Two weeks to go!

Wow, time flies when you're busy!

Last time I blogged, we had been in Finland three weeks, now we just have only two weeks to go! We fly out on 7th August, taking off from Helsinki at 7am local time and landing at 17.30 L.A. time.  Someone else can do the maths to how long our journey will take, too confusing for me with the time difference.

Not really sure where the time has gone or where to really begin writing an update.

So news in terms of preparation for The Master's Seminary/Los Angeles:

First thing I guess, is a huge answer to prayer that we got our visas to USA easily, quicly and with very little problems. The biggest concern for me was that Miska's arrived on a Friday and I had to suffer the weekend waiting to see if my arrived on the Monday (which it did!). I know patience and learning not to worry are two lessons God needs to teach me!

Our visas :-)

We have also secured an apartment, we will be living in Newhall, Santa Clarita. It is about a 30 minute drive from The Master's Seminary and Grace Community Church - which in L.A. proportions is quite close! It's an area heavily populated by seminary couples and families, with even a few families living in our same apartment complex. This is great for car pooling to and from seminary for Miska and also lovely for me as I will be more free to use the car - when we get one ;-) It is also a nice area to go out and about and has amenities nice and close, including by the looks of google maps a sewing shop - so I can get a nice supply of wool to continue my knitted Noah's Ark animals. We visited this area with our friend John Hester when we visited in October last year, he took us to The Egg Plantation, which sells over 101 different filled omelette's, this is just a five minute walk from our apartment so I wander how many we will try over our three years :-) So our apartment has two bedrooms, so visitors are more than welcome - that is an honest offer, so if you fancy a holiday, just get in contact. The apartment comes unfurnished, but we have been very fortunate to have been lent lots of furniture from our good friend Jeanne, and also our great orientation leaders Curtis and Christa have also organised items for us. We have been overwhelmed by the help from our orientation leaders, they are certainly making sure our move to Los Angeles goes as smooth as possible, which helps so much with my anxiety and nerves.

Our apartment in Newhall

We have done lots of other bits and bobs in preparation, mainly paperwork and investigating things like medical insurance, which is straight forward for Miska (because being a student) but a lot of confusion for mine. We are also thankful that Miska has been able to secure study aid from the Finnish social security system. Basically, Finnish people are still in the fortunate position that they are able to get support for attending higher education. Miska will get about €300 a month for the months he studies out in Los Angeles, for almost the three years. We are particularly thankful for this money as we in no way thought it was guaranteed because we were not sure they would accept The Masters Seminary as a formal education centre, contrasted to goverment supported universities.

So now to news about International Baptist Church. We have been so blessed to have this time at the church. Miska has been preaching a series on Ephesians 6:10-20 - The Armor of God. It has been a great experience for him in preaching each week regularly and and also leading the weekly Wednesday Bible Study meeting. He wrote a brief post a couple of days ago (see previous blog post) and this is a sample of what Miska wrote:

'It's been a great experience to preach regularly every week, certainly a lot to learn and grow still — even more motivation for my Seminary studies!'

I have really enjoyed the experience too, makes me aware of where I need to grow as a Christian and develop. I have enjoyed the chance to get to know the people in the fellowship further and deepen friendships. We have also had the opportunity to fellowship with Agape International Church which has been a huge blessing. Agape International Church is located about 4 hours to the north west of Tampere and is in the heart of Swedish speaking Finland, the church is English speaking, but most of the members first language would be Swedish. It is pastored by Kyle McCartan, he is from Northern Ireland and has a lovely Finnish wife (Sara) and they have been living in Finland together now for around 15 years, they have six amazing boys ranging from 13-1 years old. Last weekend we were able to get together and spend a weekend of fellowship out in the countryside and also have a joint worship service here in Tampere, the sermon preached by Miska that Sunday 'Prayer for Bold Gospel Proclamation (Eph. 6 : 19 - 20)' was recorded by Don from from Agape Church and is now online, so if you are interested to listen: click here for the sermon link. We were also blessed to witness the baptism of one of their church members. Here are some photos of a lovely weekend together.

The Baptism

Having a great BBQ together.

Group photo after our joint Sunday service with Agape.

What else have we been up to. Well, spending lots of time with friends and family. From the UK we have had three visitors in quick succession which was lovely. Andrew, my parents and Miram. Sadly the waether was not always the best, we seemed to have a lovely May, cold and wet June and now we are having a scorching hot July.

Andrew came for a weekend and we introduced him to many Finnish customs and delicacies including sauna, lake swiming, Reino slippers, squeaky cheese with cloudberry jam, rowing on lake, forest walking and much more.

Should we have left Andrew in the middle of the lake? 

Miska and Andrew being braver than I and swimming.

Coolest slippers in town - Finnish 'Reino' slippers :-)

Then we had my Mum and Dad visit for a week. They came over the weekend of Midsummer, which is a big national holiday here, with people mainly taking to the summer cottages to celebrate. Being so far north, it pretty much does not get dark, the land of the midnight sun! In fact the days have been so long here, I can't remember the last time I saw actual darkness. We all went and visited Miska's mum's summer cottage over midsummer, was lovely time away. The weather was a little cold, but atleast we had some sunshine, some areas of Finland had hail! I also found out that I am rubbish at the game of darts - even my Mum beat me which to me a huge competitor in games was hard to swallow! Miska and my Dad built a shelter in the forest as a playhouse for Miska's nieces, or alternatively a place for Miska to take naps ;-)

Family group photo in the forest in Vaasa.

Fishing

Playing darts

Miska and Isabell in the completed shelter.

Then a ryanair flight flew into Tampere bringing in Miriam and taking home my parents. Had a lovely four days with Miriam. We had a lovely time out at Miska's grandparents summer cottage, where we got to have proper Finish sauna, grill Makkara (sausage), go fishing, Miska and Miriam went swimming despite the cold water. Had a nice girly day on the Saturday shopping and generally was most fun catching up properly with my best friend visiting :-)

Best friends reunited

Fishing fun

Brave swimmer

Funny faces

Also, we have spent time with Miska's family, especially his Mum and Brother's family. This has been lovely, sometimes can be hard for me with the langauge barrier, but nice to spend time with them all and get to know them better.

Isabell and me on a hot sunny afternoon

Miska, Jonathan and Isabell

Emilia

We have also spent time with Miska's half-sister Rosa, she has just moved to Tampere to start at a new school, sort of equivelent to sixth form in the UK, it has been lovely to spend time with her and get to know her a little more. The three of us played scrabble together once, I won, but can't help but think I had an unfair advantage as I am the only native English speaker, I know for a fact if we played in Finnish I would lose terribly!

Me and Miska with Rosa

If I thought I would be bored during our transition time in Finland, I was certainly wrong, I have been so busy, not had any time to be bored! I could write a lot more, but the hour is getting late and I need to head to bed.

We have another busy couple of weeks ahead, saying sad goodbyes and also packing and tying up lots of loose ends, would value prayer that all would go smoothly and would not be too stressed or anxious.

Until the next post,

Alison