Death is never your friend

At the moment I am in Solwezi, Zambia on a mega Gospel crusade together with Pastor Tommy Lilja. We just ended the crusade and we are preparing to travel back home. It is amazing to see God move during these crusades and multitudes of people have been saved. This is the first time ever that a crusade is held in this part of Zambia. It has never happened in Solwezi before but now Pastor Tommy and team has not only plowed the ground. There has also been a great harvest. The work is together with many churches and all who get saved are guided into a spiritual home (church) and taken care of. We have seen powerful wonders and miracles. People have been set free from evil spirits and demons and people have been healed. Jesus has been with us.

Saturday night I received the sad news that our dear friend and brother Janne Paavilainen from Heavens Bikers in Stockholm, Sweden has moved to be with the Lord. I met him the first time in 2009 at a motorcycle exhibition in Stockholm and since then we have been close. When I first met him I was sceptic and I am ashamed of my way of thinking back then. He was a man of God, a man of faith. He led many people to the Lord and we always there for you even if you did not need anything. We always made sure to hook up with him when we visited Stockholm and he always gave of his time to have fellowship with me and my son Sebastian. Last time was this summer in his home. I spoke to him over the phone a few times during the last weeks and the cancer made him weaker and weaker but he had faith until the end. That is where the peace that goes over all our understanding comes in.

Thinking about brother Janne passing. Our friend Dave Hlubek passed earlier this month and we have been in a period of time when we have seen many people leave us lately. It always hit you hard. Sometimes you do not realise it right away. It can take a day or two and you just think that this person is gone. Death comes to all of us during our life time, We are all loosing loved ones and we are all going to check out one day.

Death will never be your friend. Death is always going to hit you hard. BUT when you loose loved ones that you know that believed in the Lord Jesus Christ it is different. These people are NOT dead. They have finally received the eternal life together with Jesus in heaven. We as believers will never die. The Bible says that even if we die we shall be alive. These are the good news when we look at what Jesus did for us at Calvary. He died for us! Imagine it on a personal level that Jesus died for YOU so that you could get saved and receive eternal life. In other words I find peace in the fact that both Dave and Janne has not died. They have just moved to a better place and there we are going to be together forever. We will always miss our loved ones but with the knowledge in our hearts that these people are with Jesus now brings us peace and sometimes even joy. When you see a person suffering you can rejoice together with him or her that the suffering is over. There are no such things as suffering, illness, sickness, depression, anger, hate… you name it, in heaven. Heaven is a good place and our mission is to tell as many as we can about Jesus so we can plunder hell and populate heaven,

End of September we have the honor to welcome our wonderful friends Lili-Ann and Kari Karppinen from Sweden to Finland. For four days we are going to minister together with the local missions church and we will not only be inside the four walls of the church. We are also going out to reach the people where they are.

As usual before a longer trip we are overloaded with challenges. Now there has been two major hurricanes right on the places we are going to be. Some of the things planned meeting wise as well as logistics has to start from scratch but we are doing what we are doing by faith. We are not going on a holiday trip. We are leaving home for around seven weeks just so people can hear about Jesus Christ. You might say; they have already heard. Well we have seen it since 2008 how the mixture of music, testimony and the word of God has had an impact in the USA. We have seen people saved, healed and delivered. USA is a mission field as Africa where we are right now. Remember that you enter the mission field immediately when you walk out the door.

We are in current need of people who believe in what we do who can pray for us. We know that God will provide but it takes people to act. We are far away from our budget and still around $6000 short for the entire seven weeks. Don’t you think one soul is worth more? We can not compare one soul to anything in this world. Let us do this together and reach the unreached and as always expect the unexpected.

God Bless!