After three days the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.” Joshua 3:3,4

Settings, circumstances, important words… Reading the passage above helps me to get a better understanding of the significance of the transcending of a whole nation.

For 40 years they waited, complained, walked in circles, shifted generational while the moving out and the moving in only had two people that went through both crossings! I love to paint the picture, while we “spiritual people” mostly get stuck to the words that conditioned our christian life. Words life crossing over, promise land, sanctify yourself and so on! Even the “since you have never been this way before” speaks to our spiritual imagination.

For me “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it” hits the target today.

When you see: Covenant and Carriers! Follow!

So many people have crossed over, left family and friends, to go by themselves, forsaking the nation part and just did the individual being saved part! Until today the only (!) result was many, many saved people but… No following, no entering as a corporate movement! And because of that, we need to cross over again and again! Because of that we lost the assignment of taking the land, while taking the land became taking my land!

Last week we buried our mother! Our mother was with us as part of our little “moved to Sweden family” so connected to the calling as she has been carrying this assignment from her youth! In 2002 we “remembered” her 40 years walking alone as a desert experience, after her husband left her and she decided to walk on with her 4 children and her God as her only true companion. Even that time we could not imagine that some of them, voluntarily would return to the desert, but we, as a people, we crossed over. We saw, we saw covenant and carriers and we followed! Father formed from that moment a nation with the identity of a family!

One of our close friends wrote us this little note, as it is a salute to our mother and the things she valued: Family, covenant and following Him!

Hello Rob!
I have some impressions that I tried to summon and they came out as a letter. Maybe a little strange but I know that you will read and handle it for best.

Letter to Augustina
I didn´t have the opportunity to know you more than through other persons. But through these people I realize that I got a relation to you. The way that your family valuate the family, the importance of being together and to extend the family is a powerful demonstration of Gods will and how He is.

Now you have completed your race and won the prize that our Master will give you. A life that is so focused on Jesus doesn´t pass away without effects. Your life didn´t just happen, it had a purpose in Gods great plan. Though the sorrow and missing is great something new is happening.

Like a seed that dies in the soil when it is time to transform to become a plant your life ended in the hard and not so easily changed soil of Sweden. The seed/the life transforms and the legacy bears fruit hundredfold, sixty and thirty, in good times and bad times.

My prayer that started the day you went to our Lord is:
Jesus, wake up more soldiers like her.
Soldiers who are called but who now sleeps or are too weak.
Soldiers that will break free from the chains of this world.
Soldiers that will serve one Master and won´t bow down to the idols.
Who will have oil in their lamps.
Who will live from the living bread and know that they are healed by His blood.
Who will live in perfect peace.
Who won´t seek empty honor but will rejoice in the presence of the Lord.
Awake!

This is not about us, not about individuals, but about seeing and following, as a family, as a people, as a nation!

your life ended in the hard and not so easily changed soil of Sweden!