I met a man named Leif the night at Highway 4
It didn't take long for one of the cars to approach me. The driver drove at high speed passing me. Then he braked and drove his car backwards about 100m to me, opened the door and first said in Swedish and when I asked to speak English, then he said me in English: "I couldn't believe my eyes to see here hitchhiker at midnight!"
I told him that I flew from Israel, first to Finland, then traveled by ferry to Stockholm and that I'm about to travel to my mother in Borås, but for my money ran out. He offered a ride far to Norrköping. I told him about Jesus. His name was Leif Lindfors. He was a little under 30, like me and he had my first name. He was working for Saab Data in Stockholm and lived near Norrköping.
He seemed interested when I told him about Jesus. He said he hadn't thought about these religious issues because he had first studied and got a good job right after. Then he was immediately married. He said that Norrköping was not in the right direction for me, but that E3 would have been a better way for me than that E4.
He suddenly drove me to Norrköping railway station and we went to the office there. It was already midnight. He started talking to the clerk. I realized he was asking about train schedules. The clerk looked at the schedules, and then shook his head in denial. I realized he had said that there was no longer a train going in the direction requested.
Then I prayed, saying to Adonai, "Thank you Father in the name of Adonai Yeshua, that you have arranged for me one train, which is going in the direction I need this night. Amen!" Immediately thereafter, the clerk seemed to remember something.
Then he checked the other timetable, clapped his fingers and said, "Wait a minute, there is one train that will soon leave at 1:02 for a long trip through Karlstad and Trollhättan to Gothenburg, where will be a train change to Borås!" Hallelujah!
Leif bought me a train ticket all the way to Borås. He bought me a place for sleeping in the train to Gothenburg too. As he was about to leave the room, I silently prayed an emergency prayer: "Adonai, what about the food?"
Just then Leif turned and returned to me, giving me 20 SEK, saying that I should eat something. I asked for his address to thank him later by letter for such a great help. He gave me his address. I bought a snack from the office. The time to travel to Gothenburg took 7 hours 42 minutes, so I had time to sleep properly on the train. HalleluYah!
The suitable verses from the Bible: Jacob 4:2c and 1:6a
>>4:2c ...You do not get things because you do not ask for them!<<
>>1:6a But you must ask in faith, without any doubts...<<
I told my mom and my little brother Klaus about what I had been up to in recent years and they were wondering about my trip from Stockholm to Borås. They told me what had happened them too. At first I lived in my mother' apartment and started looking for work.
For three days, I went to the forest near the same tree. Under it I prayed for a suitable job from Adonai. I couldn't speak Swedish and it limited my chances of getting a job. Then I went to the office of Caroli Parish to write a moving notice to get permission to work in Sweden.
I went to the Employment agency and got brochures about vacancies. One of them was at the Svaneholm rubber plant, near Borås, called Firestone-Viskafors Ab. It was a blessing that I did not know Swedish well enough, because I did not know that this open job was shift work. It was only in a recruitment interview that I found out.
There, I told the factory manager that I have two conditions that I can't compromise on: 1) I can't work shifts so I don't break the Sabbath every other Friday evening. 2) I'm not going to join LO (it's a Laborers Organisation).
Otherwise, I said I would do all kinds of work. He wondered after hearing what kind of basic education I had and what kind of jobs I had worked for. There was also a foreman who said they had just a day job for 2 months right now.
After all, a man had fallen there and had a back injury that caused him to be on sick leave for 2 months. I got that job. It was a relatively neat job. My task was to weigh a total of 130 different doses of chemicals to make rubber raw materials according to the recipe.
It happened with a gram accuracy using a scoop and a commercial scale. This kind of weighing was familiar to me at the time when I worked as a sales trainee in the grocery store about 14 years earlier in Lohja, Finland.
I did send a letter of thanks to Leif Lindfors. I told him how much he had done for me and sent him the money he had given me (SEK 20) and the price of the train ticket (SEK 168) in the letter right from my first salary.
Leif bought me a train ticket all the way to Borås. He bought me a place for sleeping in the train to Gothenburg too. As he was about to leave the room, I silently prayed an emergency prayer: "Adonai, what about the food?"
Just then Leif turned and returned to me, giving me 20 SEK, saying that I should eat something. I asked for his address to thank him later by letter for such a great help. He gave me his address. I bought a snack from the office. The time to travel to Gothenburg took 7 hours 42 minutes, so I had time to sleep properly on the train. HalleluYah!
The suitable verses from the Bible: Jacob 4:2c and 1:6a
>>4:2c ...You do not get things because you do not ask for them!<<
>>1:6a But you must ask in faith, without any doubts...<<
I got a day job at a rubber factory
I told my mom and my little brother Klaus about what I had been up to in recent years and they were wondering about my trip from Stockholm to Borås. They told me what had happened them too. At first I lived in my mother' apartment and started looking for work.
For three days, I went to the forest near the same tree. Under it I prayed for a suitable job from Adonai. I couldn't speak Swedish and it limited my chances of getting a job. Then I went to the office of Caroli Parish to write a moving notice to get permission to work in Sweden.
I went to the Employment agency and got brochures about vacancies. One of them was at the Svaneholm rubber plant, near Borås, called Firestone-Viskafors Ab. It was a blessing that I did not know Swedish well enough, because I did not know that this open job was shift work. It was only in a recruitment interview that I found out.
There, I told the factory manager that I have two conditions that I can't compromise on: 1) I can't work shifts so I don't break the Sabbath every other Friday evening. 2) I'm not going to join LO (it's a Laborers Organisation).
Otherwise, I said I would do all kinds of work. He wondered after hearing what kind of basic education I had and what kind of jobs I had worked for. There was also a foreman who said they had just a day job for 2 months right now.
After all, a man had fallen there and had a back injury that caused him to be on sick leave for 2 months. I got that job. It was a relatively neat job. My task was to weigh a total of 130 different doses of chemicals to make rubber raw materials according to the recipe.
It happened with a gram accuracy using a scoop and a commercial scale. This kind of weighing was familiar to me at the time when I worked as a sales trainee in the grocery store about 14 years earlier in Lohja, Finland.
I did send a letter of thanks to Leif Lindfors. I told him how much he had done for me and sent him the money he had given me (SEK 20) and the price of the train ticket (SEK 168) in the letter right from my first salary.
Confrontation with LO members
I was able to work undisturbed for about 2 weeks. Then a trade union activist, an older Norwegian man, came up to me and asked if it was true that I was not going to join the LO (Lands Organization for workers / Social democratic political organisation). I told him it was true. Then he became full of anger and began to curse me roughly, explaining something in Swedish that I did not understand.
I smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder saying, "Jesus loves you!" He looked completely foolish, immediately stopped swearing, and walked away. It took another week in peaceful time until one afternoon I received a message from heaven, "Leif, go to the toilet immediately, close the door, and pray with the new tongues!" I left weighing and immediately did what I was asked to do.
When I got back to my workplace and took the flour bucket into hand, a smart man, a little older than me, about 30, speaking Finnish, came to me and introduced himself and said he was a local LO representative. He asked me five questions, all of which I could immediately answer directly from the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus on the Bible. That's why I first had to pray with the new tongues!
I still remember one question: "Do you believe that God can take care of you; such as he takes care of the birds of heaven?" I replied: "Yes, I believe, as Jesus told us to his disciples, 'Look at the birds of the sky. They do not work or collect food for storage, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. You are much more worthy than them.' " After hearing this, he was amazed and said, "I see that you are a truly believing man."
Then he left. I prayed that he too would become a believer. After that, no one came to talk to me about joining LO or anything else. When 2 months passed, I got another day job with a young Spanish boy named Tony from the guillotine department. We had the job of cutting up about a cubic meter of rubber billets on a guillotine into pieces of suitable size for further processing. He was an open type but very depressed because the summer was rainy and there was very little sunlight.
He was Roman Catholic, but secular, and did not speak about religious matters at all. He was a handsome young man and had been engaged to a beautiful Swedish girl. He was only working to raise money to buy a new car in Sweden and move back to the Spanish sunny coast with his bride.
One rainy Monday morning I decided to surprise him and when we spoke in English I asked him with a smile:
"Have you already remembered give thanks to the Lord for this wonderful day?"
He started laughing and got confused. He then left the workplace for a moment and returned with about 5 liters of paint and a paintbrush in his hands. I wondered what Tony was going to do next? He painted the yellow phrase with the cat's tall letters on a dark brown wall across the width of that wall:
HAVE YOU ALREADY REMEMBERED GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD FOR THIS WONDERFUL DAY?
(PS. Reader, I ask you, have you already remembered?)
The head of our department was horrified
I knew it was not going to work out well, because we had an old Finnish man openly a Communist as the head of that department. When he came shortly after that for a round of inspection and was glancing at the wall, he was horrified! Then he cursed and shouted to me, "Leif, did you write that?" I replied, "No I didn't." Then he asked, "Who then?" I said, "I know, but I won't to tell."
He looked at us in turn and said, "I'll bring you the solvent and demand that you both immediately wash that text off the wall!" He brought the solvent and the rags. Then we washed the text off. After he left we laughed out loud with Tony to our manager for his appalled look when he saw the text.
The work at the rubber factory was monotonous and dirty. Then it was summer vacation and after being on vacation for 2 weeks I got paid in my bank account. After looking at it, I found it to be a closing account! So I was fired! I called the factory manager and asked why my service period was not extended (?)
The factory manager said: "We are pleased with your work, but LO management does not accept that you want not join to LO. Therefore your case has been dealt with at the Stockholm headquarters. They have decided that you either have to join the LO or the entire union trade union staff start the strike here. Unfortunately, I'm not the real leader in this company, but the LO's members are. If they start the strike, the company will go bankrupt and I'll be fired."
I replied, "Thank you for telling me the real reason and I respect your honesty. I understand you well and wish you success in your future work. God will come to take good care of me too."
That's what He did! It was not many years since that company went bankrupt, apparently because of too greedy workers union members. The Holy Spirit took care of me, and hopefully of factory manager too.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti