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Matti Hintikka – 8.1.2025
On a frosty winter day in early January 2022, a small group of us gathered at the Lahti association of peace (Ry) wearing face masks. The time had come to start the practical preparations for oganizing the 2025 SRK Summer Services in Loppi.
The meeting was attended in person by the six-person Summer Services administrative working group along with the chairman of the Lahti Ry who carries the main responsibility for organizing the services. In the new situation, we received reassuring advice remotely from the then Secretary General of the SRK, Juha Kaarivaara, and Asko Syrjälä, an expert on Summer Services work. We learned and recorded in our minutes that the working group of Summer Services administration, or HTR, is the working group of the preparation work.
Supporting Lahti Ry’s organization responsibility are eight Ry’s located in southern Finland : the Ry’s of Helsinki, Kouvola, Järvenpää, Lappeenranta, Lempäälä, Mäntsälä, Pornainen and Porvoo.
Over the past three years, the team involved in the preparation of the Summer Services 2025 in Loppi grew from a working group to a main committee of twenty people, and then to a one-hundred member group consisting of thirteen committees. By winter 2024, when we were planning and preparing for the disassembly of the Pudasjärvi Summer Services, the number of people responsible had grown to a thousand.
With this same group, we turn our gaze to June this year, in particular to June 16th, when the busy construction week begins in Räyskälä. We will eventually invite everyone who has the opportunity and ability to participate in the costruction of the Summer Services – save the date in your calendars!
Preparations for the summer services are proceeding in the “footsteps of the old saints”. Summer Services have been held for almost 120 years, so there is no need to start from scratch this time. We also have a tried and tested timetable for the preparatory phase, which tells us what each committee should do and when.
We have been learning how to organize Summer Services first in Loppi in 2022, then in Kauhava, and in Pudasjärvi last summer we already had an apprenticeship phase. Warm thanks to all of you who have been responsible for the Summer Services in previous years!
We have found a wealth of talent and expertise and, above all, a spirit of service in working together.
The Heavenly Father has blessed the preparation of the Summer Services, which has been carried out in accordance with our commonly agreed values: an atmosphere of grace, trust, responsibility and joy.
We are doing work that has meaning. Summer Services are organized so that as many people as possible can hear the call to God’s kingdom and personally embrace the gospel of Christ. The blessing of the preparatory work includes the fact that even amidst numerous meetings, planning, and contacts, the joy of believing and the mutual love between God’s children have been strengthened.
The joy of work will continue even after the preparations have been completed and the Summer Services have begun. By the end of June 2025, we hope to see many enthusiastic volunteers in the mutual Summer Service town. May the Heavenly Father bless us all to work with the same enthusiasm as the little children collecting garbage and selling ice cream.