I blinked and it’s already the end of summer. Wow. Thank You God for this missions experience. I’m forever grateful. God is doing really cool things here through United Community Church (UCC). They are a bright light in Finland. It’s cool to see how much they are growing. More and more young adults are coming, the youth are excited, the church is flourishing. Over this summer, I’ve heard from multiple people how UCC played a big part for them in connecting with christian community here in Finland. Good Christian community is not easy to find here. Finland has a lot of Lutheran and Pentecostal churches, however, it’s more “cultural christianity”. There aren’t many solid Bible-teaching churches around, so it’s really encouraging to see how God is using UCC to reach the people here. So let’s continue to pray that God would continue to grow UCC and advance His kingdom through it. UCC meets in a school and uses their cafeteria space for Sunday services. The school recently built new bleachers in their gym. So this Sunday, UCC is going to try and meet in the gym for their Sunday service to have more space and try to fit more people. They have a fellowship time after every Sunday service with food & pastries so this will give more space for that as well. Pray that this transition goes well for them and that they can continue to meet this way! Exciting things are happening! Unfortunately I will not be able to be there this Sunday to see how that goes- rather, I’ll be heading home that day!

Last Saturday, I met with some of the youth girls at a coffee shop for a morning devotional. There were 8 girls that joined! I shared the SOAP method with them (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer). We read the passage together and then for about 15 minutes, they all read and did the SOAP method themselves over the verses. We then went around and shared what we wrote down. After the devotional, they were excited and wanted to continue to do a devotional like this as a group once a month. We met again yesterday for my last day and 17 girls came!! Praise God! So cool how He is working in these girls and their excitement to gather and be in the Word together. Please pray that another leader can step in and help lead more studies like this! Thank You Jesus!

With last Sunday being my last Sunday Service at UCC, the church staff asked me to share a goodbye testimony about how my summer internship went. I was able to serve on the worship team as well one last time. That was special. UCC feels like one big family. It’s awesome now having another church family that is so supportive and encouraging. This past week, God has encouraged me a lot by speaking through other people to me. He has made it more clear as to why He brought me here this summer. At times, it was easy to think thoughts such as, “am I doing enough?”, “am I really helping?”, etc. But from what He’s told me through others, He has revealed the “why” to me and has been working in ways that I haven’t even noticed. He’s so cool like that. I am forever grateful for the relationships that God has given me this summer, and I pray that I can continue to keep and grow those relationships even while I’m halfway across the world. I have felt so loved and cared for while being here. The youth girls have been so sweet, I am so glad I got to connect with them (answered prayer!). The young adults group has been fun and I’ve met some great people through it (answered prayer!) some of us went bowling on my last night here! Towards the beginning of the summer, I asked God if He could give me at least one good friend while being here. He heard that prayer. I made a good deep friendship with Karolina- we have so much in common and we hung out all the time (we even took a day trip to Stockholm together!). God really knew we needed to meet- I am so grateful (answered prayer!). Oh how God has been so faithful!! I also want to thank YOU ALL. Thank you for praying for me throughout this summer. It’s been comforting knowing that I have a church family at home that has been supporting me and cheering me on. To God be the glory always.

God has taught me a lot this summer:

• While reading Mere Christianity with the young adults this summer, God revealed to me a deeper understanding of the significance of Him dying on the cross for my sins.
• He’s taught me the importance of being intentional about connecting with my church community. Since I’ve grown up in the same church my whole life, I can take it for granted and lose sight of how important it really is. I’ve gained a new perspective in being a new person going to a new church. It’s eye-opening. With that, He’s shown me what godly hospitality looks like through the way I have experienced it while being here by church members.
• He’s revealed more of the gifts He has given me and helped me recognize how I can use them for His glory.
• I’ve gained a new perspective on what church can look like in an international place.
• He’s shown me so much grace. Recently, as I’ve become more and more comfortable here, I’ve found myself getting more easily distracted and spending more time on my phone, which I don’t like. But I know that He continues to show me grace and love and motivates me to spend more time in His Word.
• God works in ways I don’t even see or realize. In my weakness, He is made strong.

I am so excited and looking forward to seeing you all again and sharing my experiences!! However, I am sad to be leaving a place I can call another home. It’s amazing what God can do in 3 months. I’m going to miss the people, place, community. Lord-willing, I’ll come back here again. I could go on and on in this blog to tell you about all the different things I’ve done, stories, and things that have happened. But it’ll be better to do that in person when I get home 🙂 But if I were to tell you one thing:

God is good.

See you soon! 🙂