an early spring visit.

How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! It's like costly anointing oil flowing down head and beard, Flowing down Aaron's beard, flowing down the collar of his priestly robes. It's like the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion. Yes, that's where God commands the blessing, ordains eternal life.

I remember many years wondering why on earth david is describing unity as an oil that flows down some guys beard- I mean come on.. isnt that kinda weird? Is it actually a positive and nice thing, or just something messy..? Then one evening as I was reading my Bible it somehow struck me, that actually oil was something with a purpose, it was to anoint. to anoint the prophets and the kings, to be rady for their tasks. and I guess this is also what unity, fellowship and other people do to us. in the proverbs it also says, as iron sharpens iron, so does man sharpen a man. in relationships it is, where we have the change to be seen, to see, be recognized and regocnize, to mold and be molded, take risks of loving and being loved and have our characters developed.

and also just to enjoy. what a delight it is, that our God is a relational God, and that he has given us the gift of being friends with people from different backrounds, with different personalities, with great senses of humour, from different countries, with different mother tongues.

our small finnish e-street community was blessed and excited by the visit of sollentunakollektivet last weekend. more of this!

evenings with values

our little 24-7 team in Helsinki decided to start

inviting people in, and we just had our second 24-7

prayer evening at our home.

mikko prepared some really good lense-soup

and made some delicous bread, and vilja was

in charge of the evening. this time we gathered

around the theme and value of "prayer".

next gathering is in april, about "mission"

it was so encouraging and nice to see our living

room filled with people, dreams and smell of

good soup!

24-7 is starting a half a year encouragement

to pray for europe, and I shared briefly about it,

and gave everyone a chance to take a little

piece of paper with some european country

written on it. to have some country on a paper,

to search something out of it, to bless it.

montenegro, england, portugal, romania,

and the polish ania who has moved to finland

as a missionary got FINLAND on her paper!

vilja shared about seeking the place of prayer,

and we all took some time to listen to God

and think what and where and how God would

want us to pray and live it out.

we also watched the "vision" clip, and it was

really ispiring after a long time to hear the prophetic

words of it.

its coming, isnt it?

I dont know where it comes from,

and where it goes,

but I feel the breeze.

praying in copenhagen

come and join us. click on the link for the facebook page.

God in the midst of agony.

The word agony is found 86 times in the finnish translation of the Bible. This weekend there was a music festival named TUSKA (which means AGONY) here in Helsinki.

A bunch of us went down there nearby the festival area to hang out in a park. We had few signs with us with these Bible verses, and the word agony standing out from the texts.

The idea to go there was just planted to some hearts, and we got together, and went, waiting what God would do. As we sat down, someone asked: so whats the plan? I dont think anyone of us had a plan.. To some people God had said that Go Without Nothing of Your Own and see what happens. To me God gave the instructions of making these signs. We also had kinda like a questionnaire and as a price you could win a copy of the new testament and psalms where we had underlined all the agony words.

So, as we sit down and just said out loud that we dont have a plan, the first four people just rushed to us, sat donw on the grass next to us and started to chat. A guy with a cross upside down in his neck, a girl who longed to have believers friends of her own age, and many kinds of people we met during the evening. It was blessed, and prepared.

I think one of the biggest blessings of it to me personally was just being active. The spiritual athmosphere here in finland is often quite passive, and doing things feels many times too hard. But now, as I stepped this small step forward I felt He asked me to, I saw that He grabbed that little step and did His thing.

In many situations I felt myself hopeless, and lacking the power of God, wishing to have words of knowledge and wisdom, to be able to reach the hearts of these special people. But at the same time I realized, that as I go, I grow. Getting to know these people from so different world and mindsets was challenging and refreshing, and gives new perspectives to prayer and what to ask for from God. How can I have the attitude and love of the Fathers heart towards these people, if I dont even know who they are, what they think and what challenges they have in their lives. I long to be able to offer something real, what Jesus really is, not just empty words and promises that dont touch peoples every day lives. God is relevant to these people, Im sure of it, as He is relevant always, and the kingdom of God is intended to be lived out radically. It was really encouraging and a good reminder to see that people are interested in God, in spiritual things and want to talk about them. There is hope rising, that God can do something, even in Finland!