at home everywhere and nowhere

whoa, finally have time to rest. to think and sit down.
though my mind is still quite caught in the last few days.

we moved.

Im officially homeless now. we all are, tytti, milka and me.
though luckily we dont have to sleep on the streets.

last days have been so crazy, packing and driving and cleaning and organizing.
but finally yesterday we gave out the key. and we live together no more.
at leat not for a while.

the fact we are "homeless" is cause we didnt want to rent an appartment, cause we all are heding to our international practical training next autumn. so for the summer Im going to stay at my friends and at my mums, and tytti and milka first at milkas friends flat, then God knows where. (I told these plans of ours to a girl Im working with in june and she stated: hmm, thats an creative solution.) and we dont know where we will be living for the three weeks we still have school before going abroad. one teacher suggested that we could live in a tent on our schoolyard :)

living with tytti and milka has been one of the best things. one night I was reading the Bible and saw psalm 133, the pne where it says how pleasent it is when brothers (and I assume it works with sisters as well) live together. and the weird methapor it has with it being like the oil that drips from arons beard or something like that anyways.
and I checked some verses and realized that yes, of course, they anointed kings and prophets etc to their "ministry" with oil. and I do defenitely feel that this fellowship with tytti and milka has been "anointing" me, sharpening me (hmm, Im not going to say ministry, I´ll say) for life.
how true it is what niina once stated, friendships and relationships are so cool, a tool in Gods use and a joy in themselves.

so how about the big conversation

so the excuse why I went to belgrade was this 24-7prayer gathering, the big conversation. the thing was to talk and pray together about 24-7 in our own nations and globally as well.
I really did feel priviledged to be there. petra and I were the only finnish people, and kind of felt really small to share anything about the situation in finland. and on top of it, carla actually asked us to share something "in public" in the first meeting saturday morning. so we did.

there has been this prophesy about scandinavia playing some kind of role in the future also with 24-7. there was some stuff about the apostolic rising and grass-root things in the same prophesy. sounds good.

so we spent the saturday afternoon in small groups discussing about our countries and about ourselves and our dreams and about 24-7 as well. how we see it at the moment, where we see it going, what are the challenges and so on.
I really cant say much about this 24-7 stuff conserning me. there defenitely is quite a lot that resonates though. again community was mentioned many times. fueled again the dream we have of the house with tytti and milka.

but yeah, it was good.
Jesus challenged me and encouraged me.
new things are going to come, defenitely.

friendships

defenitely one of the best things -of course- was people.
interesting life stories and situations ;
(and here is only a few mentioned)

misty and scot from uk who are about to hed to europe
with their kids in a camper van, and just follow Jesus.
allie and si also from england, who have a skateshop
where they have had a prayerroom and have a lot
of young guys just hanging around with them.

two sweet girls from slovakia, sharing their dreams
and their work with youth for christ in their country.

old and new friends from sweden. Im starting to be a bit
excited about what Jesus is going to do with us scandinavians.
it defenitely is good to get conected with swedish people,
talked a bit about having a scandinavian meeting.
(though Im in Israel that time, shame. resa did promise
to find me a cheap flight so I could come :) we´ll see)

and then of course the lovely group of macedonians!
it was so good to meet them all. I was really encouraged
(and also challenged in my own heart) with their passion
for their own country! I so hope to go and visit these dear
sisters and brothers in Skopje some day! come on Jesus!

arriving to belgrade

so I was in belgrade. need I even say that I enjoyed it. it was great to get a peek to east europe, as me and couple of my friends are going to spend couple of weeks there in the beginning of august.

with petra we took off early thursday morning. changed flights in vienna with good three hours time to wait. prayed a bit on the airport, wondered how it is that people in west europe (as well as in east) are allowed to smoke e v e r y w h e r e, went around in the shops a bit and just hanged around. time went fast.

arrived in belgrade around three, joined a bunch of british people and hopped in a serbian taxi.
the big conversation was about to start only friday evening so it was great to have some "free time" before that. we had a bit of a siesta first and then joined the british to eat out.
we ate in this lovely restaurant at this lovely street with full of cafes and restaurants. just loved the athmosphere! had a good talk with english carla and helen. we shared a bit about "the situation" here in finland, about the people, the church and so on.


it was good to hear from carla and helen
about what is going on in england and in
their church scene. their "knowledge" in
political issues really challenged me, and
got me excited. also I was kinda suprised
to hear about how much their circles talk
about justice, and find it more difficult to
use words in meeting people. so we talked
about trying to find the balance in it all.

then had a good night sleep in our very decent but a bit smoky hotel room.

very short and messy and packed piece of serbia montenegros history

Im flying to belgrad tomorrow with petra.
there is this 24-7prayer meeting.

belgrad is the capital of serbia and montenegro.
serbia montenegro again, is a country in east europe.

it used to be a part of the former Yugoslavia, when it was formed in 1918.
before that serbia montenegro was influenced by turkey, venice, hungary, bulgary and russia.

then during the second world war the area was invaded by germany and later went through civil wars. during those times ove 1 million yugoslavians were killed. communism rose after the second world war.

croatia and slovenia left yugoslavia in 1991 and that started some etnic troubles between these neighbour countries. There are still etnic conflicts in the area.
in 1999 serbia forced the albanian muslims in kosovo area to leave their homes. this led to conflicts between the kosovo and serbian armies.
nato interrupted these conflicts by attacking with airforce, mostly bombing belgrad.
the new constitutional law in 2003 defined the union republic. both serbia and montenegro have their own parliaments, pms and presidents.

about the future, serbia has been talking about becoming part of the eu, but there are some troubles with that cause they havent arrested the former leaders who would need to be in court for their deeds during the wars. montenegro is going to vote about being independant in the end of this may, so I understood from the news couple of weeks ago. the kosovo area dreams about being independant as well.

there are 10 657000 inhabitants in the country,
63% are serbs
14 albanians
6 montenegroans
4 hungarians
and 13 other

there are 65% orthodox, 19%muslims, 4% roman catholics and 1% protestants

so, if you feel like sighing a small or a bigger prayer for serbia montenegro, I guess that would be nice. :) and we dont mind with petra, if you remember our journey as well, and the time of the conference. would be cool to get the right contacts, meet with right people and be a blessing.

loosing my religion

"amongst thousands there hardly is one true christian.
we are almost pagans with christian names"
-luther at the end of his life

do I have the right to call myself "a christian"?
Jesus said: preach the kingdom, heal the sick, cast out demons.
out of these three Ive,, wait,,Ive.. yeah. Ive started to ponder about
this kingdom thing, and at this point thats pretty much it.

this spring has been a time of questions.

day after day I find more and more questions appearing.
and I just have to let go. sometimes it almost wears me out,
this unknowing. at the same time it makes me unsettle and reliefed.

Im hoping that this is me loosing a cherished misunderstanding
of what faith is (as ishamel once commented on my blog)
and sometimes I fear this is me loosing my faith.
I do know Jesus loves me, and I love him. and thats about it.

it all started as a process on the organized church. critiziging it was real easy, asking questions about it - easy, getting out of it was also q u i t e easy.
but at that time I had no idea it would turn out to be this personal.

in the beginning I often asked the question that while waiting for the new, is it better to act in the old or not to act at all. I never got the answer as a sign from heaven (yeah,like I usually get all my answers :)) but now looking at my life, I see Jesus has lead me almost in this place of barredness.

I think Ive lost my faith in christianity, in the church, in christians, in sharing the gospel,
in myself.
I dont know how to pray, how to read the Bible, how to meet people, how to live in relationships.
and I long for Jesus.

sometimes it feels quite crazy to trust that something would actually appear out of this nothingness. but in the end, its all I can do.