Home, sweet Finland

It has been quite silent here lately. But it doesn’t mean my life would have been silent.

Right now I’m at New York’s airport waiting for my flight to Brasil only to be continued by the last flight to Argentina. So my trip to Finland is officially over now. 

I arrived to Finland on the 26th of August after a long trip. My parents were waiting in the airport. How had I been missing them!

After one day of rest at home I went to do something really Finnish with my friends. We packed our backpacks and went hiking. In two days we walked 20 km. And of course we slept outside in tents and cooked our food on bonfire. Really Finnish.

My brother was moving to a new house with their family so I also had an opportunity to help him with fixing the new house. 

You can see more photos from my sister-in-law's blog. 

There were also two friends from YWAM Argentina visiting Finland and together we had a little trip visiting some youth camps and churches. Emilia, who had done her DTS at our base this year was also seeing her family so together we formed a great team. I had the honor to translate our visitors when they shared or preached in Spanish.

Ale on the left loves Finland.
Aaron on the right is Chilean and visiting Finland for the first time.

Love this car! Emilia was our trustworthy driver
as we miraculously fit into this Mini Cooper

In general, it was so crazy how many awesome encounters I had with so many people! I got to see all the closest family members, supporters, crowds of friends, got to know my new nieces and nephew and even met with my friends from the job I used to have. 

Getting to know one of the new family members

Spanish worship in Finnish church

These guys (Kruuvi) are my best friends!
So I was more than willing to help them with their gig.

Playing with my niece.

I was spoiled in many ways :D

My plan was also to share about the new base we are about to open in Rosario. So this week my friend arranged a mission night where I was able to explain well what we are doing as AME art team and what’s the deal with Rosario. I was surprised how many people came to listen to me and how generous they were with our project! Thank you all!

So basically I’m just super happy and thankful for all the details of this trip! It had already been more than two years and half since the last visit and I don’t know when the next opportunity will be! So that’s why I’m so grateful for this opportunity to travel in this season.

Thank you everyone for your time, support, prayers, conversations and friendship. It’s something crucial to have emotional, spiritual and financial support from my homeland. 

Thanks Daddy for the best Christmas!

Greetings from São Paolo's airport! I'm almost there - just waiting for my third flight which will finally take me to Argentina.

So now as my visit in Finland is over it's a good time to post some photos and share a bit. 

The whole trip was such a great gift and a huge blessing! I really realized that it's by God's grace that I could see my family and friends, serve and enjoy. I could really experience Daddy's love through many different people, especially through my parents and family.

It was hard to leave my country once again - especially because I don't know when will I come back next time. I already miss friends and family. But more than anything I'm so thankful for the time I got to spend with them.

YWAM Ruurikkala - I got to know this amazing DTS!

A worship meeting where I shared a short testimony

The Christmas celebration of
the youth ministry of my home church

From a pentacostal church

Amazing Sarah, my friend from the DTS, came to see me!

Visiting my sister's family

Tampere

Thanks mom for taking us to eat!

Chinese dinner..! 

my daddy

The Christmas Eve. My brother came over with his wife 

The Christmas day
- singing for the homeless/alcoholists/poor

Lovely people indeed.
Got to pray for one of them and just share Daddy's love.

More family together!
The children make a real Christmas!

From my home church's new year camp.
I gave a teaching about missions.

Well, I also spent heaps of time with my friends, but I don't really have photos of that. However they are super important for me and I really liked just to relax.

Hope each one of you had an amazing Christmas and New Year. May God really bless u overwhelingly during this year!

Outreach in Santa Fe, Argentina

Hi!

I'm back here after a while! The outreach is over and I'm back in Buenos Aires. Tomorrow we'll have the graduation of our Counseling School. Time have gone so fast and I'm just so thankful for God for everything He's done. 

But now, let's see a little bit what happened during the first three weeks of our outreach. 

As I wrote before, our plans to go to Cuba were cancelled. But in the same time God opened another door to go to the Province of Santa Fe in Argentina. So that's where we started our outreach on the 15th of January.

Our team leaders were Oswaldo (El Salvador) and Mayra (Colombia). The school mates with me were Alanna (New Zealand), Raiza (Colombia) and Cecy (Argentina) who joined us one day later. 

The bus to Santa Fe took like five ours. When we got to the terminal the people from the church were already waiting for us. They took us to the place we stayed the three weeks: a big camping outside the city. 

The population of the province of Santa Fe is 3 200 000 and 400 000 of them live in the capital city which is also called Santa Fe. The church we were working in was a big church and had many annexes, smaller Christian communities under it.

The first week we're preparing the camping to receive the huge youth camp. So we did what we know by hard: work duties. We cleaned the bathrooms from the bugs and spiders, built tens of bunk beds, cleaned the kitchen, washed the floors as well as possible. 

During this youth camp of 200 young people we didn't have so much planned schedule but we helped with ministration when possible. Also they asked to lead some games and so we did in two afternoons. God also used us to personal discipleship and ministration and also the youth leaders sent people to us when the noticed that they didn't have tools to help the people with heavy problems. 

After the first week we got really sick, as I wrote before. The water from the well + all the food we ate + hundreds of flies around... made us end up to a hospital. Alanna and Mayra were really week, but I wasn't much stronger either. So for the first time in my life they put me the intravenous drip (three times) and I ended up sleeping in the hospital. 

The health care is free in Argentina and this hospital was actually really nice. But I can't say I liked the experience. After this event we took more care with our water and dishes and stayed well the rest of the time. 

The following weeks we were preaching and teaching in different annexes, the small churches under the mother church. The people were mostly open to our teachings, but sometimes the spiritual atmosphere was REALLY heavy and there was something that made it hard for the people to receive.

I can't remember that I'd preached before in any church... But this time I preached twice in SPANISH..! I also translated Alanna from English to Spanish twice! These were big steps of faith but God was faithful and helped me. I spoke about the intimacy with God and forgiveness. The following time was in a prison and it was something I won't forget easily.

Inside this prison there is many pavilions of about hundred people. Today one of the pavilions is almost totally Christian. That means that most of the prisoners in this pavilion have converted to Christ during their time in the prison! Every day they have a meeting and most of the prisons take part. So I was totally surprised when I entered into this place and saw happy and internally FREE men! It was an honor to preach to this audience and they listened every word I said. They were also really open to receive prayer and discipleship after the preach. That's amazing right?

There was also another camp during our time in Santa Fe. This camp was for the adolescents. We were asked once again to lead some games and also to have two drama workshops. It ended up well.

During the three weeks we also had opportunities to visit different families, to eat well and also encourage and disciple the broken people. Even though we didn't have lots of plans beforehand we were able to see how God used us. 

Reasons to give thanks:

- For our health

- For the revival in Santa Fe and the prisons

- How God used us

Pray for Santa Fe:

- More committed people to work in the churches

- against the sexual abuse - we found out is a strong problem in this area

- For the families to stay together and raise up their children in good environment

Thank you for your support and prayers!

I wish I'll be able to post more soon so you can hear about the rest of the outreach!