Today we’re off as a family to Sweden for ten days. It’s a mix of business and personal and hopefully all pleasure. Initially we’re with our core church planting team for the weekend in Stockholm to spend time together, to pray, to dream and to invest in relationships ahead of what is going to be a busy year for everyone as we we begin to countdown towards summer 2012. I’m excited about being there with our whole team and hearing from God together.

We’re staying on as a family for a week’s break to rest, chill out, walk and play before returning for the last leg of life in the UK. We still haven’t sold our house so if you’re someone who prays we’d be grateful for prayers for that.

So there will be some pre-written posts over the next ten days or so but no links or book stuff until I get back.

In the meantime here are some fun facts about Sweden for you:

* Sweden has the longest life expectancy in Europe, 80.5 years.

* Swedish women has their first child in average at 30 years old , the oldest in Europe along with the Netherlands and Ireland.

* Sweden has the highest percentage of working mothers in the developed world, 76% of all the mothers go back to work.

* 40% of the Swedish women and 32% of the Swedish men aged between 25-64 participate in education or training. The EU average is 10% for women and 9% for men.

* As of 2006, Sweden had received 27 Noble prizes, including 5 peace prizes. This is the highest per capita ratio.

* Sweden has the highest ratio of McDonald’s restaurants per capita in Europe.

* Sweden has the highest number of nuclear plants per capita in Europe, with 10 reactors for 9 million inhabitants.

* Sweden has – along with Denmark and Hungary – the highest VAT in the world: 25%.

* Swedish Inventions include:
– The perfected the design of the zipper (Gideon Sundbäck).
– The marine propeller (John Ericsson).
– The refrigerator (Carl Munters and Baltzar von Platen).
– The computer mouse (Håkan Lans).
– The pace-maker (Rune Elmqvist).

* A popular Swedish souvenir is the road sign for moose-crossing. Every year a huge number of these signs are stolen from Swedish roads.