The room was qui­et. The yo­ung boy was sit­ting alo­ne in the twi­light, sta­ring at his phone. My wife and I in the li­ving-room were won­de­ring why our son’s life was so lo­ne­ly. We were wor­ried that his lack of friends might le­a­ve deep scars in his mind. It was as if he were qui­et­ly slip­ping away from life.

The teen-aged boy had age ma­tes at school, and being an out­si­der among them did not seem good. But ma­y­be he had got ad­jus­ted to the si­tu­a­ti­on and did not re­al­ly pon­der about it. We tried to disc­reet­ly en­cou­ra­ge him to meet new pe­op­le, but no na­tu­ral friends­hips de­ve­lo­ped.

We al­so dis­cus­sed with him his plans for se­con­da­ry edu­ca­ti­on. We ho­ped he might feel ins­pi­red to go to Opis­to. Du­ring the ye­ar in Opis­to he would ho­pe­ful­ly find friends and be ab­le to sort out his life. Trade school was anot­her al­ter­na­ti­ve. He ap­p­lied to both. We ner­vous­ly wai­ted for the res­pon­se from Opis­to.

The whole fa­mi­ly sha­red our con­cern. One of our daugh­ters con­tac­ted the prin­ci­pal and made an ap­pe­al for our son. We were over­jo­yed to re­cei­ve a po­si­ti­ve res­pon­se. He had been ac­cep­ted. The He­a­ven­ly Fat­her had not for­got­ten him.

With just a few days left be­fo­re the be­gin­ning of the fall se­mes­ter of the Opis­to prog­ram, our son was still weig­hing the op­ti­ons bet­ween trade school and Opis­to. He told me he knew one boy who was going to the trade school. We re­min­ded him of what had hap­pe­ned du­ring their pre­vi­ous re­la­ti­ons­hip. My wife sug­ges­ted that he could go Opis­to for three weeks to see if it would be OK for him. If, af­ter the three weeks, he would feel it was not for him, he could drop out. We ho­ped those three weeks would show him the way.

The Opis¬to ent­ry hall was full of yo­ung pe­op­le when we ar­ri­ved with our son. It was safe to see the na­tu­ral and cheer­ful exp­res­si­ons of those yo­ung pe­op­le. On the eve­ning of the first day there, we gat­he­red to­get­her to hear God’s word. We felt that Opis­to was like a safe ha­ven for those yo­ung pe­op­le and al­so for our son.

We ner­vous­ly wai­ted for the first wee­kend le­a­ve. What would be our son’s de­ci­si­on? We knew that the ot­her boys in his li­ving unit were nice and so­ci­ab­le. We did not get any long exp­la­na­ti­ons, but he said it would be no good his le­a­ving Opis­to now. We comp­le­te­ly ag­reed.

We he­ard laugh­ter and ani­ma­ted dis­cus­si­on from his room, like the sounds of a bub­b­ling brook in the spring? “Can my friends come and stay over­night? Can I go and have sau­na with the boys? Can we take our car to go the Opis­to Win­ter Days?” We lo­ved to hear those qu­es­ti­ons! His voi­ce was no lon­ger pai­ned by lo­ne­li­ness. He was smi­ling again and felt good about life. Sha­dows had sub­si­ded and been rep­la­ced by light and suns­hi­ne.

Text: Vesa Kum­pu­la

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen