can buy beautiful Danish breakfast products such as birkes, spanske rundstykker, franskbrød, spandauere, snegle, brunsviger and even kanelgifler. The different items are sadly not called by their true Danish names, but that doesn’t seem to annoy my taste buds:-) I went out to get some Danish delicacies for Jeannette and I, together with red roses of course, for Valentine’s Day, and I’m convinced that it wasn’t only the medicine, but also the Danishes that helped kill my sickness. “A Danish a day keeps the doctor away”.

It looks like the whole wave of demonstrations and burnings of the Danish flag is calming down some, but it remains scary to think about the things that have been done. I’m still working on my article about the differences between Christianity and other religions (my brain didn’t work during my 11 sick days), but it’s definitely interesting to be alive in 2006, where the clash between different value systems is so obvious. This is only the beginning of more and more clashes I’m afraid, but I hope that we can start debating our differences in a more civilized way than burning and threatening.

Go Dnjepr!!

The snow is still falling here in Kiev, and my wife and I still don’t really believe the rumors we’ve heard of the beautiful springs and summers in Ukraine. We have only seen snow and cold, and we long for something different. But hey...it’ll probably still be a few months before we hear the birds sing and see the green grass. I love green grass. It reminds me that the football season is about to start. I hope to go and see some games in the Ukrainian league, especially when my Ukrainian heroes, Dnjepr Dnejpropetrovsk, com to the city to play against Dinamo Kiev!! Go Dnejpr!!

Torben

Today's insight: “Nothing has power to tempt me or move me to wrong action that I have not given power by what I permit to be in me. And the most spiritually dangerous things in me are the little habits of thought, feeling, and action that I regard as ‘normal’ because ‘everyone is like that’ and it is ‘only human’” (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy)

Cold...

It sure is cold in Kiev these days....

How we look

Here is how we look! Or at least looked. The picture was taken last summer in beautiful and sunny Denmark:-)

And the Danish flag keeps burning...

Hello! Kiev, Ukraine, February 3, 2006

The Danish flag is known to be the oldest official flag in the world. It dates back to 1219. So far the flag has been pretty unknown to most of the world, but that's definitely changing these days!

Now the Danish flag seems to be on every news site online. Not because the Danish men's handball team made it to the semifinal in the European Championship and not because the next Crownprince Christian was just baptized, but because of some drawings of Islam's prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. And the flags are not being waved in triumph, no they are burned the same way we've seen so many Stars and Stripes being set on fire in the Middle East.

Wow......people setting the Danish flag on fire....Danish footballers losing out on a new contract because they come from Denmark....boycott of all kinds of Danish products....and lies being told everywhere in the Islamic world about Denmark...

It seems pretty extreme!! I don't think it was the brightest idea in the world to bring 12 caricatures of Muhammad - some of which were pretty sarcastic and disrespectful to say the least. But it was hardly the crime it is being made out to be either.

Let's look at some facts:
- Denmark is a country with a strong tradition for a very free press!
- Most of the drawings that have been published in the Islamic world and which cause the harshest reactions have NEVER been published in Jyllands-Posten!
- Jyllands-Posten is a privately owned, commercial newspaper and it is NOT owned by the Danish state!
- Danes are NOT burning the Quran, falsifying it or any of the things that have been mentioned in Arabic newspapers!

I know that it's a crime for a Muslim to draw pictures of Allah or Muhammad, but Denmark is not a Muslim country. As already mentioned I don't think it was a good idea to publish the drawings.

But what is the reasons behind the massive hatred going towards a tiny country these days? It's about something bigger than just drawings, isn't it? What is the real issue?

There is something bigger going on here. A lot of European newspapers have published the drawings to show their solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, but also to show that they want to fight for the right to make caricatures of whoever they choose to. For secular people this is a fight between religion and freedom of the press. For secular people freedom of the press is one of the highest powers in the post-post-modern secular nation, where religion is rarely mentioned and definitely never defines what the press can and cannot print. Muslims have a different practice where Islam is over everything including the press.

But what about a Christian perspective? What do we have to say. I think this whole case very clearly shows some of the differences between Islam or any other religion and Christianity. How many times have we seen drawings, movies, pieces of art, etc. mocking Jesus in ways that make Jyllands-Posten's caricatures of Mohammad look like nothing?

I'm writing a longer article on this whole subject with differences between Christianity and other religions. Watch out: it might end up on this blog soon!:-)

But for now: please stop burning my flag! I and the other 5,5 million Danes ARE NOT responsible for what one, commercial newspaper decides to print. The pictures today where the Danish embassy in Damascus, Syria was burned to the ground are absolutely horrible, and I can only hope and pray that no blood has to be shed over this issue.

Gud bevare Danmark - God bless Denmark!

http://www.jp.dk/english_news/

Check out the Danish newspaper's website with news in English and make up your own mind!

Torben

Now in English!

Hey! Kiev, Ukraine, February 1, 2006

This is a world premiere! My first blog ever in English. For a while you've been able to view and read my Danish blog www.riisjensen.dk/torben, but since it's a fairly limited number of people who speak and read Danish, I've decided to make an English version.

I'll be writing on a fairly regular basis on my thoughts on life, my relationship to God and loads of other subjects!

I work here in Kiev with Youth With A Mission, www.ywam.org and www.ywamkyiv.org. My wife and I just came here to Kiev three weeks ago, so everything is still very new.

I was born in Denmark 29 years ago and I've lived there most of my life. I've done a lot of travelling both as a normal tourist, as a bagpacker and as a missionary. I've been to 31 countries so far, but my goal is to join the Century Club (for people who've been to more than 100 countries) before too long:-) This week the founder of Youth With A Mission, Loren Cunningham's sister Janice Rogers has been here to Kiev doing a writer's seminar, and her brother is one of the very few people who has been to every single country in the world! That's of course my ultimate goal, but the next one is 50 countries, then 100 and then I'll go for all of them!

My stomach is telling me that it's time to get some food.

Talk to you all later!

You are of course more than welcome to leave comments, questions and whatever else you feel like!

In Christ!
Torben Riis Jensen