Ok so it's been forever since I last wrote, I know I know! Let's take a look through the past 5 weeks or so that have passed ”unnoticed”...
So we had holidays for a whole 10 days – I didn't go anywhere but it was a great opportunity to rest, rewind and catch up with people I normally don't see!
First couple of days I spent pretty much alone just unwinding from JAM – for once I was quite happy not having anyone around! All the girls went to Blue Mountains for a couple of days so I had the whole flat for myself – pretty good!
We had Lisette's sister Nicke staying with us, and for the holidays also Rachelle's sisters Janel and Abby stayed with us – you can imagine the line to the bathroom in the morning with the ratio of 7 girls in an apartment with 2 bathrooms.. :D it was hectic but lucky enough we had no strict schedules since it was the holidays! :)
We threw a surprise birthday dinner for Lisette's 29th birthday when everyone came back from Blue Mountains – it was awesome! Plenty of food and good company.. I got back into the cake making again! ;D
Janel cooked all the food (except for the cake which obviously was my duty) – she is a really great cook and has such an hospitable and generous spirit. We were all blessed beyond measure throughout the weeks they stayed at our place!! It also challanged our spirits towards such a genuine generosity.. :)
It was a great night to just hang out with the flat and all sisters – one of the last nights we had together. It was like one big family and I found myself fitting into the American crowd very well which surprised me extremely – I always thought I didn't understand their humour but I found myself grown used to them and chatting away, teasing them and sharing in their experiences.
I had to put up this picture of Rachelle, I just though it portrayed so well how much the Finnish cakes are appriciated here! :D
During the rest of the holidays I learned to relax and take it easy – even though I had no money to do anything extravagant I found an appriciatian to be able to meet people I haven't had a chance to see so often throughout the semester! We caught up with Ashton a good couple times :) We did the beachwalk one night, and got caught up in the rain in the middle of the two hour track! :D In the beginning we saw quite a few rainbows in the horizon, but above us spread to it's full enght the biggest and brightest rainbow I've ever seen! We were stunned and stood there our mouths wide open in awe, then shouting with joy! (it's not the one in the picture). I love it when God manifests Himself to us through nature, and that whole walk was one big God adventure! We passed a huge graveyard and I felt the Spirit whispering to me to avoid crossing it – the urge to go around grew so strong in me I gave in and abandoned my normal behaviour patterns that would have taken me through the magnificent scenery there. We sat on the beach talking and listening to God, and He totally used used to minister to one another.
I also went to the hairdressers finally with the money my amazing friends back home sent to me to be used only for PLEASURE – I hope they'd be glad to know I did obey their instructions :) On Monday Lisette moved out, I spent the whole day taking apart beds, moving them around and putting them back together! God answered my prayers for a bed that I could not afford to buy and someone sent me a text message that one night that she was moving out and God had told her to give away her bed to me! What a blessing... It was not just any bed, but really pretty white bar princess bed... I was blown away!! However it felt strange to fall asleep on the first night in a normal single bed after 6 months of staring the top bunk and prayers written in slips of paper, taped to the top bars... I missed Lisette so.
I got a new roomie, her name is Mana (which in Finnish means a curse, what a great start! :D) and she is 20 years old and from Japan. She's a really kind girl, a little shy and quiet compared to the rest of us in this flat but she fits in so well! She has defenitely opened up and I am so grateful that God sent someone like her to replace Lisette. No one could ever take Lisette's place but this girl has defenitely made the transition much easier and I think we'll be good friends!
One of the highlights of the holidays was the day we went to donate blood with my Norwegian friend Liv and ended up spending the afternoon in Luna Park, the small amusement park in the harbour! Instead of a full day of fun we bought a couple single ride tickets and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine!
and what would a visit in Luna Park be without Cotton Candy/ Fairy Floss? :) This has been a tradition to me ever since childhood and so I stayed true to myself making sure not a single visit to an amusement park would pass without this special pleasure :)
We spent hours in our favourite ”ride” - Coney Island which is a huge FunHouse filled with different little rides and experiments! I woud say the best one out of all must have been the exit hole of aircondition air that made our hair stand straigh in the air like those of x-men!! Cheap are the joys of the simple.. luckily!! ;D
The utmost highlight of the holidays was our RDG day out – we took most of our youth group out for a picnic with Jenn! It was a beautiful sunny day filled with laughter and giggles in the light atmosphere amongst friends..
It is such a big thing for both me and Jenn what we have been able to establish in these girls in the past 6 months – from the day they were given into our hand, having been abandoned for several months without a leader to look after them and love them, they were were suspicious towards us and broken inside. We could see all the scars their previous leaders had left by poor transitions and it broke our hearts too. We decided that our greatest goal was to make these girls feel appriciated, loved and safe with us. Today we can both testify that this is exatcly their state on this very day!!
Jessie Patmore was from the beginning one of the ones I knew would need us the most – her parents have recently separated and her mum has a new boyfriend who now lives with them. Coming from the background I do I knew God was going to use my hurt and survival story to bring hope to her too! There is so much more than meets the eye with Jessie, but I am so glad she has been able to stay her joyful self and we both hope to have brought at least some kind of stability to her life.
Our hardest nut to crack was Felicity – she had had a really great relationship with their previous leader and was so hurt by her departure that for the first months she only kept pushing me and Jenn away. Many night we would pray for her in frustration, on the verge of giving up on her. By the consistency that we have been able to show her through the grace of God she has slowly opened up and allowed us into her world. Her sister keeps telling us how much she loves and adores us, but she never really shows it to us. God has been teaching me so many things through her and our love for young people has only grown through the frustrations we have been through with her! On that day in the park, she stood on a pole, calling me to her. As I walked to her she extended her hands down to me and I grabbed her, asking if she trusted me. She said yes – and I tested her trust by allowing her to lean on me, kind of hanging in the midair me as her only support. She laughed and screamed but loved it. On that moment I knew we were in – it meant the world to me. All the hard work, extra time and money invested to her life was making a difference and slowly healing the wounds in her heart.
God has taught me the most through these bautiful and so different girls – they are my world. I have learned with them more I could ever learn in a classroom – and am so thankful I was trusted with so much from the very beginning. I carry them in my heart and take the full responsibility of shepherding them well, and I could not hove done this without Jenn. She has been an amazing support and source of inspiration to me and our teamwork has become seamless – we compliment one another in a way no one similar to me could ever do! Where I am weak and inadequate, she shines, and I carry her through her wobbly bridges :)
And as one sows, so does she reap... The time and resources invested into the lives of these girls has both increased our faith in God and allowed Him to brovide us literally our everyday bread.
In the beginning of the term we sat down with Jenn to talk through what we are expecting from this semester, setting goals for the group in general and for each individual girl personally. We established some new ”culture” elements such as a prayer wall to highlight that we truly are a fmaily and will stand in faith for one another in their needs, as well as being able to encourage one another through the praise reports in our lives! Everything we do is very pusposeful and our hard work has been recognized by all our youth Pastors, even moreso by our fellow youth leaders and God! I believe we are setting and standard and example worthy of following.
Since the new semester started I've made a few new friends from the new intake – Jared, Donny, Lazarus, Josh and Riley are fun to be around but people I believe to build me up and strongly impact my life and challange me! Jared is an amazing man of God, who has a powerful testimony of how he got saved after years of drug addictions and jail. He embodies the saving grace of God and inspires me beyond measure! We have the best chats with him and I know this is one of the friendships for lifetime. His faith and generosity stirrs me to a new level...
Donny had a birthday and he was feeling super homesic, he's only 19 and it's his first time away from home, and Jared decided that he would buy keys to Donny to cheer up his birthday!!! We threw a surprise party for him, and since he refused to leave to house for any great excuses we made up I had to talk to my security guard friends and include them in the plot, so they called him down and we set up the piano in the middle of the living room, lit up candles and waited! It was a great success and Donny teared up when he saw all we had set up for him.. he nearly passed out when he realized the keys were for him!!
So here are some of my new first semester friends –
Top right: Jared,Donny,Riley and Jade. Bottom right: Me, Lazarus and Joshua.
They are all cool and most of them do Fuel with us too! I've had the priviledge of walking them into the college/Hillsong culture – they are catching up with it so quick, I am so very proud of them!
We hade a trip to Ikea last week with our flat to shop for some essentials – since Lisette moved out we are mingling furniture around and trying to make it look more consistent and pretty! Weve done pretty well by covering the ugly yellow couch with a natural white sheet (it seriousy looks brand new and pretty amazing!!) and we have set a Japanese style low table into the living room! I will put up some pictures in the next post, I have none right now and it's way too late to start taking any :p
Of course we had to go a bit silly in the kids section and have some Swedish meatballs for lunch.. It was a great trip all in all! Victorious we returned home with selected bits and pieces :)
We've been focusing on hanging out with out kids heaps more with Jenn and one Sunday I invited Grace to hang out with me between the services – we had luch and then she came over to my place to bake some rasberry & white choholate muffins! We had so much fun and the muffins were delicious even though flat since we didn't have a cupcake pan! :D
I had a great opportunity opening up for me this week – I got to share the offering message in Chapel as a first first year student for years!! It went so well, God totally took over and communicated with a passion and clarity only He can.. Even our principal was impressed with the word that was brought forth! God is opening up many doors to me in leadership and I feel like everything I touch just flourishes!
I learned so much from our Intensive lectures of youth ministry introduction and teamwork, both so practical subjects that fire me up for the work that awaits back in Finland with UCC – I am gaining more and more tools for effective ministry! The new subjects for this term blow my mind – Christian doctorine, World Religions, Spirit Filled life, Church History and Personal Evangelism are going to fully change my life!! I am so excited for what God has in store for this semester and am rady to grap it with both hands and run with it!
Well, I quess that would be the biggest events from the past weeks, I try to update more regularly since it feels impossible to write all the great things that have happened the more time I wait.. :)
Check out my new cutie nice!
Lots of Love,
-P
So we had holidays for a whole 10 days – I didn't go anywhere but it was a great opportunity to rest, rewind and catch up with people I normally don't see!
First couple of days I spent pretty much alone just unwinding from JAM – for once I was quite happy not having anyone around! All the girls went to Blue Mountains for a couple of days so I had the whole flat for myself – pretty good!
We had Lisette's sister Nicke staying with us, and for the holidays also Rachelle's sisters Janel and Abby stayed with us – you can imagine the line to the bathroom in the morning with the ratio of 7 girls in an apartment with 2 bathrooms.. :D it was hectic but lucky enough we had no strict schedules since it was the holidays! :)
We threw a surprise birthday dinner for Lisette's 29th birthday when everyone came back from Blue Mountains – it was awesome! Plenty of food and good company.. I got back into the cake making again! ;D
Janel cooked all the food (except for the cake which obviously was my duty) – she is a really great cook and has such an hospitable and generous spirit. We were all blessed beyond measure throughout the weeks they stayed at our place!! It also challanged our spirits towards such a genuine generosity.. :)
It was a great night to just hang out with the flat and all sisters – one of the last nights we had together. It was like one big family and I found myself fitting into the American crowd very well which surprised me extremely – I always thought I didn't understand their humour but I found myself grown used to them and chatting away, teasing them and sharing in their experiences.
I had to put up this picture of Rachelle, I just though it portrayed so well how much the Finnish cakes are appriciated here! :D
During the rest of the holidays I learned to relax and take it easy – even though I had no money to do anything extravagant I found an appriciatian to be able to meet people I haven't had a chance to see so often throughout the semester! We caught up with Ashton a good couple times :) We did the beachwalk one night, and got caught up in the rain in the middle of the two hour track! :D In the beginning we saw quite a few rainbows in the horizon, but above us spread to it's full enght the biggest and brightest rainbow I've ever seen! We were stunned and stood there our mouths wide open in awe, then shouting with joy! (it's not the one in the picture). I love it when God manifests Himself to us through nature, and that whole walk was one big God adventure! We passed a huge graveyard and I felt the Spirit whispering to me to avoid crossing it – the urge to go around grew so strong in me I gave in and abandoned my normal behaviour patterns that would have taken me through the magnificent scenery there. We sat on the beach talking and listening to God, and He totally used used to minister to one another.
I also went to the hairdressers finally with the money my amazing friends back home sent to me to be used only for PLEASURE – I hope they'd be glad to know I did obey their instructions :) On Monday Lisette moved out, I spent the whole day taking apart beds, moving them around and putting them back together! God answered my prayers for a bed that I could not afford to buy and someone sent me a text message that one night that she was moving out and God had told her to give away her bed to me! What a blessing... It was not just any bed, but really pretty white bar princess bed... I was blown away!! However it felt strange to fall asleep on the first night in a normal single bed after 6 months of staring the top bunk and prayers written in slips of paper, taped to the top bars... I missed Lisette so.
I got a new roomie, her name is Mana (which in Finnish means a curse, what a great start! :D) and she is 20 years old and from Japan. She's a really kind girl, a little shy and quiet compared to the rest of us in this flat but she fits in so well! She has defenitely opened up and I am so grateful that God sent someone like her to replace Lisette. No one could ever take Lisette's place but this girl has defenitely made the transition much easier and I think we'll be good friends!
One of the highlights of the holidays was the day we went to donate blood with my Norwegian friend Liv and ended up spending the afternoon in Luna Park, the small amusement park in the harbour! Instead of a full day of fun we bought a couple single ride tickets and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine!
and what would a visit in Luna Park be without Cotton Candy/ Fairy Floss? :) This has been a tradition to me ever since childhood and so I stayed true to myself making sure not a single visit to an amusement park would pass without this special pleasure :)
We spent hours in our favourite ”ride” - Coney Island which is a huge FunHouse filled with different little rides and experiments! I woud say the best one out of all must have been the exit hole of aircondition air that made our hair stand straigh in the air like those of x-men!! Cheap are the joys of the simple.. luckily!! ;D
The utmost highlight of the holidays was our RDG day out – we took most of our youth group out for a picnic with Jenn! It was a beautiful sunny day filled with laughter and giggles in the light atmosphere amongst friends..
It is such a big thing for both me and Jenn what we have been able to establish in these girls in the past 6 months – from the day they were given into our hand, having been abandoned for several months without a leader to look after them and love them, they were were suspicious towards us and broken inside. We could see all the scars their previous leaders had left by poor transitions and it broke our hearts too. We decided that our greatest goal was to make these girls feel appriciated, loved and safe with us. Today we can both testify that this is exatcly their state on this very day!!
Jessie Patmore was from the beginning one of the ones I knew would need us the most – her parents have recently separated and her mum has a new boyfriend who now lives with them. Coming from the background I do I knew God was going to use my hurt and survival story to bring hope to her too! There is so much more than meets the eye with Jessie, but I am so glad she has been able to stay her joyful self and we both hope to have brought at least some kind of stability to her life.
Our hardest nut to crack was Felicity – she had had a really great relationship with their previous leader and was so hurt by her departure that for the first months she only kept pushing me and Jenn away. Many night we would pray for her in frustration, on the verge of giving up on her. By the consistency that we have been able to show her through the grace of God she has slowly opened up and allowed us into her world. Her sister keeps telling us how much she loves and adores us, but she never really shows it to us. God has been teaching me so many things through her and our love for young people has only grown through the frustrations we have been through with her! On that day in the park, she stood on a pole, calling me to her. As I walked to her she extended her hands down to me and I grabbed her, asking if she trusted me. She said yes – and I tested her trust by allowing her to lean on me, kind of hanging in the midair me as her only support. She laughed and screamed but loved it. On that moment I knew we were in – it meant the world to me. All the hard work, extra time and money invested to her life was making a difference and slowly healing the wounds in her heart.
God has taught me the most through these bautiful and so different girls – they are my world. I have learned with them more I could ever learn in a classroom – and am so thankful I was trusted with so much from the very beginning. I carry them in my heart and take the full responsibility of shepherding them well, and I could not hove done this without Jenn. She has been an amazing support and source of inspiration to me and our teamwork has become seamless – we compliment one another in a way no one similar to me could ever do! Where I am weak and inadequate, she shines, and I carry her through her wobbly bridges :)
And as one sows, so does she reap... The time and resources invested into the lives of these girls has both increased our faith in God and allowed Him to brovide us literally our everyday bread.
In the beginning of the term we sat down with Jenn to talk through what we are expecting from this semester, setting goals for the group in general and for each individual girl personally. We established some new ”culture” elements such as a prayer wall to highlight that we truly are a fmaily and will stand in faith for one another in their needs, as well as being able to encourage one another through the praise reports in our lives! Everything we do is very pusposeful and our hard work has been recognized by all our youth Pastors, even moreso by our fellow youth leaders and God! I believe we are setting and standard and example worthy of following.
Since the new semester started I've made a few new friends from the new intake – Jared, Donny, Lazarus, Josh and Riley are fun to be around but people I believe to build me up and strongly impact my life and challange me! Jared is an amazing man of God, who has a powerful testimony of how he got saved after years of drug addictions and jail. He embodies the saving grace of God and inspires me beyond measure! We have the best chats with him and I know this is one of the friendships for lifetime. His faith and generosity stirrs me to a new level...
Donny had a birthday and he was feeling super homesic, he's only 19 and it's his first time away from home, and Jared decided that he would buy keys to Donny to cheer up his birthday!!! We threw a surprise party for him, and since he refused to leave to house for any great excuses we made up I had to talk to my security guard friends and include them in the plot, so they called him down and we set up the piano in the middle of the living room, lit up candles and waited! It was a great success and Donny teared up when he saw all we had set up for him.. he nearly passed out when he realized the keys were for him!!
So here are some of my new first semester friends –
Top right: Jared,Donny,Riley and Jade. Bottom right: Me, Lazarus and Joshua.
They are all cool and most of them do Fuel with us too! I've had the priviledge of walking them into the college/Hillsong culture – they are catching up with it so quick, I am so very proud of them!
We hade a trip to Ikea last week with our flat to shop for some essentials – since Lisette moved out we are mingling furniture around and trying to make it look more consistent and pretty! Weve done pretty well by covering the ugly yellow couch with a natural white sheet (it seriousy looks brand new and pretty amazing!!) and we have set a Japanese style low table into the living room! I will put up some pictures in the next post, I have none right now and it's way too late to start taking any :p
Of course we had to go a bit silly in the kids section and have some Swedish meatballs for lunch.. It was a great trip all in all! Victorious we returned home with selected bits and pieces :)
We've been focusing on hanging out with out kids heaps more with Jenn and one Sunday I invited Grace to hang out with me between the services – we had luch and then she came over to my place to bake some rasberry & white choholate muffins! We had so much fun and the muffins were delicious even though flat since we didn't have a cupcake pan! :D
I had a great opportunity opening up for me this week – I got to share the offering message in Chapel as a first first year student for years!! It went so well, God totally took over and communicated with a passion and clarity only He can.. Even our principal was impressed with the word that was brought forth! God is opening up many doors to me in leadership and I feel like everything I touch just flourishes!
I learned so much from our Intensive lectures of youth ministry introduction and teamwork, both so practical subjects that fire me up for the work that awaits back in Finland with UCC – I am gaining more and more tools for effective ministry! The new subjects for this term blow my mind – Christian doctorine, World Religions, Spirit Filled life, Church History and Personal Evangelism are going to fully change my life!! I am so excited for what God has in store for this semester and am rady to grap it with both hands and run with it!
Well, I quess that would be the biggest events from the past weeks, I try to update more regularly since it feels impossible to write all the great things that have happened the more time I wait.. :)
Check out my new cutie nice!
Lots of Love,
-P
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