Dear reader and friend,

Civic Life and Responsibilities

After the Election in September 2002 I have accepted different responsibilities in our Society at the same time as I have left some in order to avoid increased work loud. I find it most interesting and meaningful to participate in various political and civic tasks.

The Liberal Party

I have left the Board of the Brännkyrka Liberal Party but accepted at the Annual Meeting to be auditor and chairman of the Election Board. Several new enthusiastic members have been elected to the Board, which means a renewal. I have continued to serve as the Liberal Party representative at the Annual Meeting of the Study Union Vuxenskolan.

The City Court

I have accepted a new period of four years to serve as Lay Judge (nämndeman) of the Stockholm City Court, where all Criminal cases are dealt with.

The Stockholm County Court

This Court is an Appellation Court for all civil cases. I have chosen to serve at the Social Department and am pleased with this responsibility.

The Stockholm City Auditors

I have changed responsibilities at this Group. I used to serve in the small Group Auditing the very City Auditors Office and have now accepted a much wider responsibility. I am now a member of the Group that is auditing all the Councils of the City of Stockholm and this is a tremendous task – just imagine reading all minutes of all the Boards, several hundred a year! But most interesting! We have of course employed Chartered Accountants to do the actual work for us – but the elected Auditors are the ones who have to take full responsibility for the auditing.

CBSI

I have for a couple of years worked with the translation of the Bible Study material produced and published by the CBSI (Community Bible Study International) We are four people in Sweden who do the work, a tremendous task covering most of the Bible books. And taking many years to do. I have so far translated 1 John and Ephesians and have been working for a year with the Gospel of Luke, 24 chapters. We report back to the European Head Quarters in France and are visited of the voluntary leader for Scandinavia, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Holte and Mrs Nancy Cox, who come to Sweden twice a year to build up the structure for Bible study work all over the country, which began in 2003 as we now have enough material to guarantee that we will always be ahead of any students, who work in Bible study groups.

The material is unique for Sweden as we never had any Bible Study material covering chapter by chapter of the Holy Scripture. Many are praying for and supporting the work we are doing – we are all doing this in our spare time as we all have other heavy responsibilities as well.

The Archive Group of the Bethel Seminary

I am working with a number of former leaders on the National Level of the Baptist Union (BU) to organize the Historic Material collected at the Bethel Seminary for decades. I myself am responsible for all photos, diapictures and films, so far mainly related to the International Ministry of the BU. I have the last four terms worked with Dr Mrs. Alice Rinell Hermansson with the China material; she is likely to be the only one at this time capable of recognizing buildings and persons related to the work Swedish Baptists began in China ín the 1890^th. So we have a big work to do. Last year I worked with Mr. And Mrs Tore and Anna-Britta Karlsson in a similar way with old pictures from the Congo and Ann-Britt continued our cooperation also after the death of her husband. I myself can handle material from many countries during the last 40 years – but I definitely need help with much older picture and slides. I am overwhelmed over the wealth of material from the old times.

I have sooncompleted three years as Chairman of the Stockholm District of the RPG. We have had a number of successful arrangements and are now planning for the next year of activities.

Leadership course in February, Annual Conference in March, Visit to Åland in May and other arrangements are planned.

I had he privilege of leading a week of Fellowship and Experiences in August 2004 at the Baptist Historical Sight Vallersvik, a popular Vacation and Conference Center on the West Coast. About thirty people from ten places met for a marvelous experience with several interesting sightseeing tours to lovely places around Vallersvik. One of the purposes of the RPG is to offer such experiences – and this one was most successful.

The Annual Conference of the Baptist Union

Vi participated in the Conference at Västerås and experiences a wonderful fellowship. It is always lovely to meet friends you have seen for decades – and also make new friends. This conference was unique as it was the first time three Denominations arranged their Annual meetings together; services and feast were joint enterprices while the actual business meetings were separated.

The Help fund for Africans

I have for many years belonged to this group assisting Africans, who have great difficulties to be integrated in Sweden. The members of the Reference Group come from a number of Churches/Denominations and we are supporting the work done by Rev. Elie Kabwe, the father of whom is an old friend of mine, Bishop of an independent Baptist Church in Central Africa. The work is in a crisis at this point as one of the denominations has withdrawn its support and we wait for new participants in the "Diakoni för afrikaner" group.

Isak

The Grandchildren

Our grandchildren are all doing well and make us always happy. Michael’s oldest son Daniel has spent his second year the Medical School in Linköping. His brother Joel has left KTH, the Technical College of Stockholm, and entered the medical school in Stockholm, Karolinska Institutet. Their sister Rebecka is graduating from High School in the spring of 2005..

Jan´s son Christian is studying at the Technical College in Linköping. His sister Caroline is finishing a two year course at the University of Stockholm in sign language.

Marie´s oldest son Hannes begins his military service in January 2005, the second son is at the High School and the two youngest sons, Jon and Alfred are still in Primary School at Hammarö in Värmland.

We have moved

The biggest change for us is that we have mover from our house in Örby, where we lived for almost 20 years, to a four room apartment in Björkhagen. It ´s the first time we move from a big house to a much smaller place and it has meant radical changes for us. We love this new apartment and are happy that we moved at the right time .

150 years (75+75)

We have both celebrated our 75^th birthday. We had arranged a feast at our church in March when about 100 friends attended a special service with singers with whom we have worked throughout the years and a sermon by Sven. We thank all those who gave about 40 000 Sw. Crowns to Healch Care in the Congo. Our family made a cruise in April to Åland and celebrated on the ship together. A lovely experience.

Centenary of our Church

In October and the beginning of November we celebrated the Centenary of our Church and saw a number of people, who were spiritually born in Betania in the past join us for the celebrations. Guest from the Congo and Estonia participated as well.

Läkarmissionen

I have been a member of the Board and Executive Cttee of the Läkarmissionen (The Swedish Medical Mission) for more than 30 years. Now things are radically changing on the National level so that we are cooperating with the Erikshjälpen and have formed the Nordic Relief and on the European level we have formed a fellowship of similar organizations called Eurocord. The former Läkarmissionen Director Allan Carlsson becomes the Nordic Relief Director and Kjell Andersson is serving as the Director of the Läkarmissionen. We are by these changes preparing ourselves for the future, which can be met with confidence in cooperation and forming of groups that can more easily work with units like the Swedish SIDA and the European Union.

Sincerely,

Sven Ohm

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