see-through faith

One of the wonderful things about having visitors from abroad is that it almost always opens my eyes to seeing Finland – my adopted homeland – again.

Right now we have a friend from England visiting us, and it’s been lovely. She’s twenty – so the same age as our son – but nonetheless my friend, because we met while I was over at Cliff college doing my MA. I find it a real gift from God that I can – and do – have friends across the generation gap, but it’s also nice when it turns out that these younger friends also become family friends, as sometimes happens.

As already posted my friend and I were invited to the rotary outing to Seili last Saturday, and then mid week (after my working for two days) we skipped off to Sweden on a minicruise. Both trips were a lot of fun. At the end of the week though, hubby took a rare couple of days off, and we headed up to Merikarvia (about 200km north of here) to his parents’ summer place.

Very many Finns have a summer place. Almost all of them are really rustic, primitive even, with outside toilets, no running water etc. My in-laws’ place does at least have electricity, but all the water, for example, has to be hauled from the well, and well it’s hard work. I think that’s one of the reasons hubby and I have never wanted a cottage of our own, and of course we know we can visit Merikarvia.It’s a sort of haven in the background, no matter how seldom I -at least – visit. This week was the first time this year, and last year I only went up there once as well. Earlier in the summer the mosquitos drive me indoors, and to be honest we have a beautiful home here with a great garden, and so, when I am in Finland (and admittedly that hasn’t been much this summer) I’m usually really content to be at home, and do occassional day trips to see friends and new places.This trip hubby took my friend and I out to sea. There’s a little uninhabited island that we’ve dubbed ‘Jack’s island’ because my dad used to love going there. We go there in a small, fairly typical vessel, with a 4 hp outboard motor, and it takes the best part of an hour to get there down the Merikarvia river and archipelago, so the weather needs to be relatively calm, which Thursday was (although it was cold!)

Tyrni (sea buckthorn berries) are native to these islands. They are full of vitamin C. But they aren’t usually ripe until mid September, so we were very surprised to see the bushes laden with berries ripe for picking this time. Sadly, we didn’t have any of the gear with us  to pick them (you need gloves at least, and it’s best to harvest them using tiny nail scissors so as not to spoil the berries (or the plants themselves))… next time …

I just got home from a mini-cruise to Stockholm and back.  This is the view from the ferry yesterday evening (at about 9.45pm) … a full moon over some of the most beautiful Finnish scenery (the Turku archipelago). All that was missing – maybe – was a moonlit serenade!

Later in the evening my friend and I went down to the bar, where a fun Finnish band were playing and the Finns (mostly elderly couples) were dancing. REally dancing. Waltzes and tangoes, and the Finnish humppa. En route back to our cabin we stopped off at the disco which was absolutely deserted. Seems that the oldies know better how to have fun on these cruises.

This morning we enjoyed a wonderful buffet breakfast – cups of tea and apple juice, cereal, fresh fruit, wonderful tasty bread and cheese, sausages and eggs, and best of all a rare treat for me – crepes with fresh berries. Everything was so fresh and tasted wonderful! Only trouble was  that I was so full afterwards I had to take a nap when we got back to the cabin and only woke up again at noon! (Incidentally apart from some fruit we didn’t eat again until we got home this evening!)

We spent the rest of the day in the sky bar, which is a cafe on the uppermost deck which has the most wonderful views of God’s own water park – the waterways leading back to Turku through the archipelago.  The weather was really good (calm and sunny) and it was such a blessing to sit in the warm, sipping cola, and watching the world go by.

There’s so much to see. The sea, the skies, the variety of little islands, and houses …and then there are also the boats. We saw a flotilla of sailing boats, and also something I’ve never seen before …

… a tiny tug boat pulling an ENORMOUS load of logs on a raft.

I had  a really wonderful day today. And best of all it was full of God! (See also eyes of faith, to see what tool I photographed today, and where God was in that!)

Swimming continues to be something – forgive the pun- that fills my tank. And it’s always good! When I don’t get to go on a regular basis (at least twice a week) I really notice it.

Yesterday however was especially good. We are still able to swim in the open air, in a heated pool. And the weather was fabulous. What’s more we were treated to an especially good display of diving from the 3m spring board by two young(ish) men. What I noticed too was how well they encouraged each other.

The outdoor pool will be open for another five weeks, although towards the end of the September with reduced opening hours. After that it’s back to swimming in a smaller, indoor pool … and then I’ll be counting the days until it’s possible to swim outdoors in warm water here in Finland again. It’s always possible to do what’s called avantouinti (ice swimming) here of course, but that doesn’t really appeal. For a start it’s not swimming, it’s simply a dunk into the icy waters … and when the air temperature is zero or below, well as I said it’s not my cup of tea.

On Friday night, driving home from eija’s I swung by Helsinki-Vantaa airport to pick up my friend for her first ever visit to Finland. She’s staying with us until September 1st.

Saturday was an early start as we had been invited by the International Rotary Club of Turku to join them in an outing to Seili. We followed the pikku rengastie from Turku. Hubby drove us from to Hanka (via Naatali, Rymättylä,(with one very short ferry) from where we caught a larger ferry to the island of Seili, a small island in the Archipelago sea.  This was a first for me!

Seili island has an interesting history. Earlier it was a leprosy island, and later on it served as the location for the mentally ill. Since the 60s however, the University of Turku has had its Archipelago Research Institute located there. This was really interesting for me.

The Baltic sea is not very big, yet about 90 million people (half of whom live in Poland) are in its catchment area.  (For comparision, the ‘outer’ coastline of Southern Sweden, Norway and the tip of northern Russia on the North sea, and Norweigan sea – which is about the same length supports less than ten million people).

What’s more the Baltic Sea is rather shallow in many places (particularly near Denmark), whcih means that while it’s not landlocked, the water does not mix with the water from the North sea  very rapidly, and that is affecting its salinity (amongst other things). That in turn affects the species etc etc. And you can imagine the environmental consequences …

While on the island we visited the old church rebuilt in the 1700s (which is lovely), and there we were shown some very,very old grafitti (on a pew).

We shared a fabulous picnic. (I do like pot luck and in my experience it almost always ends up working out really really well.)  And afterwards we boarded MS Linta and then continued along the pillurengastie to Turku (via Nauvo and Parainen) in a friend’s car.

Meet my newest friend …  He’s a lot of fun, and is likely to travel with me quite a lot from now on. He was a gift from eija (promised months ago, but this is the first time we’ve met face-to-face in ages!)

We’ve been having a lot of fun, and I’ve been learning lots about taking and editing photos. My pc looks a lot cleaner too!!! And I’ve also been testing out the wii and after loads and loads of attempts, finally managed to complete the slalom course (beginners level) . Yay!

I had a lot of fun setting up this shot (using 10 sec delay so that I didn’t need a flash and thus avoiding being in the picture myself!). For a better shot of the venus fly trap see my post over at eyes of faith. There are still twelve days until we begin the eyes of faith challenge for real btw. All you need is a camera (even one on your phone will do) and a blog, and a willingness to see God at work in whatever you shoot. More info here.

There is nothing quite like a good cup of tea with a good friend! Today I drove over to   eija’s house (3 hours away) and she took me out to a lovely old-fashioned cafe called cafe Cabrioloet (in an old bank).

They specialise -as you can see – in cheesecakes. The  one on the left was lime (decorated with blueberries) but there was also a lemon one. That was gluten and lactose-free (but don’t hold that against it. It was delicious!) That posed a problem for us. Which to choose … so we decided to buy one of each and share them.

Great idea? Well we thought so. Only we were having so much fun, that eija’s latte went flying and the poor waiter had to rescue the limecheesecake, move us to another table, change the tablecloth oh and wash the floor. (And when we got home I had to wash my shorts!)  But the delicious cheesecakes were worth it. On reflection I think I had a slight preference for the lemon one … but I’d really have to go back to sample them again to be sure! I wonder if we’d be allowed back in!

I belong to a group of English-speaking ladies called the Ladybirds. We started out as a spin off from an international mother-child group seventeen years ago now. The only rules were a) no husbands or kids and b) it was for those who were good at English (we didn’t want to end up giving ‘free’ English practice to Finns, as so often happens)

Ten years ago we started a book recording our meetings (which are very informal, usually revolve round food and drink and are a lot of fun). We stick photos and beer mats and brochures etc in it. Last night, when flicking through it, I noticed that our ‘back to school’ meeting in Koulu (a former school, now restaurant) was having it’s tenth anniversary. Fun

Today our youngest (along with her two sisters and five brothers!) turns 1.
And let’s not forget TS’s terrific girlfriend who also celebrates her birthday today! Congratulations to you all.

From left
sisters Misty (3) & Maggie (1) together with mum Mindy (6).
(Photo -used with permission – taken by hubby over in Merimasku earlier this summer with his camera phone!)

That’s what my friend asked over at Soul Survivor this past week … My initial reaction was. Help I don’t know how to twitter or tweet.

It struck me that as Christians we often assume that people understand what we are talking about when we talk about santification (ok so we make that a bit easier by using the term ‘getting saved’ but let’s face it what would that mean to anyone outside of the Christian circles we frequent?

You can read some of the tweets youth did send to Jesus over the past week here. It makes for interesting reading!

For this greying 50 year old I have to say that I think prayer is easier … but that’s only because someone took the time years ago to teach me to pray. If you feel up to the task and want to teach me to twitter and tweet, I’m up for that challenge too. After all I know Jesus has got my number

Now there’s a thought!

No, I don’t think I’ve ever taken my knitting to church. In fact it’s a long, long time since I’ve knitted anything, though it used to be a favourite pasttime. In a life gone by.

I read a post by David Muir earlier today, and it got me thinking.

I have mused … why our church leaders are so reticent to allow our present forms of church to be re-knitted into new expressions of church, rather than allowing them to be frayed into oblivion. Of course, it is a lot of work. But more than that, perhaps they just don’t know how to knit; the skill got lost in Christendom when the world was stuffed full of pullovers, and now we dare not allow a pullover to unravel because the truth is we haven’t a clue how to knit it back together. We only know how to darn the glorious old pullover inherited from the past and pass it down the generations, adjusting it a little for a new kind of wearer.

…

I am told that up to half of all people who find faith through Alpha courses never become long-term members of any church. Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to be darned into the old pullover, however cleverly that is done. They are looking for the old pullover to allow itself to be unpicked, and then to be knitted with them into a new one.

As I said it got me thinking.  I loved Alpha. It was really significant in my life as a fairly new believer. I loved the format – it really worked for me.  It was really interactive and I loved it that we ate a meal together and shared life.   Meeting with Alpha was a good and safe place to ask questions (and boy did I ask questions …on the way there/home (we car pooled), during the meal, during the teaching,  and by email between Wednesdays!).

It strikes me once again that one of my frustrations with church (when I was a leader, as well as now when I’m – well- not) is that it isn’t interactive. Church is often boring and passive, and I’m frustated because attending church right now isn’t helping me grow spiritually! Where I am is where I am. This is personal and yes a bit negative. Stop reading now if you are going to get offended.

I feel we are – in the main – all caught up in the three-point sermon + worship (whether a five hymn sandwich or an extended time of praise before the sermon). On Good Sundays there is – of course- the Eucharist. Now, to be perfectly honest I’m reacting negatively to (monologues maskerading as) sermons …  where someone spouts at you and there’s no space, time or culture of interrupting and asking questions. Honestly, sometimes it feels easier just to switch off! But I know I’m not growing and that’s so frustrating. Then there’s the coffee. (Where two or three Christians in Finland are … there is coffee!) That’s usually served afterwards in the church building, but that doesn’t come close to sharing a real meal in someone’s home.

And I know I’m not alone in my frustrations!

After having read David’s blurb today, I’m wondering today what unravelling I need to do, and when and how I’m to pick up the knitting once more!BTW the knitting picture wasn’t David Muir’s … it was sparked off by a comment that John Drane made

‘What we have is comfortable but frayed around the edges. Can pioneers knit it into a new shape to make Christian community of the future?’

I’m not sure I am a pioneer, but I can knit! And I do want to be part of a living, loving, vibrant body of Christ. That’ll do .., for starters!