Blog: By the river Nile

One sum­mer day, dri­ving home from work, I lis­te­ned to the sum­mer­ti­me ser­vi­ce ra­dio. The spe­a­ker was tal­king about Mo­ses’ birth. As I was lis­te­ning, the story of Mo­ses came ali­ve in my mind and ac­qui­red con­no­ta­ti­ons that I had not pre­vi­ous­ly at­tac­hed to it.

Blog: I see a campfire in my mind

A friend of mine cal­led to­day and in­vi­ted me and my wife to at­tend a camp in De­cem­ber. I was de­ligh­ted! The or­ga­ni­zers had de­ci­ded that one theme for the camp would be “God’s gui­dan­ce in life, at ti­mes of both tri­als and joy”. They had cho­sen to ap­p­ro­ach this theme through pe­op­le’s life sto­ries.

Blog: "Money does no bring happiness, but it makes things easier"

We were vi­si­ting my pa­rents when my son cal­led. He said a guy from the po­wer com­pa­ny had come to switch off elect­ri­ci­ty. I told him to calm down and said I would call the po­wer com­pa­ny and set­t­le the mat­ter.

Blog: Important people

Many of us have va­lu­ab­le hu­man re­la­ti­ons­hips out­si­de our im­me­di­a­te fa­mi­ly. I have such re­la­ti­ons­hips with se­ve­ral pe­op­le. When I was lit­t­le, my grand­fat­her was one of those im­por­tant per­sons, and I spent a lot of time with him. Eve­ry­bo­dy in our fa­mi­ly spoke res­pect­ful­ly and for­mal­ly to him, and I found it stran­ge when some vi­si­tors ad­d­res­sed him with his first name.

Blog: We rely on eternal God

I was not par­ti­cu­lar­ly in­te­res­ted in ge­ne­ral his­to­ry in high school. I pas­sed my his­to­ry fi­nals ska­ting on thin ice. I was not one of the luc­ky stu­dents ab­le to me­mo­ri­ze the main li­nes of his­to­ry while stu­dying for their fi­nal exa­mi­na­ti­on.

“This gathering was very important for me” – Pastors’ gathering at Hankasalmi Camp, October 3–4, 2022

So com­men­ted pa­rish pas­tor Sam­po Luuk­ko­nen from Loh­ja du­ring one of the fi­nal speec­hes kept on Tu­es­day. Mee­ting ot­her [be­lie­ving] pas­tors [or­dai­ned in the Evan­ge­li­cal Lut­he­ran Church of Fin­land] and peer sup­port is es­pe­ci­al­ly im­por­tant when one at ti­mes feels lo­ne­li­ness in their work. The pre­sen­ta­ti­ons, de­vo­ti­ons, wors­hip ser­vi­ce and many dis­cus­si­ons of ti­me­ly to­pics cau­sed many to say as they left for home: “It was worth it to come.”

Blog: ”Continue to bless him in the future and also bless his dearest one”

We ce­leb­ra­ted our god­son’s wed­ding at La­pin­lah­ti in Au­gust. The yo­ung coup­le had wan­ted to inc­lu­de a se­lec­ti­on of be­au­ti­ful in­ter­ces­so­ry pra­yers in their wed­ding ri­tes. Short pra­yers were read by the of­fi­ci­a­ting mi­nis­ter, the mot­her or fat­her of the bride or the bri­deg­room, one of the sib­lings, one of the god­pa­rents and one friend.

Blog: I want to hang onto this psalm

We have been li­ving in un­cer­tain­ty for months, cons­tant­ly awa­re of the glo­bal si­tu­a­ti­on. News of the hor­rors of war may have kept us awa­ke at bed­ti­me. Many pe­op­le wor­ry about the se­cu­ri­ty of their own li­ves in the midst of this tur­moil.

The situation in North American Zion was discussed at the beginning of the meetings of the sister organizations.

The an­ti­ci­pa­ted mee­ting of the sis­ter or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons oc­cur­red af­ter a pau­se due to CO­VID. Rep­re­sen­ta­ti­ves of three cent­ral or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons of our Chris­ti­a­ni­ty, SRK, LLC and SFC, gat­he­red for about a week-long coo­pe­ra­ti­ve work mee­ting in Ou­lu. The re­gu­lar­ly sche­du­led mee­tings had been pau­sed due to the co­ro­na­vi­rus pan­de­mic. At the joint mee­ting, the joys and sor­rows of the work of Chris­ti­a­ni­ty were sha­red. A cent­ral to­pic in the dis­cus­si­ons was the di­vi­si­on that has hap­pe­ned in the midst of North Ame­ri­can Zion, which has re­sul­ted in a he­re­sy.

SRK, SFC, and LLC Executive Secretaries:

"We experienced a mutual understanding of faith in discussions"

The mee­ting of sis­ter or­ga­ni­za­ti­ons strengt­he­ned the mu­tu­al work even furt­her. The dis­cus­si­ons were open, and the par­ti­ci­pants ex­pe­rien­ced a strong mu­tu­al un­ders­tan­ding of faith.