Report on Missions Trip to Europe, November 2000

     We arrived in Helsinki on Saturday, November 11. Our hosts picked us up at the airport and took us to a small efficiency apartment they had rented for us in downtown Helsinki, in the midst of the Embassy district. With a few simple instructions, they left us alone for the next day and a half so we could recover from jet lag. We spent most of that time exploring the city, which we found to be beautiful and friendly. (Actually, we LOVED Helsinki!)

     Monday afternoon was spent being interviewed for a publication of the Lutheran Church (the state church—almost everyone in Finland is Lutheran) and preparing for our 3 day seminar, which began the next day. The seminar, entitled “Practical Tools to Build Healthy Families,” was attended by 40+ people who were either recovery ministry leaders, or Church pastors or educators. In preparation for this seminar, I had written a 130 page manuscript combining instruction on family living skills, reflection sheets, skill building exercises, and do-at-home family activities. Subjects included: Building a positive family identity, setting & enforcing rules and boundaries, and communication skills. We were amazed at how often people told us how thrilled they were to receive such a practical tool and that there is no such resource available anywhere in Finland. The material was so well received, they are planning to publish the manuscript as a parenting curriculum!  At the end of the seminar, we were invited to come back next year to teach them the material we taught in Russia last year, entitled “All My Feelings Are Okay: Managing Feelings In Families.”

     On Saturday we were invited to conduct a full day training for parents at the local Christian school. About 100 parents attended, full of questions and eager for help in their parenting task! From the questions and personal sharing over lunch, we quickly discovered the same issues that we deal with in the USA—divorce, blended families, boundary issues. One difference—Finnish parents have almost no resources to help them deal with the complex issues they face.

     We said our farewells to our hosts in Finland early Sunday morning as we boarded a train for Turku, where we connected with the ferry that took us to Stockholm. The ferry ride through the beautiful Archipelagos of Finland and Sweden was worth the whole trip in and of itself! When our hosts in Stockholm took us to our room, Linda was in for a big surprise! Our room and the seminar was at “Betelseminariet,” which is the Mother School to the Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, MN from which Linda graduated and later worked for 3 years! Even the campus in St. Paul was fashioned after the campus in Stockholm, so we felt right at home!

    Our seminar in Stockholm was only one day, and since it was taught in English was a small group of about 12 people. It was sponsored by the Christian Recovery Network to introduce recovery leaders to the concept of providing support for children whose families are struggling with alcohol or drug abuse, and/or divorce. We had a great time of sharing there—this was the FIRST TIME anyone in the entire country has ever approached the idea of ministering to children who are hurting in this way! In fact, the people were so hungry that one man who could barely speak English stayed for the entire day just to get as much information as he could understand!

     That’s the good news. The bad news, so to speak, is that because this was a brand new concept, we are not likely to see Confident Kids groups implemented any time soon. However, I have already received email correspondence from some of the participants, and the Recovery Network is adding all our materials to their resource library and will continue to promote the idea. Personally, I believe God is at work there, and am hopeful that the children of Sweden will soon have Confident Kids groups to minister to their needs. Please pray with us that God will bring much fruit from the seeds that were planted during our seminar.

     Perhaps the greatest joy of our trip, however, was our time in Lemgo—a quaint Medieval village in Germany. We were invited by Helge Seekamp, a pastor at St. Pauli church and leader of the local Christian recovery ministry. Under Helge’s leadership, the church and local Christian school are joining forces to begin a Confident Kids program at the school. While we were there, we conducted two days of training for the teachers from the school and leaders from the church. We also met with the translators, who are from the school of Christian Psychology. Our job was to encourage all these leaders, answer their questions and teach everyone how to use the program.

     On Saturday evening, Linda was asked to address 150 parents from the school to explain what Confident Kids is all about, and why they would want to participate in it. After a time for questions, parents were invited to sign up for the pilot group to be held in February. To everyone’s delight, this first group filled up that very night, and they will begin a waiting list! The anticipation of the principle of the school, teachers and parents was very high when we finally said good-night. We will be following the progress of this, our first non-English speaking group, closely in the days ahead.  (For an update, click here)

     But our warmest memory from Germany is of a 7 year old boy named Kevin, who was the foster son of the couple we stayed with. His story of past physical and sexual abuse touched our hearts. He was quiet and shy with us at first, since he could not speak a word of English. But soon, Dave and Kevin sparked a wonderful bond, and Kevin forgot we could not understand what he was saying. We spent a lot of our Saturday together — Kevin babbling on in German and us in English. The most fun was watching the people in the restaurants we visited try to figure out what a couple who spoke no German and a little boy who spoke no English were doing together! Later, his foster mom later told us she was shocked that Kevin trusted us and opened up so quickly to us. We learned a great deal about the language of the heart that day, as we toured the s of Lemgo with our little German buddy!

     At 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning, we said our good-byes to Kevin and Germany and began our long journey home!