IT IS.. ROVANIEMI!!

The first thing I must say is that I MISS BORGEN.
It was so difficult to leave.. those guys had organized a nice good bye party for me and I was really touched and encouraged by everyone of them. And I cried all the time. Of course. I enjoyed spending those last days with Bex and I think we had quite some fun in Storhytta and I miss you so much Bex! And everyone else.. Bea,Hanne,Jenny.. everyone.

But now it is time to get used to living in a city again! It actually feels kind of funny to be around some people again and to be able to go shopping when ever you need something and everything is just around the corner! My place is starting to look like a home to me now and I am enjoying living in this apartment and the location is perfect.. it only takes couple minutes to walk to down town and everything is really close. Plus the pretty view from my window.. by the way, Bex I was telling you how warm and sunny it was in Rovaniemi before I left Borgen.. just so you know, it has been snowing almost every day and windy and STINKING cold! :)

I will start working next week. Now I have been settling in, meeting friends and spending time with my sister. There are so many things to take care of! I have been surprisingly busy this week. And I still haven't gone to the doctor as I should have, after Mali trip. But next week. I will! I am also really excited about the coming "Highway" conference in August and it feels like there are so many things coming up I will be involved and I am happy for that. I was a bit scared to come back and to be alone and not having too many people around and yes, it has been a bit different and lonely, but I am doing OK. And I am happy. It's not like the best weeks of my life but I am doing OK and it is enough for me. God keeps on showing me how He is always the same, He does not change. He is always faithful. And I can trust that. Yes!!

Now I gotta go.. I am still up, we are watching "Finland - USA" Ice Hockey World Championships! And it's almost 4am. But that's ok. See you guys around. I will post some photos later.

LEAVING BORGEN

I can not believe this day is actually coming so close.. and I am packing and ready to leave. We will have a good bye-party on Monday. And oh man all the tears I can already see :) It has been a good spring.

We went for another recruiting trip to Karasjok a week ago. It was really encouraging to attend this youth conference and we got to share about Borgen,DTS,Mission Adventures and other summer mission trips. It was my last recruiting trip this spring and we had so much fun. Poor Andrei has been traveling with us 3 girls the whole spring, there has been a lot of laughter in the car. We have been going through all the Africa memories and experiences over and over and.. over again. It seems like there is no limit how much you can talk about Africa!

Talking about Africa.. I have had a difficult decision making time this spring. I have probably told you already that there will be a 1 year team from YWAM Norway (Borgen organizing) going back to Douentza,Mali, where we worked for 1 month with these amazing garibou boys. This work is quite pioneering and helping Lorna, the local missionary. And my heart is totally in there. But I am going home now and the original plan is to start studying next fall. I still pray that God would show me the right way to be part of this ministry : to actually go there myself or to send others and support them that way. Oh man I love that place and those boys!!

Yes! So many exciting things happening and so many questions without any answers and so many unknown things ahead and doubts. But God sees the big picture and He knows what is coming up next and how He is going to lead me through them. Right now it feels like I can only see the first step of the long stairs but God sees all the way until the last step. And I am sure He knows if it's best for me to go back to Africa now, or in 2 years or in 10 years. Or somewhere else.

Well I gotta go and enjoy these last days here!It's +15C outside and it feels like spring is finally coming! I will let you know what is happening when I get back to Finland.. I can't believe it, it's SO SOON!

SPRING AT BORGEN

Well well, time surely goes by fast and I definitely need to enjoy every single minute here at Borgen.. I am leaving soon :/

Right now we (Bex,Annika and I ) are actually on HOLIDAY!It was needed and it feels really good. We have this coming week off and we enjoy it indeed. Oh yea.. I haven't told you anything about our trip to Sweden! It was such a good trip!! We drove down to Rovaniemi and stayed at my apartment!! It was quite funny to be there in an empty apartment knowing that this is the place where I am going to live for the next.. years? In the evening we explored the city with Annika and Bex and went to McDonalds.I mean.. of course. What else can you do there?? Oh well anyways.. I am looking forward to move and to see what is coming up next. It's exciting and scary. And I feel really sad to leave Borgen.
(PICTURE/Me,Annika and Bex in Rovaniemi)


ANYWAYS.. we continued our trip to Sweden the next morning! Andrei FORCED (well it wasn't that hard to force us :) to stop in Ikea on our way :D They have stinking cheap pizza I must say. After Ikea break we drove all the way to Rosvik, where this youth happening was going to be held. There were about 30 youth I think.. on Saturday evening there were more people and we got some time from the evening meeting to share about DTS and other ministries we have at Borgen. We had our beautiful, stunning and attractive stand with us and people wanted to know about DTS and other things and it was really encouraging! I felt this church was really encouraging and I enjoyed being there, meeting the youth and getting to know new people. On Sunday we drove back to Rovaniemi, on Monday continued back to Borgen. We had fun. God is good.

One day our base leader Leif decided to take us to his cabin in Kilpisjarvi(Finland). We were so excited to go and get to go ski dooing!! It was Annika,me,Bex,Andrei,Mari,Kristina and Leif. This day was unforgettable and I think I will just post some pictures and let them speak for themselves. :)



















































The end of April we will have another promotion trip to Karasjok.
Now we just rest, chill and watch "One Tree Hill".
Yes.. we are addicted.
We watched seasons 1 and 2 in couple of days.
Oh well. Too bad would Lene say. ;)


(a little explanation for these pictures..
1. ready to rock Kilpis!
2.everything is still going good, everyone is hanging in there and enjoying the ride!
3. and then.. we took a short cut and got stuck. of course. water on the top of the ice. a LOT.
4. the girls are ordered to crawl back to the track. that was a neverending crawl i must say.

.. and too bad we don't have any evidence pictures how 2 girls( not mentioning any names but Bex and Hanna) crawled back to the ski doo and helped the boys to lift it up and we got to turn back and squeeze some icy cold water out from our boots.. it was FUN :)

MALI 2008

Mali here we come!Air France had
some GOOD food.


Ligretto in Paris...


... and in Bamako.


From Bamako we took a buss to
Douentza. 14h ride.


Douentza. Abosulutely stunning.


Annika and some bananas.


Me,John the Baptist, Mr DJ,
Amadu and Allu.


Our fantastic mosquito nets!


Amadu, me and Allei.


Beautiful Amadu.


Sunrise on the Niger river.


I want to be Your hands.


READY TO ROCK TIMBUKTU!


Sahara.


The streets of Timbuktu.


Girls night at Rita's house :)


Team picture at the "Feet 2008"
YWAM prayer conference in Timbuktu.





Jakob,me and Katya.


Annika needed some teeth treatment.. :)

DOUENTZA

Hi everyone
Just a quick post to say everything is going very well and I am fully enjoying this outreach and the ministry and everything! Please keep checking our team blog for pictures qnd better updates, it is not really easy to get internet access here.

www.borgenteaminmali.blogspot.com

Be blessed and lots of hugs and greetings from Douentza!
Hanna

FINALLY MALI!

allllright! THIS IS IT!( Oyvind I really enjoy the cd :)
right now I am sitting in our room under my fabulous mosquito net and trying to catch the mouse running around our room! Mali has been.. AWESOME. Here comes a little update.

We arrived Bamako/Mali last Tuesday late evening. We had an awesome welcome by our contact John and the base leader Issouf. The base is located quite close to town and there are lots of little boutiques all around us and some market places. The weather has been perfect for us.. locals are freezing - we are sweating. Seriously.. some locals are wearing winter jackets!! Oh well anyway.. we have been SO blessed by YWAM Bamako and our local tour guide John, he is just awesome. He has been taking us to down town, to markets and had a cultural orientation for us. Now this week is passing by and tomorrow we are leaving to Douentza!! It is going to be an interesting buss ride across the country. I have been the only who got diarrhea and some fever, Annika also caught a bad flu from Norway but she is getting better now. You can pray for our health, we need to travel a looooong way tomorrow and I was a bit worried about my health but God will take care. As always.

Mali is just so good. It is safe for us as girls to walk alone in the streets, people are friendly and open, and God has arranged us some wonderful surprises. We were supposed to travel to Douentza all by ourselves tomorrow but God totally arranged that one of the local christians happens to go to Douentza TOMORROW AS WELL. So Paul is going to come with us and it is so good to have a local person with you. Just incredible.. also many other things God has just placed on the exact right spots. Yesterday I just sat in silence and awe of how God is faithful. Again and again. It's sometimes so hard to understand.

Mosquitoes have been quite friendly to us, I do not have even 1 bite! This week has been busy even though we have not had a tight schedule,but there are so many new things to learn and to take care now when we are in the beginning of our outreach and in the capital. Some of the girls have got their hair braided and I will also go for it in Douentza. Wearing only skirts has been also one more new thing for all the girls. I think the team is doing quite good and enjoying this time here. God has something very special for this time.Wow.. He is good! Well I should lay down for a while and try to rest so the fever would go down soon. Packing is ahead of us tonight. Early take off tomorrow.

Hanna The red sanded feet

Happy New Year 2008!

This will probably be my last post for a while now. Early tomorrow morning I'm flying from Rovaniemi to Oslo and our outreach will start in couple of days!

Time home has been incredible. I have enjoyed every single moment. It's sad to leave everyone again but I'll be back soon :) Me, Milka and Hilla are flying together tomorrow! Lene will come and pick us up from the airport and we will spend 1 night at her place before YWAM Norway Worker's Gathering starts on 3rd. And then on 8th of January we kick off for outreach!! Okay I am really extremely excited about this trip.. can't wait to leave!

I want to wish all of you a blessed New Year 2008! I hope this year will be full of God's surprises and His love for you would be shown in extra ordinary ways!

See you.. someday!

Christmas - HOME - Finland

CHRISTMAS!
I am enjoying being home big time.. here comes some pictures showing you how our family is spending this Christmas! I have enjoyed. I have relaxed. I am happy.


My niece and nephews.


Hanna trying to make a snow angel.


My niece Anna.


Singing Christmas songs together.


Christmas tree and presents!


Hanna is happy!


Santa visiting.


Atte, my nephew.


Dinner table.


Playin outside.

1 WEEK LEFT!!

I can NOT believe this!! We have only 1 week left.. next Saturday I will be home! I have enjoyed these last weeks but I am also very looking forward to go home for Christmas. These last 2 weeks have been quite intense.. lots of office hours and planning. Annika and I have spend many days just focusing on outreach prep and it has been so good to get things done early and just getting ready for this last week. The last week of the lecture phase will be outreach prep.

We have had a privilege to spend 2 days with a local woman who has been a missionary in Tsad, Africa. She has shared many valuable and practical things for us when we go to Mali. I have been so so so blessed.. really. I feel I am getting more and more excited about this outreach! There are tons of things I need to figure out when I go home (many things I need to get and buy) but it is all so new and exciting and.. I am so happy we are going there. We have skyped with our local contact person/ missionary for couple of times this week and we are looking forward to meet him and his family! It is going to be an adventure.. for sure.

So next Saturday I am going home!! One of our student's parents are coming to pick her up (a Finnish girl of course :) and they take me with them and then we drive to Finland - sweet. I will be home for 2 weeks, flying down to Oslo 2.1.2008. I am happy to go home : see my family and friends back there again. And to meet my new niece for the first time!! She was born couple of weeks ago! I am looking forward to long nights with my family, just talking and sharing what is going on in our lives. And my birthday is also coming closer.. I wish I can have some friends over and have a good day with them! Ohh CAN NOT WAIT TO GO HOME!

I almost forgot to tell.. we celebrated Finland's national day yesterday!! It has been 90 years since Finland became an independent country. Me,Hilla and Milka spend some hours in the kitchen baking some Finnish pastries (the ones with rice porridge inside) and some sweet pies and listening some Finnish music! And of course we decorated the table with some Blue/White napkins and Finnish flags. And Milka insisted that we MUST sing our national hymn so off we went.. oh man. It was fun! I enjoy having Finns here so much!I will add some pictures later.

Annika and I just got home.. we had a pizza night at the base. Everyone was in the kitchen making their own pizzas and it is always much fun. And when the pizzas are done we gather to the living room to watch a movie! Then we walked home and it was so frrrreezing cold and windy that I think I need to go to bed soon and wrap some blankets around me! Tomorrow we are going to Tromso, the whole DTS, to do street / clubbing evangelism. The staff is going already in the morning to do some shopping for the outreach, students are coming later with our base leader. It will be exciting!!

NOW.. bed time. See you later.

OUR OUTREACH BLOG

hi everyone,
here comes our new outreach blogs.. one of our students, Hilla, will be updating this blog during our outreach in Mali. I hope you enjoy reading it during our outreach! Check it out!

http://borgenteaminmali.blogspot.com/

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!

One more busy week :)

This week was quite busy with many little extra-things. The weekend has been great and I got to sleep in and also get some things done. I finished the 2nd book we need to read for the Basic Leadership Skills - school and now it's only a report to write! Everyone of us has been quite tired after the super duper week in Rovaniemi and it took some time to recover from that :) We have been talking about the Rovaniemi people the whole week so I guess they made quite a good impression :D

Now we are getting ready for the coming week. Last week we had teaching about "Identity in Christ" which was right on the spot and such a good teaching. The coming week is about "Spiritual warfare". On Friday we will pack our cars and drive to Narvik for the weekend. Basically the whole base is going there and we will be part of a conference organized by different churches in Narvik. The DTS will be responsible for some children meetings and youth meetings so we are gonna be busy preparing dance and drama and some other things this week! Me and Lenneke will be leading this weekend, while Annika is down south in Oslo in the YWAM Norway leadership week. And it is only couple of weeks and the Finns are coming up here!! We are so happy to get them here and hope to have some REAL FUN together and bless them!

I will add some photos now, I do not have too many photos from last weeks but I will get more later. Now I think I will try to start writing my book report and then go to bed. Have a blast week friend where ever you are!


Me and my niece Anna
in Rovaniemi,Finland.


Katri and Lenneke.


..And we had SO much fun!


Tinni and Antti.. no words
to describe. They are GREAT :)