It’s been an ongoing joke in my time in Youth With A Mission that my students have to learn a lot about the little, fairly insignificant Scandinavian kingdom of Denmark. Of course I have to educate my students about the wonders of the fairy tale nation, and so I have with stories, quizzes, songs and different lovely food. Now that I’m soon leaving YWAM Kyiv and my role as the director of Discipleship Training Schools (DTS) here, I thought it was appropriate to make sure that the leaders who will follow in my shoes will continue to share important facts about Denmark with future students. So I made a little list with the 16 most important facts that anybody should know about Denmark. And here it is for you, dear blog reader, so you can be educated about the important things of life as well ;-)
1. Denmark is the oldest existing kingdom in the world
2. Denmark has the oldest existing flag in the world (June 15, 1219)
3. Denmark is ruled by a queen (Queen Margrethe II), and her husband is a prince not a king!
4. Denmark has the happiest people in the world
5. Søren Kierkegaard was a very intelligent Dane who said clever things such as : “Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself” and “Purity of heart is to will one thing”
6. “Rødgrød med fløde” (approximately strawberry porridge with cream) is really hard to say if you’re not a Dane
7. LEGO is the greatest Danish invention ever
8. …but Skype comes pretty close..!
9. Norway is not the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen (København) is!
10. Hans Christian Andersen, the world’s greatest fairy tale writer, was born in Odense, Denmark
11. Denmark’s highest point is only 170 meters (557 feet) – in your face, Mount Everest!!
12. Denmark is made up of 444 islands of which 76 are inhabited
13. Clicking on www.fck.dk will take you to the website of Scandinavia’s best football club
14. Denmark has, without much competion, the greatest food in the world
15. Danes like to draw and print cartoons, also when they probably shouldn’t…
16. Denmark’s language is called Danish, not Dutch…!!!

That won’t be too hard to remember, right?!!
Torben