Spontaneous trip to Joensuu

A week ago I was part of a workshop on 24/7 Prayer at a mission-themed conference in Helsinki. While there, I met a guy called Janne from Joensuu (around a 6 hour drive north-east of Helsinki), who is part of a community of young people there. A couple of days later they were starting their first prayer week. I mentioned that it would be cool to visit them some time, and in response Janne offered that I could get a lift with them the next day on their way back to Joensuu. I figured that I could potentially do it, so I asked God if I should go. His response was a pretty clear "Yes". I also asked what day to come back, and God suggested Thursday.

So, on Sunday morning, myself and Jenni (who's also part of our Jakomäki community) went to Joensuu. Jenni stayed until Tuesday morning, and I left on Thursday afternoon. We kinda just joined in with the life of the community there. Essentially, it's a group of friends from a few different parts of the Church in Joensuu. Some are involved with a 'media team', which has a house where they make music, videos and various other stuff (and Janne also lives there). Some of the community are also involved with running a youth cafe for the young people in the city. One room in the youth cafe building was used as the prayer room for the week.

So, we spent time getting to know some people from the community, eating, seeing some of Joensuu and just hanging out there. In addition to all this, we were privileged to take part in their first prayer week. It was so great to be there for the first couple of hours in the prayer room with around 10 others, aware that God is really up to something here. I filled in some open slots, maybe an hour or two each day. It was wonderful to see the room fill up with artwork and written prayers, and to see people really enthusiastic about getting to spend time in the prayer room. It seems quite clear that this won't be the last prayer week they host.

I really enjoyed being there, getting to spend time praying for Joensuu and the community, and getting to connect with people there. I also got to record one of my songs in the Media house's studio with Janne - you can hear it here: http://soundcloud.com/john-allison/john-allison-the-boat-song So all in all it was a great 5 days.