Mämmi

Okay, so we are in the middle of our fourth month of living in Finland. Snow still covers the ground. Every SINGLE time we think the snow is finally starting to melt, we get MORE snow. It's been rough living in a snowy place. I don't know if I've fully embraced it yet. I rarely want to go outside, but I force myself.

A few weeks ago we visited Jyväskylä and stayed with a wonderful Finnish family. We were introduced to some true Finnish food. Around Easter time they come out with this dessert called Mämmi. I've been spotting in the freezer section at the store and basically thought it was a compilation of dog food and dirt uh, definitely not dessert. I've enclosed a picture. You take a scoop, add a little milk and about a teaspoon of sugar. It's actually okay, in small quantities. It's made with rye flour and rye malt. For those of you wondering what is tastes like, the internet describes it as this: its malty flavour somewhat resembles the Irish beers Guinness or Murphy's Irish Stout, being only slightly sweeter and thicker in consistency. Glad we got to try it!

We enjoyed having the team from Virginia Tech here last week. Jason got to spend most of the time with them, working with them on the outreach at the university. Delaney and I got to spend Friday with them sight seeing and EATING in Helsinki. We got to have a very TRADITIONAL Finnish dinner, reindeer and mashed potatoes. It was surprisingly very GOOD!

Every now and then I get glimpses of how beautiful it will be here in the summer, I long for those days. The Lord has been so good to us. I'll leave with this. As I was standing at the sink washing dishes tonight the song, Great is Thy Faithfulness came to my head, I sang. You all know the words but for some reason they meant so much more to me today. I was just reminded how the Lord is ALWAYS good, all I've needed, the Lord has always provided.

Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have NEEDED, Thy hands have PROVIDED. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!!

Open Day-Care

Earlier this week I experienced a perk of living in Finland. It's called Open Day Care. Basically, they have these facilities all over the city. You bring your child, they have all kinds of crafts, toys and activities for the kids to do. Moms hang out and talk while the kids play. They have a full kitchen, you can bring your lunch and make it there. On certain days they will have special things arranged for the moms. The day I went there was a masseuse. You could get a half hour session for 14 euro. I had another mom convince me to go AND she paid my way!! (Thanks again Hannah) The rest of the moms just keep an eye on your kid, it was really cool.

While I was getting my massage the masseuse was asking me a few questions, he spoke pretty good English. However, I was alarmed by the next question he asked. Out of no where the masseuse asked, "How does it TASTE?" My mind starts racing and I'm asking myself, oh lordy, what have I gotten myself into? In my head I'm like WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU ASKING SIR??? Instead of freaking out I politely say, "Excuse me?" He followed up with, "Oh, I'm sorry. How does it FEEL? Whew....that was a relief. I'm still laughing two days later.

To Spit or Not to Spit

I thought I'd share with you some random things I've been observing here in Finland. There are so many things that Finns do that are so different from what I'm used to. About the second day here we noticed that Finland is a SPITTING culture. People will just hawk it up and spit anywhere and everywhere. I know we do this in America, it's just not as apparent. As I was walking to the train station this guy in front of me kept spitting about every three minutes AND he had squeaky shoes. To my enjoyment (major sarcasm implied) we were on the same train coming home and I got to walk behind him the whole way to our apartment. You have to watch where you walk, sit, lean and lay your bags. What's funny is the temperature never gets warm enough so the spit just freezes on the ground. This is my random observation for the week, I know it's gross but it had to be mentioned. Plus a bird pooped on Delaney today and I had to clean it off with a leaf. I don't do vomit, poop or spit. It was nice to come home.