Trip to Stockholm

I'm enjoying the day off today after returning home last night with my family from a week long production at Ekebyholm, the Adventist high-school near Stockholm. This particular trip was unique because it was the first time that myself, the audio technician and our four Media Missionaries were the only ones who came from LifeStyleTV. The producer thought it would be better for me to lead this time while he and the others worked on other projects at the station. All I can say is that the Lord really blessed with a very smooth production. We taped every morning and night a week of prayer with Jeffrey Rosario. My crew and equipment performed very well and we all had a good time.


As a bonus, it happened to be Roxana's birthday that week, so we all took a day off between meetings on Thursday to have some fun in Stockholm. We took a quick trip by the castle where the king and queen live, ate at this amazing vegetarian all-you-can-stuff-yourself-silly restaurant that overlooks the river, and visited a museum that houses the Vasa, a 17th century Swedish war ship that sank in the harbor on her maiden voyage due to design flaws stubbornly held onto by the king at that time. Then we finished off at one of Stockholm's premier bakeries for cake and a tour by one of the bakers who happens to be a good friend and former Media Missionary at LifeStyleTV.

~Richard

Leaving LifeStyleTV

This week I officially put in my resignation at LifeStyleTV. This was anticipated because of the temporary work status that I qualified under when we moved here. But because of the critical nature of my position, this still means that I won't be leaving until 2nd Quarter,2008. In the mean time, I am helping to find a qualified replacement. I've begun to work on a job description that will go something like this:

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Editor/Director Wanted

LifeStyleTV, a Christian media ministry based near Malmo, Sweden, is seeking a team player with a proficiency in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Mac OS X and DVD Studio Pro programs to produce and edit various media projects as assigned. Applicant must be able to write scripts and create storyboards, be able to direct live programs at church and elsewhere as needed. Position requires a history of Christian dedication and willingness to relocate to Sweden. Please contact Claus Nybo at cn@lifestyletv.se to submit your cover letter and resume or call +46 415 425 10.

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The question everyone is wondering now is, where are we going next? Well, we've left that in God's hands and we're still praying for His guidance.

Please keep us all in your prayers as we undertake this important next step in our lives.

~Richard and Family

Richard III's Fourth Birthday

On Sunday, September 16th, two days after Richard III's Birthday, we held a small party for him and invited his best friend, Elliot. Elliot's dad is the Communication Director at LifeStyleTV. We organized a treasure hunt for the boys and Roxana made lots of yummy food that everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Just before we sat down to eat, we spotted three moose in our back yard! That was probably the biggest birthday surprise of all.

~Richard & Roxana

Kivik Apple Mural

Recently, we drove out to the east coast of Sweden to the small town of Kivik. Each year they put on a special festival during apple season and one of the highlights is a large mural made entirely of local apples. It took 70,000 apples (5 tons) to create this work of art.

~Richard

Moose Sighting

Yesterday, just before dinner we spotted three moose in our backyard. Sweden is known for having lots of moose, but the big deal was finding them here! This was the first time we had seen any in the area and the locals tell us that it is extremely rare to find them this far south.

~Richard

The Ramont Family Website

We are excited to announce the creation of a new website for our family and friends:

http://rramont.blogspot.com

We want you to know about all the exciting things that are going on with our family as we live and work in the mission field here in Sweden. You will get periodic email updates from us and if you visit the website, there you will find photo and video galleries, links to ways you can contact us, and even local news and weather. So go ahead, check it out, and tell us how you like it either by posting a comment at the end of a particular article or simply by sending us an email. And if for any reason you would rather not get email from us, just let us know (we won't be offended, honest). Also, please pass this around to anybody we may have missed and let them know that they can subscribe right on the homepage.

Thanks and enjoy!

~Richard & Roxana

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The Ramont Family - http://rramont.blogspot.com
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Trip to LegoLand

From LegoLand

Recently, my mom and sister came over for a short visit. One of the highlights of our time together was a trip to the original LegoLand in Denmark. We assumed it was located somewhere near Copenhagen which is about an hour's drive from where we live but it turned out to be a 3 1/2 hour train/bus ride beyond to the little town of Billund. The only redeeming factor to it being out in the sticks is that it was close to an airport. But all in all, it's worth the time spent getting there. Millions and millions of little tiny plastic bricks form beautiful scenery at every turn. It's a lot of fun to see and of course the boys throughly enjoyed it. For some scenes, they claim it would take a person 12 years to build by himself! I think it would be a lot of fun to work there. Can you imagine saying, "yeah, I play with Legos for a living"?

~Richard

Trip to Romania

From Elviras Wedding

From Mama Ana

This summer right after we wrapped up the VBS, we headed off for Romania. Roxana's sister was getting married and we didn't want to miss it! While we were there, we met lots of relatives on both sides and we even took a trip to visit Roxana's Grandmother on her mom's side out in the country. We enjoyed a wonderful 2 weeks with some of the best weather we've experienced in a long time.

~Richard

Vacation Bible School

From VBS

We had our VBS in May since most Swedish people leave for the summer. Our church here has never heard of a VBS, so we organized our first one this summer. Not many Christians in this country, so we were hoping for at least 10 kids from the community besides our own. We called our program "Spring Fun." And the kids did have a lot of fun. We had perfect weather the whole week (which is a big deal here:). Our first day started with 10 kids and our program ended with 27. Our theme was, Who is Jesus? Each evening we started with outdoor games, then we had a lesson from the Bible, Jesus our Shepherd, our Provider, etc. and then we had a craft. The Lord really blessed our program.

~Roxana

Ambassadors for Christ 2007

Ambassadors for Christ is LifeStyleTV's biggest and most important event of the year. It goes for nearly a week and a half, ending on Easter Sunday. During the week, we hosted a series of Bible training classes called Bible Boot Camp with a health seminar series for the public each evening. Then, over the last weekend, we featured a special guest, Sebastian Tirtirau (pictured), who talked about his extreme mission adventures from the Arctic to the Kalahari dessert. His stories have captivated audiences everywhere. Click here if you would like to listen to one. In all, we came away with over 40 hours of finished programming. Directing this one was a real marathon!

~Richard

Zachary's First Words

Today we started counting up how many words Zachary knows at 15
months. Here's a list of what he says:

1. no
2. mine
3. I know
4. what?
5. papa (food)
6. yuck
7. apa (water)
8. mama
9. tata (daddy)
10. Richard
11. happy
12. I'm fine
13. te rog (please)
14. gata (I'm finished)
15. arde (it's hot)
16. nani (sleep-baby word)
17. hi
18. bravo
19. moo (when asked what the cow says)
    
20. amen
    

~Roxana

LifeStyleTV Goes Live!

On the 3rd of March this year, LifeStyleTV went live from our studio for the first time. It was also my first time directing a live show. And who better to film than Mr. Danny Shelton, President of 3ABN, and his lovely wife watching over my shoulder the whole time!?!? Needless to say it was a real adrenaline rush for me and by the end of the half hour interview, I was nearly shaking.

A lot of our solutions at LifeStyleTV are home-baked, cost-effective guerrilla techniques that don't always perform the way they should. But some how, by God's grace, we made it without any significant problems. The Shelton's were impressed and feedback emails from viewers confirmed that we were on the right track.

~Richard

Inspiration Weekend 2007, Norway

Our first big trip of the year, Oslo, Norway. It was the beginning of February and -4 F outside . Snow and ice covered the road as we made the 8.5 hour road trip North. It actually ended up taking us close to 11 hours. A section of road in Northern Sweden had completely disappeared in a mud slide a few months earlier and traffic had to be routed another way. Sometimes trying to follow foreign detour signs can be a little unnerving, especially when the road suddenly ended on the banks of a large river. Before we could decide what to do, we were being motioned to proceed onto an old barge which carried us to the other side. We shuttered to think how much we were going to be charged before they would let us go, but it turned out we were on the right path and this was part of the planned detour.

Our destination was a small village on the outskirts of town, called Skotselv, home of the European Bible School. They were hosting a weekend of youth meetings and LifeStyleTV was asked to cover the event. The keynote speaker was a young Hispanic from BC, Canada named Jeffrey Rosario. He was a lot of fun to direct. He was full of interesting stories and strong spiritual applications. In fact, to hear what he said, click here.

Filming took most of my time, but Roxana and the boys had a lot of fun sledding when they got tired of sitting. The air was so cold, that crystals would form on your eyelashes and the inside of your nose felt like Velcro. Norway is gorgeous any time of year. I would have preferred Summertime, of course, but it was the family's first time and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. Although the trip home took just as long, I'm still amazed at how well our 1 and 3 year olds did. They're real road warriors!

~Richard

My First Blog

This is my first attempt at blogging so excuse me everyone! I'm still trying this out to see if I like this way of communication or not. It's a bit more hassle than simply shooting off an email to people. Besides, how do people venture across this blog to begin with to even know that I've said something new? Anyway, at least they can look back at previous posts once they find it. And for me, I've got a neat way of looking back and reminiscing, ahhhh.

~Richard