March Forth! Marssige Edasi!

As you saw from Evelyn and Chris, it is very cold outside today. It is -26 C/-15 F as I type this, which is similar to when we were in Maine last January, except a few degrees colder. But it reminds us of being there anyway!

The big difference is that now we are in this house, which is not so well insulated. On the outer walls, you can literally feel the cold air leaking in through the cracks. So we do everything we can to keep the house warm. I just finished adding wood to the fireplace in our basement, which keeps burning all day and circulates the heat down there. I'll soon light another fire in the ahi (wood furnace), which keeps the heat for around 12 hours after you get a good bed of coals. We also have our electric heaters going in the rooms that are further away from the wood heat.

In the morning I light a fire in our sauna, which is right next to our shower room, so that the temperature is bearable for taking a shower. And we literally have ice forming on the inside of the window of our bathroom! But the cold is just part of the adventure, and we are taking it all with a smile.

One image from today was seeing just about everyone here (including Karl-Gustav and Andrei for some of the time), leaning up against the wall of the ahi, which is about 8 feet high and 3 feet wide and made up of tiles which absorb the heat from the fire. It is the greatest feeling to have your back up against it and feel the warmth working its way deep inside you.

We do worry about our homeless friends here, and especially wish we had a place to offer them. Please pray that we will be able to find the direction God wants us to follow in our work with the homeless.

It is supposed to be this cold for at least the next four days, so you can keep checking the graphic below to see the latest temperature here.
--Tim