You Make Beautiful Things

It’s been almost a week since we got back to Recife from Sertão. And wow, what a week this was! A week filled with meeting new people and having new experiences and beautiful encounters.

After the rest day, Monday, we started to clean the base for the special Wednesday evening. On Wednesday we had the Fathet’s Love Banquet here at the Shores of Grace base. Father’s Love Banquets are banquets where Shores of Grace invites prostitutes and transvestites for a dinner and shares with them about Father’s love for them and their value and identity honoring them as sons and daughters of God.

Boys busy cleaning the base.

The base is always beautiful but is was stunning on Wednesday evening. And is got even more stunning when all the beautiful ladies arrived! There were approximately 20 ladies and some of them brought also their children here. We had a delicious dinner and such a good time. We got to pray for them and to share to them words from the Father. Words, that are always so encouraging and so full of love and respect! We also got to give them flowers, gifts and cards we had made before. What a beautiful night with beautiful people!

Você é Linda - You are beautiful!

All ready for the guests to arrive.

The table with the presents.

I spent most of my evening with this beautiful lady.

I have also been getting familiar with the Bethany home and helping there. Bethany home is a home where ten girls rescued from prostitution, abusive situations and the streets live with their lovely house parents. I’m so honored to have this chance to get to know these ten beautiful, special girls! And they’re patiently teaching me more Portuguese. Huh, it’s a hard language! I’m going to Bethany home also today and I hope I still remember the words the girls taught me yesterday!

On Thursday afternoon couple of us went to clean Bethany home 2. It’s going to be a home for ladies who want to leave the streets. I was there cleaning the toilets listening this Gungor song where they sing:

                 ”You make beautiful things,

                   You make beautiful things out of dust

                   You make beautiful things,

                   You make beautiful things out of us”

And soon after that I killed the biggest cockroach I have ever killed bravely yelling and using my flip-flop! I was very proud indeed.

Cesar and Vick collecting the oven in Bethany home 2.

On Tuesday and Friday nights we went to the streets to meet the prostituted women and transvestites. Especially the encounters on Friday night were so beautiful and moving. It’s amazing to share often times just quite simple words about Father’s love and see the smiles breaking down and tears coming to eyes. There is just so deep hunger to hear about identity and value and what an honor it is to get to share the Father's love to these precious people.

An encounter that really touched my heart was with one transvestite. I told that he is so special person and the Father really has very special plans for his life. He looked me deep to my eyes and asked if I really believe that. I told that I surely do, because our Father is a loving Father. I also told that getting to tell this to him was such an honor to me. He was surprised and told me that in Brazil no-one respects him. I told that it really makes the Father sad and that it also makes me sad. We hugged and said goodbyes.

It can be just so simple sometimes.

Our Father is so creative and He has created each one of us so special using His amazing, spectacular creativeness giving us different kinds of gifts and dreams and making us look so much different, even with so different skin colors! And in the same time we all are so much the same everywhere in the world. He has set eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11) and so we all have in our hearts the longing to know the one who created us. We all long to be accepted, loved and respected. We all long to live a beautiful life in Him, letting Him be our Father and to take care of us. We all long to know we are not here by accident but that there is a Creator who has a plan and dreams for our lives. And how amazing it is to find those dreams in your own life, know the Father yourself and then go and give everything the Father has poured to you the one in front of you. He surely makes beautiful things out of dust and beautiful things out of us.

And I Believe You Will Come Like the Rain

Happy Easter time everyone! I have just lived my first Easter not being home in Muonio, Finland. And yeah, my family and our church family were on my mind and heart a lot. I was praying for the ”Kynttiläkirkko” which literally means ”The Candle Church” they had on Saturday night celebrating the resurrection of our King Jesus. And I heard they really had a beautiful Easter celebration with lots of joy and worship! That’s awesome! I love them all so much and I love what God is doing in Muonio.

So, how was my first Easter away from home? It was very different than usually and it was amazingly b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. We woke up early on Friday morning here at the Shores of Grace base and headed to a village called Sertão. After five hours of driving we were in this little village and were lodged to the school of Sertão. After the lunch we were separated to small teams and started going to the houses to meet people. And wow, what beautiful encounters we had with these beautiful people!

 

Most of the people welcomed us warmly. The other people in my team were Brazilians so very quickly they started to talk with the people and play with the kids. At the first place I was there on the yard just standing and smiling and thinking that well, it’s great that my team is having these encounters with the people but it’s a shame that I can’t do anything here. Thinking that I had this thought that I just would go to greet the little girls there standing on the doorway. Pretty quickly the adults invited me in and we just had the greatest time me knowing one word in Portuguese, ”Obrigada!”, ”Thank you!” We took a lot of pictures with their phones and my camera and smiled and laughed a lot. You don't need to speak the same language to connect with people.

 

We were already about to leave the first place but then got a chance to pray healing for two people – and old lady and an old man. And they both got healed! Muito obrigada Jesus – thank you so much Jesus! (I’m slowly but surely learning more Portuguese.)

The weekend was filled with lots of love, joy and laughter. We had meetings for the whole village and a big children’s meeting. On Sunday we offered a lunch for the whole village. I got to hold many precious children in my arms and tell them that they are so beautiful and so loved - ”Você é muito linda i amada!”

 

There was also grief in seeing the deep, deep hunger the children had for just anybody to hold them and show them love. In the book Learning to Love by Heidi and Rolland Baker they write: ”Suffering is seeing what Jesus sees. Joy is doing what Jesus does.” Amen. I want to learn more about both – the suffering  and the joy. That my eyes would be so opened to the reality of the people’s lives that I would really suffer because they suffer, and that I would know the heart of my Father so deeply that I would know how to bring His heart, love and answer to the people. The process with that continues every day! It’s just so good to be learning with a Father who is so willing to teach and just loves that I'm pursuing His heart. Still it's not always easy to be in a process when you in your flesh would just like to be ready or something. But like Heidi and Rolland write in Learning to Love: "I will ask Him  to help me stay undone. Not finished, always ready, always wanting to be more like Him."

 

Vittori truly knows what's the most important - the heart!

Today I have just rested. In the evening we had a beautiful worship session before some of us went to the streets to meet the prostituted women. One of the guys saw a vision where we were collecting the diamonds from the streets and giving them to the Father. Because that's what everyone of us is to the Father - an unique, beautiful and precious like a diamond.

We are having a refreshing rain right now. And my heart sings I believe You will come like the rain! He is coming like the rain and is refreshing my heart, more and more every day!

How High How Deep How Wide Is Love Love Love

It’s been a while. But hey, I arrived to Recife, Brazil yesterday! I’m still kinda getting to realize that I’m really here and that I’m going to be here for some time now. It feels good, exciting and challenging.

By now I actually should have been in Recife for two weeks already, but my grandma Ulla died a day before I was supposed to leave Finland, at March 31th. She died peacefully and beautifully at the age of 81 trusting to Jesus. But of course we, the whole big family, are missing her so, so much. Our grandma Ulla was amazingly loving and she really poured out so much love for us. Like my brother Juho said, grandma Ulla didn’t love selectively and cautiously. No, she loved with her whole heart and didn’t leave anybody out.

I postponed my departure by two weeks. And it was a good decision – it was really good to start the grieving process with the people who share the loss and to be at the funeral and memorial service.

Just a couple of days before my grandma died, when we were still hoping that she would get better for the cancer she had, I read this verse from the Bible:

"When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love Him." (Psalm 116:15, The Message)

What a joy is to know that grandma Ulla is now in Heaven with God. And that she was so greatly welcomed!

My grandma Ulla and my grandpa Paavo in the summer of 2008.

Albert Einstein once said that only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. In the memorial service I told that to me grandma Ulla is one of the greatest examples of how true that is. She really lived for others, for loving, caring, comforting and praying.

I’m so thankful to God for all the love He poured to me through my grandma Ulla. And I’m grateful that I got her in my life almost for 25 years. And I'm thankful of her life. She was married for my grandpa Paavo for over 60 years, from the year 1953 till the day she died, had six children and 20 grandchildren. Their marriage was so beautiful in so many ways and she lived a beautiful life full of love.

Yesterday evening here at the Shores of Grace base we were worshipping and singing "I wanna know how high, how deep, how wide is love, love, love." Amen. That's what I want to know, more and more every day. I want to understand more that love looks like something. Grandma Ulla showed that in so many ways: her love looked for example like hugs, kisses, her loving presence, beautiful wool socks, amazing meals, her joyful laughter and so many other things. Love really does look like somehing and I know that God wants to teach me more about how I can show His love to people anywhere I am.