Happy happy :)

Nathan came from Newbold to recruit at Toivonlinna and Emilia came with him, all the way from Spain. I had a great time seeing them and getting to catch up with Emilia again :) We sat and chatted, drank tea and watched Nathan take on every ping pong playing guy in the dorm :D I think he beat most of them too :)

Two day later they got engaged!! and I'm very happy for my dear friend :)

Felicitaciones queridos, y muchas bendiciones!

sunshine again

 One free morning I woke up to the sun shining! So I headed out and hiked up the hill behind the school in order to enjoy it more. It's actually a bit of work hiking through deep snow!

 There's the school, down by the sea

of blood and bruises

A few weeks ago I went along with Ida and her mom to donate blood. For them it's routine. For me it was the first time :)

First the lady taking my information couldn't get the computer to print out all the information, so I had to wait awhile. Once that was done I got to proceed to the blood tests. My hemoglobin was acceptable, as well as my history. Hard to believe, but it will soon be 3 years since I've been to a malaria area... Time flies.

I have a low blood pressure as it is, so all day I had tried to drink lots of fluids to give myself more volume. Even with that my blood dripped slow enough that they almost didn't let me donate. 

I decided to look the other way when the nurse stuck the needle in my vein. Being stuck with needles isn't very high on my list of things that I enjoy.. 

Then I lay there for about 10 minutes pumping my hand into a fist over and over again, feeling my strength literally flow out of me. It's a weird feeling really.

Afterwards I felt a bit weak for a few hours, preferring to sit on the floor rather than stand, when possible. But that passed pretty quickly and I felt fine. 

That was on a Friday. Sunday morning I woke up with a pretty bruise and apparently fresh bleeding inside my arm. Maybe I slept weird and made it bleed?

Battle scars :D

Maybe I'll go back once my 3 months have passed. It's not that bad of an experience, and they can always use blood. Besides, I'd really like to know my blood type!

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord

 Last fall we met in Sweden and gathered around a piano to sing in order to pass the time. We liked it so much that we decided to get together more often and actually practice together. Our first practice happened now at the end of January in Tampere in conjunction with a youth leadership training meeting. 

It was great fun seeing each other again and getting to sing together. We'll be meeting more as the year progresses, maybe even get to sing somewhere. 

This was the delicious lunch the we ladies whipped up at Anna and Joose's apartment after church. Making food happens pretty fast when there are 5 girls working on it together :)

Bible and volleyball

 Each year Toivonlinna hosts a weekend of spiritual and sports fun. This year there were 11 teams participating from all over Finland, as well as one from Estonia and 3 from Sweden.

On Sabbath they have a Bible bowl/quiz in two parts, and then Saturday evening and Sunday they play a bunch of volleyball games to determine the winner.

I don't know the outcome of the games, since I only stuck around for a few hours and then continued to Ida's house to play rook :) It was quite entertaining and fun :)

 Here our pastor Jyrki is calling out questions to the Bible bowl finalists and Gunnevi is translating them into Swedish.

I had the honor of coming up with the semifinal questions, 25 in all. It was great fun! There was one question which no team got right. 

Where was King Solomon crowned king?

Bible bowl finalists on Sabbath afternoon. Ida keeping score.

Toivonlinna

After Christmas break I moved to Piikkiö, to the SDA academy Toivonlinna. I'm now living in the dorm, with a room to myself. The idea was to live on campus and help with spiritual life in the dorm. I started out with a few ideas and it seems that more and more keep presenting themselves :D 

Basically I'm here in the evenings, since I still study in Turku during the day.

 Here's what the room looked like in December when we dumped my stuff here over break

 Moving in in January

 I have too much stuff!

 The view out my window over the yard and the sea

 my 'extensive' hallway :)

 I was happy to fit my rocking chair in one corner!

 My Kazakhstan wall.

Over break I printed out 160 pictures with these walls in mind. It makes the room much more cozy and personal.

 My library of nursing books keeps growing. The sudoku book is also an essential part of nursing studies. It helps me stay awake through some classes :)

My room

The wall over my bed has pictures from Argentina and Kenya