Week in Ruurikkala

A couple of weeks ago I was at Ruurikkala, a YWAM base in Evijärvi, which is about 5 or 6 hours north of Helsinki. I was there for a 5-day conference over the Easter weekend called 'Going Deeper', having been invited by my friends up there who run the YWAM base. I arrived a couple of days early just to spend some time there and find out about the plan for the gathering. Ruurikkala is a guest house set in pretty beautiful surroundings, right next to a lake, and it's one of those places where God seems to speak very clearly through His creation.

The conference itself was pretty awesome. There were about 90 people there, pretty much all aged between 20 and 30, and from all over Finland. The 5 days consisted of worship, some really great teaching, great food and time getting to know each other. I was helping to facilitate our times of corporate worship (in a combination of Finnish and English), which was really great. It was amazing to see how people became so much more free in worship over the course of the 5 days, some of whom clearly weren't familiar with a more 'free-flow' approach to worship.

We had some wonderful teaching, on stuff like identity in Christ and living in the rest of faith. Over the five days God did so much in people's lives, especially inner healing. Many people shared stories at the end of the gathering of how God had brought healing to some area of their heart. God's really given me a love for Finnish people, so seeing what God was doing in these people's lives was really amazing.

Another highlight of the time for me was getting to meet and get to know a number of really cool people. I've found that Finns, once they open up to you, will be completely open, which makes it quite easy to connect on a deeper level with them. I also enjoyed to talking to people who didn't speak much English, forcing me to use my Finnish. It seems I've got to the point where I don't worry too much about making mistakes and just try to talk, which obviously is quite important in learning a language.

So yeah, I had a great week there, and can't wait to see more of what God is clearly doing in this nation.