Blog: Eve­ryt­hing all right

It is a crisp, cool au­tumn af­ter­noon. I re­a­li­ze I have enough time af­ter the school day to drive to our count­ry cot­ta­ge, pick a pail of cur­rants and make them in­to jui­ce on the wood-bur­ning stove. What bet­ter way to un­wind af­ter a day in a noi­sy clas­s­room!

Blog: Ope­ning the door of my wri­ting cham­ber

”Many thanks for sen­ding yo­ur samp­le blog text to Päi­vä­mies! We would like to in­vi­te you to start as a new on­li­ne blog­ger.”

Blog: And how did I end up here?

I used to write a co­lumn for Päi­vä­mies. That was a fun pro­ject. So­me­ti­mes I had prob­lems mee­ting the de­ad­li­ne. It was a big re­lief to be ab­le to put the ty­pew­rit­ten pa­ges in­to an en­ve­lo­pe in the mor­ning and drop the let­ter in­to the mail­box on my way to work. So­me­ti­mes, ho­we­ver, I wrote the next co­lumn while still wor­king on the pre­vi­ous one.

Blog: Group work

I am spoo­ning por­rid­ge in­to my yo­un­gest child’s mouth. Or trying to. He is sha­king his head right and left, stretc­hing his back, tur­ning his body around, trying to re­ach things, kee­ping his lips shut tight. He pays no at­ten­ti­on to my thre­ats that he won’t stay on the he­alt­hy growth cur­ves if he does not eat. I give him pie­ces of coo­ked ve­ge­tab­les that he can pick up him­self and eat. He ta­kes a coup­le of bi­tes and pus­hes them away. Frust­ra­ted, I won­der why simp­le ea­ting can be so dif­fi­cult. But then I re­mem­ber so­met­hing from my child­hood. I was around 6 ye­ars old, sit­ting on the floor with my sis­ter. We were sur­roun­ded by dol­ls and dol­ls’ clot­hes, our own clot­hes, dra­wing pa­per, cra­yons and stic­kers. We had been or­de­red to take away the glass jar full of la­dy­birds that we had col­lec­ted the pre­vi­ous day, alt­hough we would have li­ked to have kept them as pets. Mot­her had told us to tidy our room, but it see­med too much work. We had not even star­ted ti­dying when mot­her al­re­a­dy cal­led us to eat. We won­de­red which would be less fun, to tidy our room or to eat. Both see­med like pu­nish­ments. Time has eli­mi­na­ted this prob­lem, at le­ast as far as ea­ting is con­cer­ned.

Blog: Lost

Tying the belt, I walk quick­ly to the door. It could be the chair­man of the hou­sing as­so­ci­a­ti­on. Have I for­got­ten to pay my wa­ter bill?

Blog: Pre­ma­tu­re­ly?

I lay in bed cur­led up, sta­ring in­to the dark­ness. As the pain in­ten­si­fied, grief en­com­pas­sed my mind, my body, my whole being.

Blog: Chan­ging the at­mosp­he­re

When I woke up the first-gra­der, she felt and loo­ked fe­ve­rish. Was that why she had slept so rest­les­s­ly? She had wan­ted to come in­to our bed and had then tos­sed and tur­ned all night. I felt I had hard­ly slept at all. I took her tem­pe­ra­tu­re, gave her some me­di­ci­ne and made bre­ak­fast.

Blog: The po­wer of en­cou­ra­ging words

Ima­gi­ne yo­ur­self at a nor­mal week­day meal. You hear the clat­ter of spoons and smell the aro­ma of hot soup. There is the hum of con­ver­sa­ti­on with oc­ca­si­o­nal si­lent mo­ments. And then, all of a sud­den, you feel small arms around you and see the sun­ny face of a child. “She is so nice. This mom­my is so sweet. I love you very, very much.”

Blog: Val­gus mu teel – The light on my way

The camp of the Lut­he­ran Church of Es­to­nia, Talu, is lo­ca­ted in Saku twen­ty ki­lo­me­ters away from Tal­linn, the ca­pi­tal city. Talu is Es­to­ni­an and me­ans a ’farm­hou­se’. And we ac­tu­al­ly saw cows and hor­ses gra­zing around the camp. Hens were pec­king for food on the yard, and our lit­t­le daugh­ter was al­lo­wed to col­lect their eg­gs. The Ap­ril sun was shi­ning so warm­ly that the pe­op­le who had gat­he­red at Talu for a Bib­le study cour­se de­ci­ded to keep some of the les­sons out­doors.

Blog: On a mis­si­on trip to Gui­nea

Du­ring my re­cent mis­si­on trip to Gui­nea we vi­si­ted many ho­mes in Nze­re­ko­re and Co­nak­ry, kee­ping ser­vi­ces in vil­la­ge hal­ls and gar­dens. I was tra­ve­ling with the To­go­le­se spe­a­ker Nic­ho­las Deh and Gui­ne­an Alp­hon­se Haba, who li­ves in Gam­bia. Alp­hon­se al­so trans­la­ted our speec­hes and ser­ved as our gui­de.