Last Friday marked a year since I gave notice at my job, telling my former bosses and colleagues of my intent to write about the Bible and spread the Gospel.

I remember at the time being consumed with daydreams about what my new career path would be like.

I had myself traveling throughout Europe and Scandinavia, passing out testimonial tracts to all I met, especially my blood relatives I’d never met in Norway.

I had myself driving across country in a beat-up used car, acting as a Charles Kuralt-type journalist reporting on Christian lives and work across the U.S.

I had myself walking the streets of Manhattan in a nice suit and heels, passing out tracts and free copies of my first book to whomever showed an interest.

From those original aspirations, even this website was supposed to be elaborate—a veritable newspaper with constantly refreshed stories, bible lessons, opinion columns, people photos, etc.

So, what did I do with this first year?

None of it’s easy to quantify (and no one that I know of can make me, thank goodness!), but my faith in what I’ve decided to do has only grown as a result and everything I dreamed about a year ago is still in my mind to do.

I am now preparing to have my tract printed and have set a final, final deadline for my book of May 1.

As for this site, it’s going to be a lot more direct from now on.

Frankly, I’m bored with myself worrying about who’s going to be turned off by what. I figure the site--and everything else--has to be exactly what I want to say or it’s simply not going to work.

Life’s too short, the world’s in too much chaos and my money’s in too short of a supply for me to question my every move and indulge in endless insecurities about my writings. “Either poop or get off the pot,” I’ve been chiding myself lately.

Having said all that, let me tell you one recent development that has helped reinvigorate the missionary-zeal in me.

A week ago this past Friday, a close friend I’ve known since college informed me he was flying into Newark from L.A. for a business meeting in Philadelphia but had his first night free to hang out with me in New York City.

His plane wasn’t scheduled to land until late Sunday afternoon so he suggested I meet him in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to avoid wasting time by him driving into Manhattan.

I loved the idea and upon thinking of the prospects of an unexpected rare excursion to the borders of Brooklyn, I made up my mind to finally--after four years of living in the city--check out Bay Ridge’s old Norwegian neighborhood.

At one time, the neighborhood had the most Norwegians per capita outside of Oslo. Immigrants first started coming over in 1825.

Getting off the N-R subway at 59^th and 4^th, I was struck by the absolute lack of anything Scandinavian. Instead, the neighborhood’s shops and restaurants reflected a major influx of Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Asians.

The first item on my sightseeing list was Leif Erickson Park, a New York City park at 66^th and 4^th that dates back to the early 1900s. It’s a decent-sized park with big old trees and I got a kick out of the signage honoring Norway’s favorite son (even if Ericksson’s name is spelled incorrectly). At the entrance to the basketball courts are two brick posts featuring a marble relief of a Viking ship on the high seas with the words “Valhalla Courts.”

After taking a few pictures, I proceeded up to the Danish Club on 65th between 7^th and 8^th avenues, which I learned from the internet is a popular place for Scandinavian social affairs.

Sure enough, there was a Norwegian fall dance going on when I dropped in and I stood at the entrance of the big banquet-style dining room to hear some live fiddle-playing and watch some Norwegian folk-dancers in full costume.

After checking out the dark-wood bar at the other end and then all the old photos and plaques in the hallway, I left in search of the old Scandinavian Lutheran and Free Evangelical Lutheran churches I had also read about on the internet. While the architecture looked Scandinavian, I could tell by the signage and sermon boards that congregations must now vary dramatically in ethnic origin. One church even gave times for services in Spanish.

Seeing the churches gave me a hankering to go home and dig up information on the specific origins of the Christian faith my grandparents carried with them when they sailed to America from Norway in the 1920s and settled in Superior, Wisc., a heavily Scandinavian town on Lake Superior and separated from Duluth, Minn. by a bridge.

My father, along with his older brother and sister, was raised in a Lutheran church and his Norwegian-speaking mother was always noted for her strong faith (my grandfather died when my dad was only three).

What I learned upon some investigation (both through the internet and a Norwegian history book I saved from my dad’s study after his death) is that Leif Eriksson was actually on his way to Greenland to spread the Gospel when he inadvertently ran into America and discovered its existence!

“He had been home to Norway on a visit and had taken on the task of converting Greenland to Christianity for the king of Norway, Olav Tryggvason,” explains Gunvald Opstad in the book “Norway,” published in 1991.

King Tryggvason was most responsible for converting Norway to Christianity and to hear how he went about is utterly unfathomable. His career was as a warrior Viking, raiding and slaughtering through areas such as Bornholm, Friesland, Germany and England. He was, in fact, slaying people in Scilly Isle when he was converted to Christianity!

Upon returning to Norway to convert the citizenry, any unwilling recipient of the Word was slain. According to one ancient account from the book, “King Olav had all these (unbelieving) men gathered in a room and had it all well laid out; prepared a great feast for them and gave them strong drink; and when they were drunk Olav had the place set on fire and burned it and all the folk who were therein, except Oyvind Kelde, who got away through the smoke hole.”

Kelde, as the account goes, was later captured and abandoned on a rock on the west coast of Skratteskjaer to slowly drown with the rising tide.

Norway’s other heroic king, Olav Haraldsson (now recognized as Saint Olav), is said to have used the exact same conversion tactics.

In the 14^th century, Bible-carrying Norwegians traveled to Lapland, the northernmost part of the country, to give the Gospel to the indigenous nomadic tribes (known as Sami or Lapps).

The Sami’s pagan religion of animal sacrifice and worshipping carved wooden and stone deities was condemned as idolatry and devil-worship and Christianity was imposed by law. “The death penalty was prescribed for Lapps who would not give up their religion, and their shamans, the noiades, could be burnt at the stake for refusing to convert,” says the book.

Centuries after this forced conversion to Christianity, a Swedish missionary by the name of Lars Levi Laestadius became an extraordinary figure in Lapp history by giving the ancient culture a new take on the grace of God, as told in the Bible, and bringing about a Christian “awakening” in the 1800s that eventually extended to Scandinavians in America through the efforts of Lapp missionaries.

“He moralized and chastised the Sami, taking on the role of both father and teacher to the impoverished farmers and nomad Lapps,” writes Opstad. “He hated excess and drunkenness, and especially the liquor that wrought havoc among the Sami. He called it ‘liquid Devil’s shite’. But he spoke to the Sami in their own language and respected them for what they were.”

One of Laestadius’ closest workmates, Juhani Raattamaa, wrote more than 300 letters on Biblical issues, 90 of which were sent to America in the mid-1800s. Services eventually started in Minnesota.

Of this incredible movement stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic, Raattamaa said in 1898: “I have seen this Christianity begin from a mustard seed. Now it is a tree whose branches extend over the oceans, and I have to say, ‘O, Immanuel, how Great is Thy grace.’ ”

The overall meaning I got from my own “awakening” to Norway’s Christian heritage is that spreading the Gospel appears to be in my genes and I’m, in essence, carrying the torch in an age when biblical Christian belief is not being shared with younger generations.