Bjørn Ole grew up in Oslo, Norway, where from an early age he got to love hiking and skiing in the forests and mountains. At secondary school he came across a book about Initiatives of Change in a public library, and later he made the decision to give his life to God, which changed his plans for the future. He left his university studies to work full-time with IofC, first for two years in England and then for nearly six years in Latin-America, mostly in Brazil, in the 1970-ies and 80-ies. He worked closely with people from the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and young people in Salvador da Bahia. The experiences and friendships in Latin America had a major impact on his outlook on life and the world. When working with IofC in Norway, one of his priorities, together with others, was on building bridges between people of different ethnic backgrounds and politicians and local authorities.
While in Brazil he got to know Josephine Buhagiar and they got married in her country Malta in 1986. They went to live at the home and centre of IofC in Oslo, but spent several months in Central America in 1987 and 1988.
In 1992 they moved to Malta where they initiated two Mediterranean Dialogues of IofC in 1999 and 2001.
Bjørn Ole did some free-lance writing for the newspaper Malta Independent and later taught English at Easy School of Languages in Valletta for 12 years, while Josephine got a fulltime job as a tourist guide.
Their son Martin and daughter Anne-Marie grew up in Malta. Both are passionate about the life of birds and the protection of the environment and pursued university studies in that field. Anne-Marie lives and works in Norway while Martin works in Malta.
