My next job was in prison
After the job as a temporary teacher, I was unemployed for a month, until I got a temporary work as a working master in Sörnäinen, County Prison. It was a Shield Painting Company, where the perpetrators of the crime were allowed to work for a small salary. Road signs and car license plates were paved and varnished there.
I had to examine the men's criminal record beforehand. I found that one of them was sentenced to life imprisonment for a very brutal murder. Some other were convicted of murders, and they were doomed to life imprisonment, which normally took 12 years. It was good for them to work regularly for mental health reasons.
Before starting my work, I was suggested to take a revolver on my hips because my subordinates weren't any Sunday School boys. I quietly asked Adonai, and he said, "You don't need it, for I will protect you." I did not take the gun, and other laborers respected me because they all had a gun on their waist. They were afraid for the prisoners.
When I told my colleagues that I was a confessing Christian who trusted the Lord Jesus more than the weapon, they suggested that I go out daily to talk to the prisoners. They knew, with up to 20 years of experience, that only those prisoners who came to believe would not repeat their crimes! But others have committing crimes and returning to Prison again and again.
One reason for their return to prison was that for years in prison, the prisoners became familiar with each other and wanted to return to their friends. Some of them said he would make an assault as soon as he was released. I asked the foremen what it meant.
They said that the prisoner robbed the first person on the street as soon as he was released and that this had sometimes happened. Prisoners also need friends and if they can only be found in prison, they will return there.
One time I witnessed the Lord Jesus to two prisoners in the workroom and they spoke to me a little mockingly. I did not see that the most dangerous prisoner had listened to me speak behind me. He was a very handsome young man with white curly hair.
I would not have thought he had committed the crime he must to suffer in life imprisonment. He intervened in the conversation and said, "Stop boys! Don't make fun of him, for he has a good message!" It was a message to me that he was loved by Elohim and I began to pray for his salvation.
Every day I organized an hour of worshiping in prison at Krypta. I got the master key and permission to get any willing prisoners there. The meal hour was 1 h 15 min and we ate our meal in 15 min.
I also knew the reason why I was led to just that job. One former criminal who had come to believer in the Siion Church, Helsinki, had been in that prison about a month earlier for his old crimes and had asked me to visit him because he had no other friends. I had promised that I would try to visit there.
I met him there and he was very happy. He was admitted to the psychiatric ward even though he was not in need. The reason for his transfer there was because he testified of his faith in the Lord Jesus and, as a former gang leader, was too oppressive for prisoners who were not interested in religious matters.
Baptism by immersion in water in Prison
I'm using that prisoner's alias Karl. We had evangelized together before he was sent to prison for his old crimes. That's why I knew he was really changed. I picked him up with a master key every weekday except for the weekends to Krypta (the small prayer room in Prison) and he said it was the highlight of the day for him.
He brought in two smaller and younger prisoners each time he came. He had led them to faith. In Krypta there were other working masters and prison office staff. Once, the CFO of the prison too. One foreman was good at playing the guitar and singing. We were happy to listen to him.
I experienced wonderful brotherhood there and sometimes I miss that time. Karl once asked me what he could do when those two young prisoners had come to the faith and had requested an evening free to leave but under guard, so that they would be baptized, but it was always refused.
I counseled him to pray to the Lord for wisdom to resolve the matter. He apparently had done so because the following week he and the other two were particularly happy to come to the Krypta. I asked, What is the subject of joy? Karl said he had baptized the boys in a big, hundreds-liter pot in the prison kitchen! Heh-heh! HalleluYah!
That two months passed quickly and my working period ended. I was offered a permanent working master post in the prison, downstairs, to the ward where blanks and road signs were punched. By the way, I would have accepted the job, but when I went to see the workplace, there was such a terrible noise that I would have become at least half deaf over time.
So I politely refused and started praying for a new job. I had gradually become a part-time worker. It was a month free again, but then I "caught the big fish" on October 1, 1976!
As a teacher of theory subjects in vocational school
I got a 4 month teacher position at Matinkylä Vocational School in Espoo. The job consisted of classroom assignments and 10 theory subjects teachings for 7 different classes. I was a class supervisor for students in machine installer class I.
The first time I went to class, a former left-wing teacher said goodbye to the students in the class, saying, "I am sure the joy is mutual." The boys shouted in the chorus, "Yes, get out of here!"
Then I realized the headmaster's mention that he chose me because I had just worked in County Prison and that my class of boys didn't consist of Sunday School boys. It made me smile.
As I looked closely at the boys, I discovered that some of them had been a student at the Tapiola Citizen School in Espoo, April 1 - May 30, 1976. There I taught them wood and metal work and machine drawing. They wondered when the teacher was following them as they moved to another school. Life is surprising at times!
Let me tell you one more case from Citizen School in Tapiola. After a woodwork lesson, a 13-year-old student stayed at the workshop after others left. I'm using him alias Niilo. He was a small and shy boy. I realized he had something to say and asked, "Niilo, what's on your mind?"
He told me that he had noticed from my speeches and behavior that I was truly a believer, also because I had organized a good prayer worship, a morning opening.
He said he had been wondering about an incident occurred to him for a few years ago that when he received a small bicycle as a gift from his grandmother. I asked him to tell it. He told me that his mother had warned him not to go too far because there were no lights on the bike and the side streets.
However, one evening he and his friend had cycled several miles out away their home. Then it happened that his bicycle rear tire was completely empty! There was a pump on the bike, but when he pumped the tire, it kept not air inside. There was a big hole in the rear tire of the bicycle.
His friend had already disappeared to the horizon, and Niilo was in distress and afraid when that late evening was changing night and the side road was not lit. Then Niilo remembered his grandmother's counsel: "If you ever get in trouble or in great trouble, pray to Lord Jesus for help. He will help you."
He said he knelt and prayed for help from Jesus beside the wheel. Then he started to pump the back tire again. What wonder, the air stayed inside, it didn't emptyed!
He biked then home. When he put the bike against the wall, there was a loud voice and the whole back tire emptied! Niilo asked, "Did Jesus help me with that?" I said, "Yes he did. He respects everyone who seeks his help in an emergency."
Niilo came from a poor family and apparently didn't get enough food at home because he always ate three full plates of food on Mondays while others were staring at him. I said to the other students, "Let Niilo eat his stomach full and don't stear at him, for all students in this school have the right to eat enough."
After that, other students no longer stared at Niilo as he ate. Oh how lovely students I had at that citizen's school! I had similar students Matinkylä Vocational School too. Their faces revealed already concern for the future. I loved them a lot.
The girls in the girls' class had a pacifier in their mouth
I taught Cosmetic Chemistry and Professional Economics for two girls' class in vocational school. All subjects were theoretical. When I first entered the classroom, I noticed the girls measuring me with their eyes from head to toe and smiling. I smiled back because they all had a pacifier in their mouth. Yes, a pacifier in the mouth!
Even though I smiled, I was like not noticing anything and I kept the lesson quite normally. The next time there were not seen pacifiers. My neat dressing appealed to them. The boys didn't pay much attention to my dress. On the other hand, the teacher should be an eye-catcher from all students in class, which students should watch and listen to.
I taught Economics for Telecommunication's 2 class. It was a boys' class that also had two Trotskyist students, the extreme left. For that class, I once kept a lesson in which the topic was free.
I asked students for suggestions on the topic of discussion. Apparently they were surprised, because usually the teacher ordered the subject. After a moment of waiting, I finally said, "Well, I propose the topic of the debate, 'The secret of innocent suffering' " A deep silence descended into the class.
I told them there was a book in the Bible written by Job. He had to suffer, from a human point of view, completely innocent, until eventually God Himself appeared to him. I asked students if they had ever suffered innocently and how they had experienced it and then turned to God in prayer for help?
There was an interesting conversation that I can remember no more than the fact that one student finally said, "The Bible seems to be a really interesting book because it provides satisfactory answers even to these things."
I told him: "I agree with you." When the hour ended, so I had to record the minutes of a teacher, what subject that was talked about then. I saw the two Trotskyist students who were silent for an entire hour. They came behind my back hoping to see it what I was writing down in the minutes.
After I prayed for wisdom I was taught to write, "A conversation between earth and heaven." The boys left me and were disappointed because they had received no reason to complain about me to the rector.
After a week of teaching the class I was, where I worked as a form master, the deputy rector invited me for a talk. He said that my students had complained that my lessons were 45 minutes long, even though the previous teachers had only 30 minutes.
The students reportedly had not been able to concentrate for so long. I prayed for wisdom from above and got an idea that I put into words and told him:
"Even though my goal is to teach the students very well for the future, and according to the curriculum, the lessons should be 45 minutes, I understand that if the contrast is too strong, they will not be able to listen. I think the 30 min lesson is too short. So I suggest to keep 40 mins and I try to make them so interesting that the students can listen."
My compromise proposal was appropriate for Vice-Rector and also for the students when I told them.
I was interested in going to a kibbutz
During that time my friend, a believer, returned from Israel, Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim, and told me how interesting it was to work there for a full year. I became interested in it and went to the Karmel Association Finland office asking if I could do the same.
There I was told that it was going well and that the next batch of volunteers would be recruited from January 2, 1977, first to Karmel's home, to Hämeenkyrö for a week, then to Helsinki and then a direct flight to Israel.
I made sure to ask, "Can I spend the Sabbath there because I don't work on Sabbaths in Finland?" The answer was, "Without a doubt, for Israel is the only state in the world where the Sabbath is officially celebrated."
Unfortunately, that was not the case, at least not in the kibbutz where I was going to work. That will come out of my later report.
I paid FIM 300 for the booking of airline tickets and the remaining FIM 1,200 had to be paid the week before the flight. I took care of my passport. I felt in my heart that the journey was the will of the Lord, even though rationalities were fighting it.
Although I had promised to work as a theory teacher for 4 months, from the beginning of November to the end of February, so I was sure Adonai would do one of the many miracles I had until then experienced in my life. The miracle, that I don't have to betray my promise to rector, and still get to Israel!
I told my students about the situation and said I was expecting a miracle. I got them very curious and they asked much about Israel. That professional theory teacher job was really hard, especially since I was not a qualified teacher and my job included 36 hours a week to keep lessons. Likewise, it took 36 hours at home to prepare the lessons.
So I prepared for each lesson at home beforehand. I also wrote the graduation certificates for students in my class and 2 days before the start of the Christmas vacation, the miracle I was waiting for, really happened! The regular rector had returned to office and asked me to visit office announcing there:
"Unfortunately, the Finnish Ministry of Education has decided to save so much on next year's budget that even the teacher you replace will have to return to work at the beginning of January. However, since you have done a good job, I will try to arrange other tasks you att work here for 2 months (January and February)."
I responded politely, "Thank you very much. It has been a great pleasure to work as a teacher, but this is clear guidance from God. I have already committed to working for one year on a kibbutz in Israel, from the 9th january 1977.
I booked that trip a month ago because I got it in my heart and trusted God's supernatural leading on the matter. You don't have to arrange for me any extra work here. At the same time, I wish you the abundant blessing of God!"
I hope you would have seen his astonished look. I also told of that supernatural change to my students before the semester's closing ceremony. They all were given much to thought during their Christmas holidays, especially those with genuine ja living faith.
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