Text: Jou­ni Le­so­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

Wed­nes­day is the most im­por­tant week­day. Soon af­ter the noon I be­gin to glan­ce at my watch, won­de­ring if the mail­man has al­re­a­dy come. A lar­ge part of the ad­ver­ti­sing fly­ers and ot­her le­af­lets that come in­to our mail­box go un­re­ad in­to the re­cyc­ling bin. But I take the dai­ly news­pa­pers, stack them by my armc­hair and be­gin to read. The big­gest lo­cal pa­per con­tains a lot of in­te­res­ting in­for­ma­ti­on about Kai­nuu, Fin­land and the world.

Now that I have time, I read the dai­ly pa­pers qui­te ca­re­ful­ly. At the bot­tom of the pile is Päi­vä­mies. I know it will re­qui­re more time than the ot­hers, and I sit up straight for the en­jo­yab­le ex­pe­rien­ce. I pon­der whet­her I should read the pa­per be­fo­re ha­ving cof­fee, with the cof­fee, or af­ter cof­fee. If the edi­to­ri­al has an in­te­res­ting he­a­ding, I read it first. So­me­ti­mes I start with some ot­her ar­tic­les and come back to the edi­to­ri­al la­ter. The Bib­le text for the co­ming Sun­day and Food for the Jour­ney are im­por­tant sec­ti­ons. Ma­y­be be­cau­se I have pre­vi­ous­ly been in the wri­ting team for both. The Bib­le text for the co­ming Sun­day is es­pe­ci­al­ly im­por­tant if I need to speak at Sun­day ser­vi­ces. I may just skim some of the ar­tic­les and go back to them in more de­tail la­ter. In the eve­ning my wife and I so­me­ti­mes dis­cuss the con­tents of the pa­per.

– Did you read that ar­tic­le? It was in­te­res­ting.

If I must ad­mit that I have mis­sed that par­ti­cu­lar ar­tic­le, I want to do some furt­her re­a­ding. Our dis­cus­si­on so­me­ti­mes re­ve­als in­te­res­ting and im­por­tant things that I had mis­sed on my first round of re­a­ding.

Obi­tu­a­ries al­wa­ys make me pau­se and re­mi­nis­ce. They call up me­mo­ries week af­ter week.

Way back in the 1980s we used to at­tend a camp for mot­hers and fat­hers eve­ry au­tumn. Those camps are now known as camps for spou­ses. That camp was one of the high­lights of our ye­ar. We ea­ger­ly wai­ted for the camp and, when back home, be­gan to wait for the next one. Du­ring those camps we de­ve­lo­ped friends­hips that have las­ted for ye­ars or even de­ca­des. We of­ten met old ac­qu­ain­tan­ces on the camps and had pro­found dis­cus­si­ons that furt­her strengt­he­ned our friends­hip. It was em­po­we­ring to lis­ten to mar­ried coup­les in the same life si­tu­a­ti­on. When our ol­dest child­ren were about se­ven, many of them had child­ren who were se­ven­teen and still had a baby or a tod­d­ler along. But that stage in life came to an end for us and for them. We al­so stop­ped going to those camps, but we still oc­ca­si­o­nal­ly meet our friends.

A few ye­ars ago I came ac­ross a fat­her who had at­ten­ded many camps with me a long time ago. We met for a short chat af­ter ser­vi­ces in the dark fall eve­ning. We exc­han­ged thoughts and then re­tur­ned to our dai­ly tasks. We met again on a sun­ny sum­mer day at Mu­hos Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces in 2019. Again we had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss, this time a lit­t­le lon­ger. We tal­ked about the ar­ran­ge­ment of the ser­vi­ces and mar­ve­led at how well eve­ryt­hing see­med to be going.

From that mee­ting I es­pe­ci­al­ly re­mem­ber him tel­ling me about ser­vi­ces where he had spo­ken.

– I en­cou­ra­ged the lis­te­ners to be­lie­ve. Af­ter the ser­vi­ces a man came up to me. He said he was not a be­lie­ver, but said he had he­ard how I told the lis­te­ners they could be­lie­ve per­so­nal­ly whe­re­ver they were sit­ting. He wan­ted to be­lie­ve the gos­pel.

We then left each ot­her in God’s pe­a­ce. We did not know that this was the last time we met.

On­ce again on a Wed­nes­day I was sit­ting and re­a­ding Päi­vä­mies. I was al­most done and came to the obi­tu­a­ry page. I pau­sed, start­led. I was deep in me­mo­ries again. My friend from many camps – his name was next to a cross. Re­mem­be­red by his wife, child­ren, grandc­hild­ren, friends and many ot­hers. He would be bu­ried in his home cong­re­ga­ti­on in three weeks’ time.

In my mind I thank all of you who cont­ri­bu­te to the is­su­es of Päi­vä­mies that are so im­por­tant to us. I know that my qui­et thanks from this hou­se where I am sit­ting in my chair will not re­ach you who re­gu­lar­ly write for Päi­vä­mies. Ne­vert­he­less, I would like to pre­sent my thanks through this blog post.

I turn the last page. My re­a­ding ses­si­on has come to an end. I know that many of the ar­tic­les sche­du­led for the next is­sue have al­re­a­dy been star­ted or even comp­le­ted and are wai­ting for the pub­li­ca­ti­on day. I re­main to wait for the next Wed­nes­day.