The Father heart of God week with Finns

What a week we had last week..

The Finnish DTS arrived a bit earlier than we expected on Sunday afternoon, 19th of November :) We were so happy to meet them again! On Sunday we got together as staff and in the evening our students had organized a welcome party for them! I was leading this week so I was running around organizing different things and changing schedules with Annika constantly.. what a busy week!

Bex and I spent Monday in Tromso, picking up our teacher for this week and Bex doing some driving lessons. Our teacher came all the way from South Africa and we were truly blessed and privileged to have him here.. for sure. This week was amazing, I just wanted to stick in to my chair and sit in the class all the time but unfortunately I couldn't because of so many other things going on all the time. Annika and I also finished our final project for the BLS - leadership school and we are so happy it is done now and over. This week we also played this "Angels and Mortals" blessing- game and it was so encouraging! These Finns are such a great bunch of people! It was so good to see the class room packed with students and staff and people EVERY WHERE and all the base prayer/worship times together - wow. I was so encouraged. Yesterday they left, we were running and waving and opening the gate for them to go. We miss them already! But I think I will stop by and say hi to them when I go home to Finland for Christmas. They start their Christmas break a bit later than we do so it is possible to me to go and visit them again.

This weekend has been extremely difficult. There are some things in my life I have had to let go and it hurts.. it hurts to let go of something you have held so close and dear. But even though right now it feels like I've got nothing left, I still have everything. It feels like I have had to let go of many of my dreams and hopes for future and now there is only emptiness left. Now it is only me and God. I have no clue what to dream, what to hope, what to do in the future. I have no plans left. Everything is open. Everything is in front of Him. I am totally empty handed. It hurts, it is painful. Tears do not help. But still there is something that brings me joy. There is freedom. Finally freedom. And I am so happy I can fully stand in front of God and say : "It IS yours. I AM yours." Now there is no plans left. Now there is no other options. And it feels good.

God always has the bigger picture. The biggest picture. He knows what He is doing. He is up to something. When He closes something, He also opens something. And I am so happy the way He has led me so far.. I can not believe the way He has brought me through.And I just suddenly remembered how this fall some things have come back to me time after time.. during some worship and prayer times I felt God saying to me and showing me a picture me laying facedown on the ground. Not being able to move. Totally on the ground with my face. And this is exactly how it feels.But.. in this situation when there is pain and hurt.. in the midst of all that.. He is up to something. He is. I know. :)

"Your grace has found me just as I am
Empty handed, but alive in your hands"

SATURDAY NIGHT WITH A PROJECT

We spent the whole Saturday afternoon, day, and evening working with a project Annika and I need to get done by Wednesday for BLS - school we are taking. This means budgeting our outreach, goals, vision statements, strategies, time schedules, action steps and bunch of other things. So.. we sat down in front of our kitchen table and started to work. Later in the evening Annika wanted to REFRESH me a little bit..

.. so I ended up having a bunch of snow in my neck.


.. this is how it felt after sitting
and planning for 6 hours :)

One on one walk with Hilla on Saturday!

We had a nice one on one walk on today! there is some snow on the ground and it was still light outside so we went out for a walk and it was beautiful! Borgen is the place to be, I am telling you. I would not change this place for anything else right now.

Some fun times

We went to Tromso last weekend and I think we had quite some fun.. we had NO CLUE we (Bex and I) were supposed to lead the evangelism in Saturday night and I kind of paniced a little bit but guess who was again bigger than our worries.. yep, He. While I was driving the super duper Mercedes we got a phone call and after that things started rolling and we ended up being at the streets of Tromso twice in that evening PLUS attending an evangelistic meeting with a bible school from Sweden. We did some prayer and prophetic evangelism (sounds scary :) at the streets and I think it was a good experience and challenging as well.. to actually ask God to give some words of encouragement and wisdom and GO and TALK to people, just like that. I enjoyed it! We ended the evening in Burger King and drove back home late.Yes!

This week has been quite different than previous ones. We (DTS staff) were part of a leadership course for young leaders here at Borgen. Some people from Eintroa-base joined us as well as some other leaders from Borgen. It was a long week, long teaching days plus all the DTS work we had to do during the breaks we had from the school. So we were running around this week more or less :) But I am so happy for this week. I learned some new and important things as a young leader. Especially the last day when Jan Torland was teaching about Visionary leaders.. wow. In the end all the "older" leaders as Jan, Terje and Leif, prayed and prophesied over all of us and it was very powerful. Go God again!!

Well well.. now we are only waiting for the Finnish DTS to join us on Sunday!! Yippee! Finally! Tonight we had a pizza+movie night at our place and we still (Annika and I) have to work quite a lot this weekend but then.. we get ready to party with the FINNS! I am honestly so happy they are coming. And I can not believe we are almost done with this lecture phase.. only 4 weeks left and we are going home, it is crazy. Preparation for Mali is going fine and we sent our visa applications and passports last week. You guys can pray for our visas and passports to arrive safely and that everything would go just fine. I am still sometimes thinking about our last year's experience and praying hard it would not happen again. Trust God - it will be fine. Now I am seriously going to bed.. here some pics from last week, when we went to a concert.

NARVIK

okey, I start from the beginning.
Last week was kind of crazy. Honestly. Annika went down to Oslo for YWAM Norway leadership conference and we had teaching about "Spiritual Warfare". Every single day during last week we had lots of dance, drama, preparing and so many extra things! One evening we spent almost 3,5 hours to practice dance and in the end we finally learned it! All this practice and preparation was because of a local outreach in Narvik coming up in the weekend. We also celebrated Bex's birthday on Wednesday! We woke up 5am in the morning and woke her up with some pan cakes and singing - and she thought that was all.. no way! We had organized a surprise party for her in the evening! That was some fun :)

At the end of the week Oyvind (my outreach leader/staff/friend) came to visit us and it was so good to see him! It was just too bad that there were not too many people at the base and we were just running around ALL THE TIME. I think we worked from 7am until 10.30pm the whole week without too long breaks. But that's how it goes! :) and we survived!! Then on Friday we took off to Narvik! Most of the people from Borgen were involved with this weekend we had in Narvik : 3 churches had organized a fellowship weekend with many meetings, seminars, children meetings and youth meeting. We were so blessed by the people there and got to bless the churches and got good opportunities to encourage people and especially the few young people they have in the church. On Sunday we had an exciting drive ( accidents on the road, ambulances, huge trucks, blinking lights, dirty windows, slippery roads, saw dangerous passings) back home and we thanked and praised God for His protection and angles with us!

Now we have settled down home and are back in the normal routines. This week we have teaching about "Relationships".. good stuff. I will have my day off tomorrow and I am so thankful for that! Now it's really getting to the point that we are starting to get ready for the outreach to Mali.. and I also wanted to ask you to stand together with us in this. The financial situation for some of our staff and students is not very good. We are struggling to get the outreach money. We are booking the tickets to Mali soon and I am trusting God to show His faithfulness once again! :) He has showed it to me so many times. We believe God has called us, our team, to go to North-Africa, next January for coming 3 months and spread His love and message for those people and especially for those street children there. Wow.. I am so excited to see what God has prepared for that time and how we can serve Him in TIMBUKTU! GO GOD! So here we go.. please, remember us in your prayers!! We a great week!