New Beginning

It's impossible to say exactly when my new beginning truly started. 

Perhaps it wasn't a single moment at all, but rather a journey filled with small beginnings – turning points that gradually led me into a new season of life and deeper growth.

Maybe it began when I happened to walk into the community restaurant for the first time on November 13, 2016, in Kimbolton, New Zealand. We stopped to eat and met the community where my most important relationships are today. That same night, an earthquake closed all the roads and kept us from leaving right after that first meeting. It was as if some greater hand had stopped us right there, in that place, among those people. 

Maybe it began there, with the song Everything to Me. 

Everything to me!
He's more than a story
More than words on a page of history.
He's the air that I breathe,
The water I thirst for,
And the ground beneath my feet
He's everything, everything to me!
We're living in uncertain times
And more and more I find that I'm
Aware of just how fragile life can be.
I want to tell the world I found

The love that turned my life around, 

I remember how that song brought me to the ground, sobbing in front of everyone. It broke something inside of me – and at the same time opened my eyes to see something new and beautiful.

Or maybe the true new beginning came when I turned fifty. Fifty years. I had once imagined that day celebrated among family and friends, with laughter and stories of what had been accomplished. But when it finally came, I stood alone – having lost everything.

I was betrayed by most closest people to whom I shared my life with, by people who said they loved me. I lost my spouse and my best friend. It was the day when even the last things I had held onto disappeared. A day when everything I thought I have build and leaned on collapsed.

All that remained was pain, anger, bitterness, self-pity, despair – and the thought that I could not go on. The day when I told myself: this is the end for me.

In that moment of deepest darkness, a message lit up my phone: "Happy 50th birthday." The sender was Kash, a man from Texas I barely knew. I answered from the rawest place in my heart: "I am hurting."

Kash's reply was unlike anyone else's: "Come here. I'll come with you, and we'll set things right."

Kash's words weren't just a phrase. They carried the hope of a brotherhood I had never truly had.

I didn't yet know that message would mark the beginning of a journey leading me out of the valley of death.

But the road wasn't straight or easy. Twice, COVID restrictions stopped my travels, first in the Caribbean and then in Iceland. And then my father's death halted me once more. Finally, on February 2, 2022, I stepped onto Texan soil.

When I arrived,I was broken – weary, bitter, weighed down by shadows. I had a little money left, but practically nothing of my own.

And yet, there I found something I had never imagined: a community that didn't ask me what I had done wrong, and didn't hand me advice. They simply asked: "How can we help you best?"

They opened not only their hearts but also their homes. They gave me a roof over my head, clothes, food, and time. They didn't demand repayment, but allowed me to join in their work if I wanted to. These people didn't try to fix me with advice – they loved me back into life through practical deeds. Every warm meal, every piece of clothing, every listening glance, every respectful gesture, every event they welcomed me into was like a building block slowly raising me back to my feet. Through them I also caught a glimpse of Jesus' love.

One day, I told some of the people I had grown close to that I had no desire to return to Finland. I had really come to stay, and I wanted to know their lives and faith more deeply.