In Daddy's hands

It's our third Monday here in Koivumaki, and we have already started learning about how to connect with God. We learned about his attributes, then how to fear him. Now we are learning how to recognize him as our daddy (isi).
Last week Mirjam covered a lot on the Fear of the Lord, and gave us a great understanding of how large he is and how we tend to shrink him in our mind. She talked Thursday night, to the students and guests, about the prodigals son, and how both of the sons felt as if they were servants to their father. We often feel as if we are God's servant, when in truth we are his sons and daughters.

We had a great weekend. Including: ice skating, ice hockey, go karting on the ice and some time to relax and prepare ourself for week 3.

This week our guest is Topi Kivimaki. he started off the week giving us some great examples of how God loves us as his children, and we sometimes look at him like bigger than a father. We need to call him daddy as Jesus did in the new testament often.

We looked forward to the rest of the week with Topi and learning more about the Father Heart of God.

-Kevin

Walking in the garden

Hey everybody! Our teacher for this week is amazing! We are talking about the Fear of the Lord. Very interesting! To give you a small ‘ look ‘ into our DTS read this story! But don’t use binoculars for it! Find out why!

So one day Adam and God are walking through the garden of Eden. God taps Adam on the shoulder and says: Hey Adam, Listen up!’ ‘Uhh..yeah God?’ Adam says. ‘Adam, I have a gift for you!’ ‘Ahh sweet’ Adam says. ‘ I like gifts!’

‘This is a really special gift’, says God while He gives Adam a binocular. ‘Hmm…A binocular’ Adam thinks. God says: Now this is really important. Use this binocular only when you look at Me. And when you look at me, use them. These are the rules coming with this gift. You got to obey the rules or it will not show the true image. You got that?’

Off course Adams response is yes and God challenges Him to try it out! Adam slowly brings his binocular to his eyes and looks at God…’WOW… God, you are so BIG!’
‘ Yes. I am God says. You got that right’ ‘ But..uuuh..your incredible!’ Adam says. Yes, God says. ‘ But remember: ‘Never use them for anything else!’ Adam says ‘oke!’ And looks at God again, and just marvels. Than the two go their separate ways.

Adam walks through the garden and all of a sudden sees an ant! Such a tiny ant he wonders. Would the binocular also work with this one he thinks…already forgotten what is was God said! He looks at the ant, and the ant is suddenly BIG! He totally looses the perspective of an ant. He looks at Eve, and that totally changes his perspective on women! Or destroys his perspective, you could say! Everything that was supposed to be looked through His eyes is now seen through the binocular.

After a while He hears God coming again in the garden again! Adam walks happily towards God. God askes: ‘Hey Adam. Do you still have your binoculars?’ ‘ Yes Lord, still have them!’ ‘ Use them on Me again!’ God says. So Adam takes his binoculars, looks at God and sees God. But wait… God is not bigger at all! ‘What happened?’ Adam thinks! Before Adam knew it, he lost his perspective on God. God didn’t seem so big at all anymore!

And…does it make sense already? Just for those who would like some explanation! Ooh…And I was one of those! The binocular is the binocular of fear of the Lord. When we use it on something that is not God. It becomes something that it is totally not! Totally blown out of proportion. When we look at the world around us, I think we can we can state that we use it a lot for the wrong things. We look at terrorism, or at appearances. So now other people can suddenly become something we’re afraid of!

The thing is though that fear was never intended as something to be afraid. God created fear so we can look at him with awe. Realizing He is really BIG! With reverence, the highest form of respect. Fearing God is the key to knowing God. It is the beginning of wisdom. (Proverbs 9:10) And as we know all wisdom comes from God.

Thankfully Jesus came. He took our binocular, cleaned the glass and gave them back. You can only live a life with God if we have the binocular of Fear of God. So now it’s cleaned, we can use them again. So I guess now it’s up to us how we use them!

Well I loved this story! I hope you enjoyed it to! DTS is an awesome place to learn new things! We still have 10 weeks to go in the lecture phase after tomorrow! Lectures every day! Pretty awesome!

- Bendert

We ended the week with Kimmo giving us more stories from his past, and other examples for life. We talked about our identity in Christ, addiction, and even God making your wildest dreams come true. Overall we had a very successful and fun week, and were very thankful for Kimmo coming to teach us.

Friday night we went to the Youth Café at the Free Church in Siilinjärvi. There were only four kids there, but we talked, played music and got to meet the leaders of the Youth Café.

The weekend was full of fun. Some of us went to the gym; we watched a movie, went to church, snowboarded down the ramp, had a game night, ate lots of candy :) and just hung out. We already feel like we have known each other for so long, it’s great.

We look forward this week to hearing about the Fear of God from our new guest Mirjam Lauridsen. She had a great opening today that really “exploded out brain.” It looks to be an awesome week.

-Kevin

First studying week in DTS

Soo…WHAT does it mean being a long distance from home, further for some than others, spending time with new people, to be challenged in faith in a DISCIPELSHIP TRAINING SCHOOL?

If you want to know…COME do one! This blog will be a great tool to let you know how DTS for us is like! So far, it has been a really good and already challenging week for us. Beside a really good Finnish diet, sauna and snowboarding for the first time we also spent time with Kimmo Sarajarvi, who is the teacher of the first week!

This weeks teaching is about God’s character and identity in Christ. His nature. His personality and functions. How does God function? We’ve learned He’s a friend, a father, a counselor, the Prince of Peace and lot’s more. In the end it blows my mind and end up with a bigger picture of God than before. And how about identity? What forms it? Culture, family, friends, what we think God thinks about us, or what other people think. Well what God really thinks about us is always POSITIVE. He’s proud of us! We’re His creation! And we’re double His! Made by Him and bought by Him.

Spending time with God every morning is a challenge but really interesting cause it can provide for the necessary fuel to go through life. Like Jesus says. I LIVE not of bread alone, but by every word of the Father! In my time with God today I read Luke chapter 24. Awesome piece of work there! The 2 guys going to Emmaus don’t get it. Jesus is dead, he was supposed to save Israel and now a couple of women claim they’ve seen Him alive?

As they walk Jesus walks besides them and starts explaining everything about Him. They don’t recognize Him. When they arrive at Emmaus they invite Him for dinner. He brakes the bread and asks a blessing from the Father, and than He is revealed before their very eyes and they see it’s Him!

I hope this DTS will be a little bit like that for us. To feel like we’re walking next to Jesus. Him explaining again to us the things that He really important in His eyes. Until we see Him again. With an unclouded mind. Ready to return back to Jerusalem and to tell from what we’ve heard, seen and learned.

-Bendert

Beginning of the Snowboarding DTS 2011

Top: Erik, Bendert, Liz, Martina, Lauri, Meri-Tuulia, Jesse and Leea.

Bottom: Kevin

Snowboarding DTS 2011 has begun! There are 6 students and 2 Staff. Meri-Tuulia, Jesse, Lauri and Martina are the students from Finland. While Bendert is from Holland, and Kevin from the US. Leea and Liz are our staff, with Erik being our leader. We began last Friday, the 14th, by looking at the overview of the school, and the many things in store. We also played a game of football/handball/random rules, in the meter of snow outside. It was a lot of work, but fun and gave us time to bond/get to know one another. Saturday we went over more of the basic DTS things, as well as played a few more games outside. Including one where we randomly stood on a balance log, and then had to crawl over each other in order to get in position according to height. We continued into the night with a few games of Assi, and playing some music together. We got to go into the sauna for the first time, which for us non-Finns was a great experience. Sunday morning we went to Church, where there was a guest German Speaker, who was translated to Finnish, and then English for a few of us. After Church we went back, and later that night had cake and celebrated Clarita's Birthday. We got to ask her a few questions about her childhood, as well as her asking us all various questions. We finished the night with a movie. Monday morning started off early with our first morning exercise at 7. We had our first whole-base prayer/worship session, and then started our first lectures. This weeks lectures are by Kimmo Sarajarvi, and they are about the Nature and Character of God. Today, he gave us examples of all of God's natures, and how he is Creator, Infinite, Eternal, Sovereign, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Unchanging and Holy. We went into depth about what Holy is, and received many scriptures about each nature.