Recent developments

It was hard to come up with a title for this blog post, so I apologize for the mundane title it now has. However, hopefully the pictures in this post compensates for your interest.

Life has indeed progressed most rapidly in recent months, so rapidly that I have not had time. Yes, not had time. This is of course a concept worth to be reviewed with more details, I mean the concept of "not had time". Here it acts just as an open excuse for the negligence this blog has experienced in recent months.

May went by with travels, grandma's funerals, busy working weeks, and relatives visiting us.

June went by with some travels, some busy working weeks, some visiting relatives and related bureaucracy, some self studying, and some preparatory works for small group studies.

July went by with seeing off wife and baby, intensive self studies, frequent hospital visits (non-serious nature), emergency business travel, and traveling to the other home country on earth.

The past 2 weeks has been busy with meeting friends and family, traveling, camping, re-capturing our previous life, and partially meditating on our future life. Still ahead is the last part of this holiday trip and then returning to the current home country and the everyday life there.

I am good at giving long lists of what I have done, here comes a short list of what I have found out or pondered about:
- Life in China is very hectic, too hectic. We need to do something about our life there to get things rolling smoothier.
- Life in Finland is very nice, but we do not belong here no more, at this phase.
- There are tremendous opportunities for "doing good" in China.
- There are marvelous friends in our lives, which we will treasure and appreciate.
- Loving parents and family are gifts from God.
- The Creation is so beautiful, after spending 6 months in BJ, the appreciation of pure nature grew tremendously!
- Positive attitude and a clear purpose help to sustain us, all based on the goodness and immanence of God.
- I have learned to use more superlative words to express myself. Perhaps I have now had more superlative emotions? :)

Coming and going, now we are kind of used to it. People meet us and ask when we will leave. It does not feel bad, rather very encouraging: the short moments spent together are much appreciated, and we all know that our family does not belong here, for now. Knowing where we are and why we are, it is very assuring. God is a God of assurance. He does not leave anything uncertain.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Paul's first letter to Timothy, Chapter 1, verse 9: He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. 

Paul's letter to Philippian church, Chapter 3, verses 13 and 14: Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 

The letter to Hebrews, Chapter 3, verse 1: Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.

Scenery (notice the magnificent clouds)

Picnic in the park, with dear friends

Picnic / swim in the beach, with dear friends, and wonderful weather

The tasty table at a birthday party. Wonderful makers of the cakes and snacks. :)

Earth and sky

Awe struck. "How great, how awesome art Thou!"

Greetings from Afar

It so happened that the month of May went by without a blog post. Perhaps I could catch up in June.

Recently we have received few greetings from back home. These greetings have come in different formats, some emails, some letters, some cards, some as useful utensils. We have been very grateful for these greetings, and they have brought tears to our eyes.

Today I received an email from an elder lady, whose family I have met only a couple of times. We have served together in her church when I have visited the town she lives in. We are not that close, but this is what made her letter so special: she was so caring and sharing, that I really felt the hearty love she and her family have towards us. Far away, they are praying for us. We share same faith, same Spirit, same God. We each have our challenges and hardships, but together we march on. Soldiers of Christ.

Yes, being far away is special, and those greetings from afar are the diamonds shining the light from above into our dusty everyday life. I treasure these greetings, I treasure these people. I treasure the family I have in Christ. What a width, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ! (Ephesians 3:18)

Thank you, and just to let you know: you are dear to us, and we also pray for you.

The fields of my home village, where I visited for grandma's funerals

A Trip to the Holy Land

The definite benefit of studying is to have holidays. For that matter, holidays are also the treasures of working life. We had one week Autumn "holiday" from school, which we used to travel to the Holy Land - Israel. Just to make things clear: we didn't do any pilgrimage stuff, simply holiday, and Israel was a  perfect place for that!

Wonderful warmth (btw 20-30C), beautiful sunshine, interesting places to visit (history, sightseeing, multi-cultural food, religious significance), and good company (wife+baby+parents). The only downsides were rather expensive hotels/hostels and general cost level being similar to Finland, but those money issues were resolved by savings and sharing the expenses. :) Mediterranean, Sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea were great waters to visit and take a dip, unfortunately we didn't manage to swim in Galilee due to time restrictions (welfare of baby).

Here are some pictures that hopefully transmit a bit of the atmosphere and experiences of our trip. By the way, images are captured with Nokia N9. :)

On the way to Israel we had an overnight stop over in Kiev, Ukraine. It made travelling with Viivi much easier. While in Kiev, we really enjoyed Slavic hospitality (you can take this either way) and magnificent Slavic food! The Blinies pictured here were delicious and rather cheap considering it was room service. :D

In Israel the sun set already at 17:30, here is a picture looking at the old Yaffa with some Mediterranean waves. We actually did not notice the 1 hour time difference btw Finland and Israel, thus the first day in Israel was spent in Finnish time.

Some older part of Tel Aviv. As said, weather was terrific for holidaying. Rental car was working well and GPS navigator co-operated seamlessly, until we went to West Bank. :D

Old Roman Aqueduct in Cesarean, besides the sea. We heard this was the only "sight seeing" place in Cesarean with free entrance. :)

Let the Mediterranean flow... 

Beach under the ancient aqueduct. Warm, nice, holiday. :D Viivi was actually afraid of the sounds that waves produced, otherwise she did really well!

On the mount Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee. It's actually a lake. We were first in the city of Tiberias, then visited the national park of Arbel. 

The hordes of people in the street of Old Town of Jerusalem. Actually there were groups of dancing Jewish men carrying Torah and singing something. Traffic jam, polices patrolling, and the atmosphere was a bit tense. This was actually at the Arab quarter of the Old Town. :)

Best meal for me during the trip: Arab shashlic (meat on sticks). 

The Garden Tomb, the only place I actually enjoyed in Jerusalem, besides the hostel. :) Quiet and beautiful, one could spend whole day there meditating on life and the Word of God. Thumbs up for recommendation!

One of the slogans on the wall of the hostel we stayed at. Perhaps meaningful for some of you? :)

Overview of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. While going up there the car tyres actually slipped several times at the steep hill of ascension. I really wondered how those buses managed to get up! Also, the GPS failed us miserably as this area obviously belonged to West Bank. 

One of the eight natural wonders of the world: the Dead Sea. We arrived at Minerals Beach and spoke Russian to achieve mutual understanding with ticket officers. The place was well worth the visit: floating, mud, cleaning facilities, sulfur pool, children's pool... Dead Sea is a wonder. 

The mountains surrounding the Dead Sea at its western side. The Qumran was only 20km away from this place in North, Masada some kilometers towards South. Impressive views.

The Sabbath meal cooked together by the residents of the hostel and enjoyed together. It was great meal!

The Shrine of the Book. This is in the Israel Museum, and contained some portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran. It also contained the introduction of the Aleppo Codex and also the Codex book itself! Very interesting place to visit. A sense of sacredness certainly dwelt there, though same cannot be said of the Israel Museum in general. Nice Museum nonetheless.

On our journey back we had another stop-over in Kiev, Ukraine. This view is from the hotel we stayed at. Our taxi driver to the airport happened to be a believer! He had Hillsong music playing in his car, and it was good to hear his stories about Ukraine...

The trip was pleasant. Now getting back to the books and essays, only 6 weeks left of school this semester...

Flash Back: Tour Asia, June 2011

Cannot believe it's already been three months since I toured Asia: S-Korea, Taiwan, HK, China. It was a good trip, colorful experiences, good travel companions, great learning opportunities, and also meeting up some friends + relatives. Since I've promised to put some pics here, now I must fulfill my promise before continuing with new blog posts about recent thoughts and experiences.

So, here we go:

First stop was S-Korea, and this little cute decoration was found in a nice local restaurant. The name Jesus is well known for many S-Korean Christians, though I don't know what the little chicks are doing in the thing. Anyhow, cute.

Between the working days I had opportunity to climb a mountain near the hotel we stayed at. It was a nice recreation area and there was literally water flowing from this rock, and one can take a nice drink of the cold fresh water. What's amazing is that the water kept flowing, since it was natural and the spring upstream is producing water, it just can't stop flowing. :) Can't help remembering what Jesus said, that whoever believes in Him, out from those people will flow a stream of living water. If the spring is not dry, nobody can stop the out-flow! Refreshing, stunning, amazing.

Since it was early morning, the air was clean and temperature very enjoyable. Here is an overview from higher on the mountain.

Oh the colors of nature! Reflecting the rich love and deep wisdom of God the Creator. Morning sun shine.

Breakfast in Taiwanese hotel. This was only part of what I had. ;)

Food mart of Taipei 101, which is the tallest building in Asia (?). Bubble tea was great! :D

Departure lunch at Taipei airport. Surprisingly cheap, and definitely tasty as one can expect. 

Spread the wings like the eagle, soar on high, through the blue sky, over the misty clouds. The art of flying, despite the high tech, cannot compare to the creation. Nice view from the cabin window though. :)

HongKong is HongKong, no matter from which angle you look at it, right?

Food in the style of my home province, served in southern China. As always, we were hungry and our eyes wanted more than our stomachs, couldn't finish everything. :(

The cheapest, and almost the best meal on the trip: rice/bean noodles with cucumber and stuff, spicy, cold, bought from street seller, price ~ 0.5 euros. It's good to know that despite the inflation, there can be good and cheap food found. 

Summary: pictures are only a part of memories, and my principle does not allow me to post pictures of people here. Traveling for me is not meant for having fun or tourism, but I want to meet up with friends and people, get involved in their lives even for one glimpse only. Life is better when it is shared. :)

Summer Loving

Hah, anybody recognized the topic without googling? :P

Summer loving comes from the song Summer Nights, which in turn was a part in the musical Grease. Grease is a must if you want to learn about american (US) culture.

This post is not about US culture, nor about Grease. :)

Summer is now, Finland is experiencing exceptional humidity and temperatures. Kinda nice. In the beginning of July we visited relatives and friends in Eastern Finland, and popped in the Saimaa - the biggest lake of Finland (the land of thousand lakes). The water was COLD! Must have been less than 15 degrees, while the air was ~30 degrees. All the adults were intimidated by the coldness, only Viivi, our bold baby, went against all the odds and enjoyed the clear water and sandy beach. A hero since her small age.

Despite the Summer season and seemingly quiet surroundings here in Finland, I've had a lot of experiences and thoughts about life, living, cultures, people, future, God, faith, family, friends, aging, food, joy, sorrow, pity, pain, stupidy, wisdom, growth, responsibility, fun, happiness, money, work, career, freedom, creativity... just to list a few. ;)

Hopefully I'll manage to find time to finally download my pics from Asian trip (beginning of June) and post some of them here to share. Also, I've listed several topics I'd like to blog about, so hopefully I'll get to them eventually.

We are moving house, next week, to another city. More details later. Summer continues, just another day.

And psst: Viivi has recently learned to walk, still 2 wks till her 1 year birthday. She has also learned to annoy her parents intentionally. Bright future ahead. :)