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.

Re­mem­ber me!

When pe­op­le say good­bye, they of­ten al­so say: ”Re­mem­ber me when you pray to the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her.” Or simp­ly: ”Re­mem­ber me.” I have thought that this re­qu­est is not me­re­ly a be­au­ti­ful phrase. It is the pe­ti­ti­on of a poor Chris­ti­an that I would pray on his or her be­half. For a per­son who ma­kes this re­qu­est the most im­por­tant thing is to re­main be­lie­ving and to get in­to he­a­ven.

My se­cond birth is crys­tal clear in my mind

Ser­gei Ge­ra­si­mov is a Rus­si­an vi­car from Pri­morsk. He re­cei­ved the grace of re­pen­tan­ce du­ring a con­fir­ma­ti­on camp for Rus­si­an be­lie­vers in Jäm­sä.

Gree­tings from the child­ren in Ke­nya!

The last few ki­lo­me­ters of the ride to the lo­ca­ti­on of the ser­vi­ces are bum­py. The child­ren in the yard no­ti­ce us and run to greet us. The ol­der child­ren can speak Eng­lish well. An in­terp­re­ter helps us vi­sit with the rest – eve­ry­o­ne is ab­le to greet and say their name wit­hout an in­terp­re­ter.

The Holy Spi­rit

“For where two or three are gat­he­red in my name, there am I among them.” Trus­ting in this pro­mi­se, we of­ten gat­her to lis­ten to the word of God and its exp­la­na­ti­ons. The pro­mi­se is great, but how is it pos­sib­le?

Christ as the Re­dee­mer

God cre­a­ted the world and all was well. The si­tu­a­ti­on chan­ged when the ene­my of souls temp­ted Eve in to ta­king fruit from the tree of good and evil. The wo­man did not have the strength to re­sist the temp­ta­ti­on. Ins­te­ad she took the fruit and ate it. Then she gave it to her hus­band and he ate it al­so.

Fat­her – Cre­a­tor

God is al­migh­ty. As the Al­migh­ty, God is the foun­da­ti­on of eve­ryt­hing. He is pre­sent eve­ryw­he­re, sees all, knows all, is right-min­ded and per­fect­ly good.