Åse Marie's Birthday More Pictures

Left: Åse Marie got LOTS of gifts.
Right: She even got a pepper-jar. It's a tradition to give those to someone that becomes 30 years old and aren't married yet.

A Whole Lot of Kissing:
Left: Gemma was hit by a sudden wet kiss.
Right: Åse Marie is very happy about her new pepper-jar.

Left: Åse Marie's father.
Right: Åse Marie's niese (one of them) was a good baby-sitter for Gemma's baby.

Left: There was a lot of food. Everyone is looking forward to fill up their plates and stomaches.
Right: We had praise and worship.

Left: A few of the girls in Åse Marie's family.
Right: A lot of people said nice things about Åse Marie in the mic. One of them were her mother. Åse Marie also said good stuff about her mother and gave her a rose.

Left: Anne Maria praised Jesus through a dance
Right: Helene Told a story about what happened in The Garden of Eden...

Åse Marie Becomes 30

This evening we celebrated Åse Marie's 30'th birthday. It was a BIG celebration. It was almost like a wedding. Maybe the celebration was really about her secret marriage with her new pet?

You can read more about this on the following blogs:
Åse Marie's blog: ENDELIG 30!!!
Anne Maria's blog: Åse-Marie 30 years

Please Comment

I have lots of friends that have been complaining that they are not able to leave comments on my blog. I have now changed the settings, so ANYONE can leave comments. Therefore you are without excuse for not commenting :D

This is a temporary post, that will be deleted after some time.

Nothing Else Matters

I wrote "If Heat Were Love" one of the days I was in Finland. When I was there Jesus showed me His love in a deeper way than I had felt ever before, to a point where I was thinking: "Really, I have NEVER experienced His love before".

Without love - Nothing else matters.

If Heat Were Love

If heat were love,
I'd love you more
than the heat of a
thousand suns

Still The Fathers love
for you would be
so much higher
than the heat of all
the stars in the universe

More Pictures from Finland

Yesterday we drove back to Riihimäki, where I spent the night. This morning I went back to Norway. Here are some more pictures from my visit to Finland:


Left: Anu - Her and some other friends was kind enough to make lunch for me one of my days in Turku. I LOVE Finnish food (the mämmi is an exception). How they make the food is a well kept secret though. Try ask them for a recipy: "Well... I think it's made of something like... Well... It's not hard to make". That's what you usually get...
Right: My good friend Maarit.


Left: Katri (Miss Karila) and Mia. Katri was kind enough to rehearse swedish with me.
Right: Antti and Markus demonstrates the world famous Finnish violence. The winner gets to eat the rest of the mämmi.


Left: Anna and Kaisu. The cottage we lived in for the weekend is owned by Anna's grandparents. They live there themselves in the summer.
Right: Elisa was kind enough to try to learn me jenka, which is a traditional Finnish folk-dance. Well... It was kind of hard, but they say that this is an important Finnish tradition, so I must try again next time I'm in Finland.


Left: Markus - The famous Finnish stunt car racer. Well... At least he drove us safe from Riihimäki to Tammisaari. He lives in Riihimäki together with Pauli, Mikko and Antti.
Right: Kaisu and Katri.


Left: Artistic picture. Kaisu is giving Anna a haircut. I took the picture through the window, so what you see is partly the reflection in the window and partly what's inside the window. Kaisu gave several haircuts in Tammisaari.
Right: Anna is wondering how her hair is going to look like.



Left: Heli and Paula. Who will wash the dishes?
Right: Sometimes we made music together. It's great to worship Jesus through music.


Left: The water we bathed in after sauna.
Right: Finnish forest.


Left: Me and Juha are fighting over who will get the biggest portion of mämmi.
Right: Kaisu, Antti, Paula and Markus are ice-walking.


Left: Simo - I guess he is laughing out of one of my jokes.
Right: Kaisu, Elisa, me, Maarit, Eeva and Heli in a group hug.


Elisa, me, Maarit, Eeva and Heli in a group hug. It was sad to leave all my Finnish friends, but I say like my big role model Arnold Schwarzenegger alias The Terminator: I'll be back!

More pictures on Juha's blog under the following posts:
1) Kuvia Perheväen Pääsiäisestä Tammisaaressa
2) YYA----Yhteyttä, Ystävyyttä ja Armoa

Finnish Sauna

Late yesterday evening we had Finnish sauna, which of course includes ice bathing. Personally I think the water was too much on the hot side. Hey. There was an area of the lake where the ice had melted. I followed Doctors recommendation and dived my whole body under three times.

The Finnish sauna is a blessing in many ways. Somehow the most powerful prayer meetings have a tendency to start up kind of by it self when we have sauna. Last night the boys shouted with full lungs while praying for topics God put on our hearts.

Finnish Shit – One of those everyday stories (or how to emty an outdoor toilet)

Today I discovered the highly valuable secret ingredient in the Finnish mämmi. Unfortunately there were a dangerous guard named Elisa, so I had to fight for the goods.


After fighting for a long time, we finally found that we could share the income and carried our goods away.


We had to test that the mämmi-material was of good quality, so I gave the Elisa the honour of tasting.


Elisa found that the mämmi-material tasted quite good, so we put it all in a special storage container were it shall rot for a couple of years to achieve the very special fine aroma needed.


After covering the mämmi-material with some rotted branches, so no one can find and steal it, we had a short moment of prayer that we shall achieve great riches and much much honour through our mämmi-production.


Afterwards we celebrated a job well done. We will come back later and reap the reward of our effort. International export of the Finnish mämmi is up high on our to-do list.

Hazardous Driving

Today I went by train to Riihimäki, where I joined Heli, Antti and Markus in a car to Tammisaari. For some strange reason my Finnish friends didn’t trust their 20 year old beautiful car to take the main road, so they figured that countryside driving would be safer.

I’m telling you: We didn’t need anyone to tell us to pray. I’m talking roads not much broader than the car, with an incredible mix of much slippery snow and big water-filled ditches. At one point there were a tree growing in the middle of the road. The tree made us see a big ditch, which we had to avoid. Why use street signs when you can plant a tree?

Amazingly (thank you Jesus!) we all got to Tammisaari intact and in just double the time the main road would have taken.

Picture: The house where I spent most of the time in Tammisaari together with 12 friends.

Finnish Hospitality

Today I went to Tampere to see my most beloved friend Hanna. All the way on the train I felt really hungry for chocolate. Boy, was I glad when she gave me a Santa Claus made of chocolate. Hey. I even got a chance to eat Santa. Sorry kids – He's dead now!

Hanna also gave me wool-socks, of the good old home-knitted kind that you can’t buy in a normal store. I've wanted that kind of socks for years. She was even kind enough to share her Mämmi with me.

I met her father Erkki for the first time. After talking to me for a few minutes he said that he would be very glad if I could come to his big 80-year birthday celebration this summer.

Now I know how the Finnish have survived the cold winters: Because of the sauna AND because they are so warm people.

Picture: Hanna with a bowl of Mämmi.

Finnish Traditions: Mämmi

The Finnish have a national tradition named ”Mämmi”. They eat it at Easter and it taste like… Well... It taste like it looks. Some person less polite than me could accidentally say that it looks like... SHIT...

You can read more on Petra's blog under the following posts:
1) Easter time
2) What is MÄMMI?

The Finnish Silence

Today we were some friends gathered at Linnea’s place. Kaisu suggested that we used some time together without talking, just seeking Jesus together in silence. She also laid out long pieces of paper, which you could paint or write on.

It was a nice experience. Everyone received something from Jesus, and we shared with each other afterwards.

My friends also took some time listening to see if Jesus would say something about me. Afterwards they all prophesied over me. It was very encouraging.

More about this gathering on Linnea's blog under this post:
ystäviä, palloja ja mämmiä

Picture: Linnea

Finnish Drama: Via Dolorosa

This morning I went to Turku in Finland. I’m going to stay a couple of days and see some of my friends here.

This afternoon I went with Petra, Kaisu and Mia to see “Via Dolorosa”, it’s an Easter drama they have every year. The really cool thing was that the drama was outside and that the audience participated. During Jesus’ trial we were the crowd shouting: “Crucify!” (“Ristinaulitse!” in Finnish). It felt very strange to demand my Lord, saviour and best friend crucified.

You can also read about this play in Juha's blog under this post:
Via Dolorosa

Pictures: The role as Jesus is played by my friend Juha Ylinen. The inscription on the cross reads "Turkulaisten Kunungas", which means "King of Turku".

New Balloon Artist

Today me and my trainee Rosalind finished a 19 hour job of balloon twisting, spread over 4 days. We worked at two different places, so she had to manage by herself even though this was her first commercial appearance.

This evening she also celebrated her soon-to-come birthday. As I see it, we also celebrated that, after this job, she has fulfilled her initial stage of training and is officially an up-and-going balloon artist.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Easter Play

On Friday and today we had an easter-drama (Jesus got crucified and resurrected and that kind of stuff) at Sagene, the place where Helene lives. It was a lot of fun. I think it is especially rewarding to work with drama when there are child actors involved.

Picture: One of the actors. She doesn't use the nose in the drama. Actually she plays the role as Jesus.