Maistraati vs. The Joneses - Full Match Report [Thumbs up!]

It has been a few months since our last post. This hasn't been down to lack of activity or due to things suddenly becoming very uneventful. So much has been happening, that it has been hard to know when to press pause for a moment to think and process all that has been happening. Today however, we received the jolt we needed to finally get some news out!

Where I grew up in the great naval city of Portsmouth, long before the internet and 24 hour coverage on Sky Sports, if we were unable to make it to Fratton Park to watch the mighty Pompey, there were three ways to find out the outcome of the match. The first was to listen to Radio 5 Sports Report and catch the classified football scores read out just after 5pm. This required being in the right place at the right time to be within earshot of a radio and also to maintain the rigorous concentration to stay focused long enough for the announcer to get into the lower divisions where Pompey resided [and do today]! The second was to ask somebody at the pub and the third was to call in at the local news agents and pick up a copy of the Saturday Sports Mail. Details of the match could be read on its pink Financial Times-esque pages, but the first thing to look for on the front page was the expression of the Pompey Sailor. Forlorn and dispirited with thumbs down indicated a defeat that day, while upbeat wide-eyed with thumbs up was a sure sign of victory. A draw was signified by something in between!

Many will have heard of our ongoing struggles negotiating the immigration system since arriving here in Finland. Our lack of Finnish relatives and the fact that we weren't coming to work at Nokia put us in the anomalies column with the immigration authorities. In their view [not ours], people rarely leave England and move to Finland without family ties or being forced to by their employer! This has caused the immigration people or Maistraati, as they are known, to have kept us on special probationary measures since we got here. It's been a hard battle, and the Maistraati are nice people, but tough cookies who show no mercy when it comes to thinking outside the conventional box when considering our unusual [to them] case!

It has been frustrating at times and humbling and eye opening to be viewed with such suspicion. The reality though was that until we entered the second year here nothing would change. We will have been here for one year towards the end of July and it seemed that we would need to wait until then. A surprise chance arose though when Lydia's boss recently began organising the staffing for the year ahead. Lydia received her next one year contract a few days ago [several months before its start date]. We decided to chance our arm at the Maistraati and they accepted this and several folders worth of other paperwork as sufficient evidence that we intend to continue here into the second year and beyond.

We are thankful to God that we have secured victory in our immigration situation much sooner than we anticipated. No extra time and no penalties, but a decent win in normal time! Barring any unforeseen complications, we look forward to being able to register at the medical centre and know that if we or the children become ill we will be able to receive medical treatment. Just in terms of our own momentum and sense of personal encouragement, this feels like a great milestone, to be able to say that we have a permanent address here at last.

There are so many other encouraging things happening right now. We are continuing to enjoy our friendship with the brilliant Finnish/English family who were here long before us. They are so fun, warm and supportive, with such a heart to see the lost reached and the church restored in Finland. We are excited to be hosting the The NEW Conference for European church planters and pioneers, here in Helsinki in September. It will be such a privilege to be able to serve others considering a cross-cultural or pioneering journey, at such an early stage in our church planting story here in Finland. We are very excited about this! We are also delighted to have met the Sprague family, who have very recently moved over from America for work, and are already eager and committed to partnering with us and recognise the huge eternal significance of being instrumental in building something from very small, which we hope will be long lasting and far reaching in Helsinki and beyond. We are having regular contact from a number of others from many nations. this is such a joy. In addition to these connections with other believers, we are enjoying forming a network of non-christian friends. This has been much easier than we had anticipated here in Finland [a place notorious for isolation and social boundaries which inhibit the framing of relationships between neighbours, colleagues etc.] God has been so faithful in opening these and many other doors for us. When faced with an inevitable moment of discouragement, it has been so useful to stop and consider all of the fruit we are beginning to see around us, particularly through relationship and often despite the more practical challenges. When we look at the tide of relational connections emerging and forming [remembering that we had very few contacts when we first moved out] we see God's faithfulness and can trust that this is just the beginning and He will see all of these things, and more, through in ways which go beyond our greatest hopes and expectations.

     Jubilent scenes after the showdown at the Maistraati today. Lydia slides on her knees at the final whistle!

More updates soon. But please pray for:

• Team to continue to form - for the existing contacts to form deep relationships & for a sense of community to form.
• Luke & Alison Morrison - they hope to move here to build with us this summer, but need great favour with jobs and all the other practicalities. They are such brilliant community builders [among many other things] and are vital ingredients to the team forming here.
• Provision of resources - [finances, but also time and workers], to enable us to continue in the momentum which is beginning to develop.
• Wisdom for the next steps - for the Autumn in continuing to build genuine, discipleship, grace community and serve those connected to us, and to be on the front foot in stepping out in the atmosphere of momentum which seems to be forming.

Also you may want to follow the new Relational Mission Helsinki Church Plant Facebook Page to get more frequent news, see more of what we're getting involved in and become part of the community.

Follow on twitter: @Kevin_J_Jones

Email: finlandvision@gmail.com