How We Ended Up at Grefsen

The workshop my father was renting in Drøbak only had a five-year lease. The landlords were elderly and did not want to renew the lease after it expired, so he had to find another house and job. One of my mother’s relatives, Herman Solberg, had a plot of land at Tyristrand, which we had a chance to buy. Father found out that building permits were going to be issued in that zone, and he was the only one that had applied. He went to the county council in Drammen to take care of the details. He introduced himself and told them that he had applied for a building permit at Tyristrand. How­ever, the secretary was unable to find anything on file. She looked high and low but couldn’t find the application.

So my father had to go to the telegram office to call Herman Solberg and tell him that the council had not received the application. It turned out that the chairman of the building committee at Tyristrand was also chairman of the Inner Mis­sion. This man had hidden the application because he was afraid of false doctrines spreading to the village!

My father had to go home without finishing his business. When he arrived in Oslo that afternoon, he intended to catch the bus back to Drøbak. But he got there just as the bus drove away. “This is really a day of adversity,” he thought. Suddenly he saw a bus that was heading to Kjelsås. Since it would be several hours before the next bus to Drøbak, he decided to visit Edwin Bekkevold, since he lived so close. When he ar­rived at Grefsen, Bekkevold said, “Your brother Aksel was here and told me you were going to build at Tyristrand.”

My father then told him what had happened with the build­ing application and that he didn’t quite know what to do next.

Suddenly Edwin Bekkevold said to his wife, “Ingrid! We have a plot of land, and none of our children want it. They just want to travel, you know.” 

“Could that be something for you and your family, Helge?”

“If your children don’t want it, I would very much like to have it,” my father answered.

And that was how it happened.

My father called Aksel J. Smith and asked his advice as well. His advice was clear: “Go ahead—I’ll be your guaran­tor!” His mother had exhorted him to help my father if needed, since Aksel had acquired their parents’ house in Horten.

When our family moved to Oslo, doors opened every­where. My father was even allowed to build the house 10 square meters larger than normal because we had a big fam­ily. This made it possible for Rakel and Sigurd Bratlie to move into our house. They had been living with the David Myhre family, but the Myhre family needed more room for their own family in their relatively small house.

Just as Joseph experienced God’s amazing guidance and goodness, we experienced that what some people meant for evil, God turned to be for the very best.