The first prayer answer I received
As soon as we boys learned to speak, my mother taught us to believe and trust in the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and we had to pray the evening prayer every night:
"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen." That prayer I knew by heart already at the age of 3.
As a child, I believed wholeheartedly in Heavenly Father and Jesus, who loves us. I remember that at the age of 4, after that evening prayer, I thought that it was wrong that my mother take custody of all her sons and no allowed our father even to meet any of us.
That is why, after an evening prayer, I stayed on my knees for a long time and secretly prayed a silent heart prayer saying:
"Dear Jesus. You are a good and just God and you know that it is wrong that father haven't right to be patronized any of his sons and we cannot even meet him. I pray you send me to him, so that he is allowed to patronize me because I love him. I believe you are able and want to do that. Thank you! Amen".
~ So did He, HalleluYah! ~
Soon I was the object of the struggle
When mother finally realized what documents she had signed, she made every effort to prevent father from patronizing me. After all, she had been tricked into signing the transfer documents regarding the transfer of me to father's custody.
At that time, my father lived in a small town in Lohja with Siiri and her daughter Pirkko. He drove from there twice by car to Alajärvi with the intention of pick me up, but mother, after receiving a letter from my father about his arrival, then took me into hiding place to his relatives.
I remember one of those trips. It was summer and mom bought me a big tomato with the money she got from the tablecloths she sold. It tasted terribly bad and I said I didn't want to eat even though I was very hungry.
We arrived in the evening to a family of one of his relatives. In the middle of the wooden house was a large table and a low wooden dish on the table, with potatous and herrings matured in the oven. The house host ate from it first. After that he handed the same wooden spoon to me, saying, "Come on, boy, sit down at the table and eat your stomach full!"
I was so precise at the time that I could not imagine eating with dirty wooden spoon from the same container that someone else had already eaten from! Although I was real hungry, I said to mother, "Mom, I'm not hungry." It was a lie, because I didn't want to offend the house's host, who showed us his hospitality.
Along the way, my mother came to a woman's house to evangelize, selling tablecloths she had woven. She said it cost FIM 1. The woman said she had no more than 90 pence. Mom said it was enough and sold the tablecloth. I saw the woman pick up those coins from a small porcelain bowl on the edge of the fireplace.
I remember I was looking closely at her and seeing her humble and lovingkindness for us, strangers. She was a good-natured and neatly dressed pretty young woman with a long skirt down to her ankles and a neat apron wrapped around her.
It is about 300 km (187 mi) from Lohja to Alajärvi and in vain driving there was very costly for father. Finally, he wrote to mother that when he'll come to pick me up for the third time, and if she would hide me again, he would immediately contact the police in the area who would then take her to prison.
She was frightened of it and did not hide me anymore. Dad picked me up in his Gaz car and I was glad because I realized then that I had received the first concrete answer to my prayer in my life. HalleluYah!
Moving to Lohja 1954
The car trip was exciting and it was nice to chat with dad for a long time. When I saw a big dog in the backyard of a farm, I said to dad, "What a big dog!" He asked, "How big?" I said it was the size of a horse. After hearing it, dad said that soon we would reach the bridge where the liars would fall into the river.
I was scared and started to retract saying that the dog was not that big and when my dad said the bridge was already close, I admitted that the dog was of normal size. I was ashamed of being caught in a lie. It was a good lesson!
We arrived at the Lohja township center, where father's new family lived in a rented house, at Tehtaankatu 3. Next to the same house, in the courtyard, father's brother Leve and his family also lived. It was a pleasure to meet them and especially Selma again for a long time. Leve had moved at father's invitation to Lohja and father had helped Leve get a job as an insurance salesman.
He spoke fluent Finnish and Swedish like father. Leve was not very successful at paperwork and father often took care of his paperwork, helping him with his accounting. Later, Leve went to work at a plywood mill only 300 m away. He was a carpenter by profession, and there he prospered and worked until he retired at 65.
Stepmother Siiri was a skilled hairdresser and she practiced her profession in our home, which included a hairdressing saloon facing the street. As the cellulose mill was only about 300 m away, I felt a terrible, even dizzying bad odor as soon as we arrived in Lohja. Fortunately, I didn't notice it after a week! Man will soon get used even to the worst odor.
Right away I noticed how cool and clean our new home was. I was immediately cleaned of lice and fleas. Siiri was very precise about her cleanliness and I really appreciated her. She was able to make good food from simple and cheap food ingredients. For the first time in my life, I got to eat my stomach full of nutritious food every day. Then I was 5 years old.
We went to the rental sauna every Saturday to wash and take a steam bath. Pirkko and I always got our own bottle of lemonade, often sweet and non-alcoholic Keko Sahti, which was dark brown and even better taste than Coca Cola! I was so grateful for having such a good living from my Heavenly Father!
I got a paper money for a birthday present and Siiri said, "Leif , go to shop and buy yourself a bag of candy." I went to the store, but I no longer remembered the word candy. I asked the seller for a bag of "makosia". She didn't understand and after a while I pointed at the candy dishes. At that time, the candies were sold loose in large glass jars.
The seller used a little scoop to take the candies into a paper bag, which was then weighed. I returned home with satisfaction and gave the exchange money to Siiri. For the first time I lived in an densely inhabited little town and there was a lot of wonder. Large, timber-carrying trucks drove daily up and down hill our steep Tehtaankatu, where we were lived.
According to Siiri, the truck driver stopped the truck, came and took me in his arms and carried me to the side, next to the road saying: "Listen boy. It's dangerous lie down the street, so you'd rather lie here than on the road." I remember the case differently.
Since I had a playground only the sidewalk, right outside our home at the time, I was lying there and the passing truck driver thought that I was hurt because I was lying on my back without moving.
He came and lifted me up. Stepmother saw only it, when I was already in the trucker's lap and she thought I had been lying on the road. As a shy and timid, I didn't tell stepmother about it. She was strong-willed woman and I was afraid of her.
He spoke fluent Finnish and Swedish like father. Leve was not very successful at paperwork and father often took care of his paperwork, helping him with his accounting. Later, Leve went to work at a plywood mill only 300 m away. He was a carpenter by profession, and there he prospered and worked until he retired at 65.
Stepmother Siiri was a skilled hairdresser and she practiced her profession in our home, which included a hairdressing saloon facing the street. As the cellulose mill was only about 300 m away, I felt a terrible, even dizzying bad odor as soon as we arrived in Lohja. Fortunately, I didn't notice it after a week! Man will soon get used even to the worst odor.
I got better living conditions
Right away I noticed how cool and clean our new home was. I was immediately cleaned of lice and fleas. Siiri was very precise about her cleanliness and I really appreciated her. She was able to make good food from simple and cheap food ingredients. For the first time in my life, I got to eat my stomach full of nutritious food every day. Then I was 5 years old.
We went to the rental sauna every Saturday to wash and take a steam bath. Pirkko and I always got our own bottle of lemonade, often sweet and non-alcoholic Keko Sahti, which was dark brown and even better taste than Coca Cola! I was so grateful for having such a good living from my Heavenly Father!
I got a paper money for a birthday present and Siiri said, "Leif , go to shop and buy yourself a bag of candy." I went to the store, but I no longer remembered the word candy. I asked the seller for a bag of "makosia". She didn't understand and after a while I pointed at the candy dishes. At that time, the candies were sold loose in large glass jars.
The seller used a little scoop to take the candies into a paper bag, which was then weighed. I returned home with satisfaction and gave the exchange money to Siiri. For the first time I lived in an densely inhabited little town and there was a lot of wonder. Large, timber-carrying trucks drove daily up and down hill our steep Tehtaankatu, where we were lived.
According to Siiri, the truck driver stopped the truck, came and took me in his arms and carried me to the side, next to the road saying: "Listen boy. It's dangerous lie down the street, so you'd rather lie here than on the road." I remember the case differently.
Since I had a playground only the sidewalk, right outside our home at the time, I was lying there and the passing truck driver thought that I was hurt because I was lying on my back without moving.
He came and lifted me up. Stepmother saw only it, when I was already in the trucker's lap and she thought I had been lying on the road. As a shy and timid, I didn't tell stepmother about it. She was strong-willed woman and I was afraid of her.
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