Val took this, Holy Lake

We just returned from a nice visit to Finland. A friend has a small log cabin that we can visit just about any time we want. (Thank you, Juhani!) We’ve been going there for quite a few years now. The weather was great – cool and sunny – though the leaves aren’t out yet.

The cabin is called Koppero, the Finnish word for ‘Hovel’. It has no running water but it has a lot of heart.

In addition to some good family time at Koppero, we also visited our friend Riitta. She owns a Finnish estate, Hovinkartano, on the same lake. It’s always good to get caught up with her.

Visiting Finland feels like visiting an old friend. We really like it there. I was able to get some work done in a make-shift office thanks to modern wireless internet technology.

And Valerie made a friend:

When Val asked ‘can I kiss him?’ many thoughts ran through my mind. The primary being, ‘if Olga were standing here I’d probably say no, but since it’s just Daddy here I’ll say yes’.

Now we start to move into the very busy part of the year. Soon I’ll be in Montenegro with a mission team, then we’ll welcome teams in Russia and Estonia. In between we’ll be at dacha (a summer house in Russia). I’m helping coordinate several projects in various countries (visit the Stoneworks Ministry Map to see where we work), so there is always something interesting happening. You can see updates at the Stoneworks site.

Here are a few more pictures:

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