Let's have a chat,man to man.

There are many things I really love about Canada, and there's one thing they do over here that I'd like to talk to you about. They'rereally accepting and open-minded. You might get offended by this old friend, but try not, because I'm not trying to insult you personally, it's more of a generality with a nation that I'm struggling with. Mostly this one:

Do you know what? I'm just going to say it how it is. Some of you are really narrow- minded and tradition based. After all these years of knowing me personally, I still get teased quite harshly about my faith and my thoughts. That's so crap.

I've heard so many of you say things like:

'Man må respektere alle religioner/one should respect all religions.' But what you really mean is: every religion except; Islam, Judaism and certainly not Christianity. If you're sensing any anger in my voice today, you'd be dead right.

When we first came to Canada, and they asked us what we were doing here, we avoided saying we were at a Christian school because of all the comments we'd received from our mates in England and Norway, mostly. Eventually though, we started to answer that we were studying Christian stuff at a Christian school, and to our complete surprise, people were absolutely fine with it - happy even. Now, don't do that automatic cynical thing you do now, were you mutter under your breath: 'Oh right, I bet they were just B.S.ing you and being false,' we thought that too, but when we started to get to know these people, we realised that they were just more open minded and encouraging than most of people we've been with. I'm not talking about my close mates here. I'm talking about people that I bump into on a fairly regular basis that are just so incredibly, cynical, narrow-minded, and bitter about what I believe in.

Before I came to this school and was telling my employers and people I hung around with were I was headed, I received mixed reactions. Most of my mates were intrigued, but pleased for me. Some people thought it was strange, but didn't make life hard for me, but some people laughed openly in my face, or snarled at me when I mentioned it. My boss laughed and teased me about it in a really cold way and others would make comments whenever it was mentioned. That's incredibly hurtful and crap - I really don't like that. I feel like I’m throwing pearls for swine when I tell people about things that mean a lot to me. It’s so stupid and unnecessary. I know I can be narrow-minded too, but not in such a cruel way, I hope, and not so persistently.

I’ve been so impressed by the people here. They’re real, friendly, open minded and encouraging – it’s been really healing to be here. Even people from other religions were interested and responded courteously about what we were doing here. They were generally interested to meet us – that’s love and acceptance.

I feel it is incredibly hypocritical of Norway in particular, when people insist on bringing their children up to be ‘tolerant’ of all religions and cultures, yet are so incredibly anti; Israel, Christians, Muslims, Jews, evangelism, titles and discipline. Mostly yous scream and preach about nothing, because some of yous haven’t even bothered to check the facts first. What rubbish!! Your children will, and do, see right through your words straight into your actions. Everyone in the universe knows that actions speak louder than words.

There are hardly ever calm discussions that involve one person gently sharing their opinion with another person and vice versa in Norway. Instead people interrupt and drown people out, to such an extent as to rip your own personal opinions to shreds. I wish it was different-I really do. There, I said it.

Why is it this way? I reckon it’s because we haven’t mixed a lot with other nations yet. We’re not used to discussing things in a civilised way, and we’re not very accepting or encouraging of other people –yet. You can’t change a whole nation, but you can whinge about it and feel hurt by people’s actions for a while – and you can move away to experience more accepting people. You can never give up, and you can educate in a non-patronising way.

Soooo, are you allright? Are you annoyed or insulted? Have I made you think……a bit? Are we still mates? Only time will tell.