Europe Trip Day 9

Today we wake, shower, and head to the mansion for breakfast.  Service will start at 11:30.

The food is typical, bread, cheese, jam, lettuce, tomato, ham or salami, and hard-boiled egg. The Finnish brothers have been joking that we will eat a lot of bread in Norway. I tell them we’re eating a lot of bread here! “Wait till you go to Norway” they say, “it is worse”.

After breakfast and fellowship, I get together with Bro Samouli to prep for the translation. He marks the scriptures and reads over the notes. We discuss anything I think might be difficult to translate. It helps keep things smooth.

I preach on Relationship or Nicolaitanism. The people having heard me yesterday are beginning to warm up much more easily. Others have arrived as well, and the meeting room is packed. Poor bro Elia (Kristian’s brother) keeps sitting in the front row as he is playing guitar. He’s my guinea pig for another service as I use someone for an example. I use Elia for the trust illustration, but he is much too big, too easy to trust. Still the point is made, God is bigger than Elia, and we know we can surely trust Him with everything we have.

After service is lunch. There was some kind of pizza this time, a little variation. There was of course still bread, cheese, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, and jam.

After lunch, some of the young people and I go for a walk. Bro Kristian takes his quintessential “artsy” pictures he is known for. The young people and I chat a bit and get to know one another. Two of the sisters speak quite good English and it was soo nice to have a good conversation. They remarked they are hardly ever around someone with such “perfect English”.

Perfect English? It is quite good isn’t it? I wonder that more people haven’t told me this before now.

It was nice to get to know some of the people a little more and have them begin to really open up. This is setting the stage for the youth gathering we are about to have. I would have loved the youth meeting to be a little bit more informal and interactive, but I cannot think of a way to make that work with the language difficulties, so I just began to talk about the character of our hearts, and that if there was anything hidden in our hearts, that we must get it confessed to someone. We kept the youth talk short to about 45 minutes for a break and to begin the evening service at 6:30.

Bro Kristian and I review my notes as he is interpreting tonight. He has heard this sermon before, I feel a burden for the people to preach “Wilt thou be made whole”. Bro Kristian felt maybe we could have a prayer line tonight, so while I had though to preach something else, I went with the inspiration that he had as he had the original inspiration for the meetings.

God wants to heal the people, not just in the physical bodies, but in their hearts as well. Bro Elia is my “patient” as I poke and prod him asking him what hurts. We discuss the hurts of our lives and what has caused them, how to get rid of them, and to let God heal.

We call the prayer line and some of the people come forward. A sister is weeping so uncontrollably I cannot even understand her request, but God knows what it is, and He is here to heal when we put ourselves in a position to receive it. A brother wants healing for his shoulder – I know all about this and can pray with feeling. The prayer line is sweet and God’s presence is with us. I believe that people are healed tonight.

I’m exhausted after preaching three times and the prayer line. Virtue definitely went from me during the prayer, and I seek a comfortable quiet chair upstairs to rest. Bro Kristian suggests the sauna tonight, I already feel like I’ve been in it – completely worn out.

After service meal is served, I am starting to try more of the rolls and desserts. There is some variation in that and it is good. Many of the rolls have ground cardamom in them, a flavor that I do like, but it’s a little odd with chocolate. We had a nice fruit roll cake of some kind that was quite tasty. The cups for drinks are a little too small for my liking, so I do the only American thing that can be done, and snag one of the liter bottles of drink off the service table and just bring it to my table with me.

We return to Bro Petteri’s house late as expected. Breakfast is at 9AM and I am preaching once more afterwards. God give me strength – but the sermon I am preparing for tomorrow is burning on my heart.