Confirmation

My boys are going to be going through the sacrament of Confirmation next spring. It is a two year process and they are wrapping up their first year now. As the religious education coordinator of the English-speaking community at St. Svithun's (there has to be a shorter way of saying that!) I wanted to go this year and support our young people.
The Mass was entirely in Norwegian with our Bishop from Oslo presiding (actually I think he's the only bishop in Norway), Bishop Bernt. He did annoint our two English-speakers in English, which was nice. We have several English-speakers being confirmed next year, so I think I am going to plant the seed of doing one of the readings in English and alternate the prayers of the faithful in English and Norwegian.
There were 46 young people confirmed, so we were not in our own church, but the methodist church, St. Petri's, which is much larger. There were many different nationalities represented in this service. I wanted to show you some of the bunads (Norwegian national dress - which is different due to whatever area of the country your family hails from).
From our English-speaking community we have 4 confirmands this year: 1 from the U.S, 2 from Scotland (who will be confirmed in their home parish in a few weeks) and 1 from Trinidad. Our family went to a Trinidadian barbecue that evening to celebrate. Ah...the food...it was fabulous! The company was even better!
The one picture of the man dressed as an altar server...his name is Thomas and he is leaving to go to seminary this fall. He is truly a great person and will make a fabulous priest. He had the job of reading all 46 names of the Confirmands. Considering there were more than a dozen Vietnamese confirmands, this was not an easy task. He did a great job!
Bishop Bernt never once cracked a smile...maybe he was smiling and I wasn't realizing it... :o) The priests had warned the confirmands that this bishop likes to slap the cheek of each confirmand (okay it was more of a caress than a slap) but it made the confirmands pretty nervous!