San Francisco, the 28th of April 2009
Last week was my first time to attend the Bible study groups for homeless. I was amazed by some homeless to be that aware about God's word and having love for Christ in their hearts. Some of them had a lot more knowledge over Bible than me and the way they spoke about God was so beautiful. It reminded me of God's words in somewhere in the Bible. I don't know what's the verse but it speaks about people we're gonna meet one day in heaven. He says that there will be many that kind of people we wouldn't consider heavenly here on earth and many of those we would assume to see in heaven we won't. Maybe these kinds of people were a part of what God meant by saying so. It's what's inside our hearts that matter, nothing else.
Last week was my first time to attend the Bible study groups for homeless. I was amazed by some homeless to be that aware about God's word and having love for Christ in their hearts. Some of them had a lot more knowledge over Bible than me and the way they spoke about God was so beautiful. It reminded me of God's words in somewhere in the Bible. I don't know what's the verse but it speaks about people we're gonna meet one day in heaven. He says that there will be many that kind of people we wouldn't consider heavenly here on earth and many of those we would assume to see in heaven we won't. Maybe these kinds of people were a part of what God meant by saying so. It's what's inside our hearts that matter, nothing else.
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one
who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:20
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one
who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:20
Mushrooms, fresh ones. Yep, we have them in the fridge everyday. That makes me happy and that is what I'm known for. Strawberries, blackberries, fresh pineapple and melon. I love them. So not all food here is unhealthy.
Every now and then I'm so frustrated with my English. I'm a perfectionist in some things so sometimes it's hard for me to not to sound like an American and ha an accent. Even though I do realize that I'm not from here and all the other non-Americans also have an accent. So I'm trying not to be so hard on myself. And people have told me that accents are cool. I'm so glad that I've studied in Finland cause our education system is so great. Here almost nobody speaks a foreign language and I've studied three languages in addition to Finnish. And I got to do it for free and to start in an early age.
I made a decision to start to wear a wedding ring. Some of the homeless are quite intimidating and asking me to go out with them, bringing flowers and so forth. Sometimes it's even a bit scary. Many of the girls here use a ring and encouraged me to get one. I actually bought a nice silver ring which I love a lot. I can use it in some It's so much easier to tell the homeless not to speak to me in a certain way cause I'm married. And I'm married to Jesus. One day this one younger guy came up to me when I was working at the storefront desk of Ellis Room. He asked if he could stare me for four hours and if he could take me out the next day. I said no and he asked why. So I told him that my boyfriend wouldn't like it. So he told me to tell my boyfriend that he's a lucky man. I looked up and said in my mind: "Jesus, you're a lucky man." Hah, that was funny.
Last weekend was probably the funniest so far. It was full of activity. We had a visitor from Boston at the base for a week and we hang out with her a lot. Sarah is such a lovely girl and I think I'll go and visit her one day to Germany where she's from.
Miriam, Rachel, me and Sarah
at the Dolores park
On Friday night we went hotel hopping which means that we kind of snuck into hotels and took a look over the city from the top levels or even from the roofs of the hotels. It was so much fun. It's weird how you can just enter to hotels here and chill at the lobbies. If you tried to do that in Finland, somebody would come and kick you out immediately.
Hotel hopping
San Francisco seen from Hilton hotel.
The fancy building is Civic Center
Bike riding. that's something that I've done here a lot. So that was also last Saturdays activity. At first we were supposed to go rock climbing but we decided to do it later on. On the week we did some tae bo in the storefront. It was cool and my back muscles were hurting a couple of days after doing it.
Eva, me and Sarah having sushi
I went to a church called the Promised land with a bunch of girls on Sunday. After that we headed to a park to play some music and sing and just to hang out with good company. We took a nap on the blanket and ate some strawberries. It was nice.
Hanging out at the Yerba Buena Gardens
Taking a nap
The whole weekend we stayed up until late at night and slept only a little and I'm starting to go back to my daily coffee habits. I've actually found some good coffee in the US of A. It's mostly iced coffee which was so good on those really warm days we had last week. And you can only imagine how this little girl from the cold Finland loved the heat. I was so happy and enjoying every minute.
I just love the people here. They have become much closer to me these past few weeks. And what I loke here a lot is that people are so encouraging toward eachother. Last Friday i went to do Hot Chocolate evangelism. It happens every Thursday and Friday but that was the first time for me to do it. So we walked the streets of Tenderloin and gave hot chocolate to people and offered them prayers. It was so amazing to see how some of the people were sop thursty for prayer. I was a bit scared to do it cause praying in English is quite hard for me and going up to people and asking if I could pray for them is not the easiest either. Hannah told me that I should do Hot Choocolate more often cause that's how I learn to pray. She was so encouraging, she always is and I like her a lot. So on Friday I didn't pray for anybody but on Sunday while I was wayting this one Rachel outside of the base one woman came up to me and strated to talk. So we talked and she asked if I could pray for her. I put my hand on her shoulder and prayed for her. She almost cried and it was a good moment for me too. It was a little step but it was the first step for me. And I really want to believe that God is able to do miracles in the lives of these people as well as learn more about the changing power of prayer.
Every now and then I'm so frustrated with my English. I'm a perfectionist in some things so sometimes it's hard for me to not to sound like an American and ha an accent. Even though I do realize that I'm not from here and all the other non-Americans also have an accent. So I'm trying not to be so hard on myself. And people have told me that accents are cool. I'm so glad that I've studied in Finland cause our education system is so great. Here almost nobody speaks a foreign language and I've studied three languages in addition to Finnish. And I got to do it for free and to start in an early age.
I made a decision to start to wear a wedding ring. Some of the homeless are quite intimidating and asking me to go out with them, bringing flowers and so forth. Sometimes it's even a bit scary. Many of the girls here use a ring and encouraged me to get one. I actually bought a nice silver ring which I love a lot. I can use it in some It's so much easier to tell the homeless not to speak to me in a certain way cause I'm married. And I'm married to Jesus. One day this one younger guy came up to me when I was working at the storefront desk of Ellis Room. He asked if he could stare me for four hours and if he could take me out the next day. I said no and he asked why. So I told him that my boyfriend wouldn't like it. So he told me to tell my boyfriend that he's a lucky man. I looked up and said in my mind: "Jesus, you're a lucky man." Hah, that was funny.
Last weekend was probably the funniest so far. It was full of activity. We had a visitor from Boston at the base for a week and we hang out with her a lot. Sarah is such a lovely girl and I think I'll go and visit her one day to Germany where she's from.
Miriam, Rachel, me and Sarahat the Dolores park
Hotel hopping
San Francisco seen from Hilton hotel.The fancy building is Civic Center
Eva, me and Sarah having sushiI went to a church called the Promised land with a bunch of girls on Sunday. After that we headed to a park to play some music and sing and just to hang out with good company. We took a nap on the blanket and ate some strawberries. It was nice.
Hanging out at the Yerba Buena Gardens
Taking a napThe whole weekend we stayed up until late at night and slept only a little and I'm starting to go back to my daily coffee habits. I've actually found some good coffee in the US of A. It's mostly iced coffee which was so good on those really warm days we had last week. And you can only imagine how this little girl from the cold Finland loved the heat. I was so happy and enjoying every minute.
I just love the people here. They have become much closer to me these past few weeks. And what I loke here a lot is that people are so encouraging toward eachother. Last Friday i went to do Hot Chocolate evangelism. It happens every Thursday and Friday but that was the first time for me to do it. So we walked the streets of Tenderloin and gave hot chocolate to people and offered them prayers. It was so amazing to see how some of the people were sop thursty for prayer. I was a bit scared to do it cause praying in English is quite hard for me and going up to people and asking if I could pray for them is not the easiest either. Hannah told me that I should do Hot Choocolate more often cause that's how I learn to pray. She was so encouraging, she always is and I like her a lot. So on Friday I didn't pray for anybody but on Sunday while I was wayting this one Rachel outside of the base one woman came up to me and strated to talk. So we talked and she asked if I could pray for her. I put my hand on her shoulder and prayed for her. She almost cried and it was a good moment for me too. It was a little step but it was the first step for me. And I really want to believe that God is able to do miracles in the lives of these people as well as learn more about the changing power of prayer.
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