Gospel Coundown Friday

If my life had a soundtrack what songs would be in it?

What a great question.

In my childhood it would be old Finnish Christian children's songs.

The songs I sang in Sunday school, at church camp and in school.

Songs I would hear at my home after my parents had money enough to buy our first record player and then after that a cassette player.

Very peaceful, even sedate and uneventful songs in minor.

Most of Finnish songs are in minor and Finland is one of the few countries that sings about early death and graves in their cradle songs.

5. Ystävä, sä, lapsien - virsi 492 (You, Friend of Little Children)

You are Friend of Children. 

Where ever I go in the world, there You are with me.

The luck may change in this world but Heavenly Father is always my safety.

We moved around a lot when I grew up.

I was 20 when I came to Ecuador and I had moved over 30 times before that.

I never had very long roots because I knew I would need to get them up, shake the earth and move on.

It was a hard way to grow up but on the other hand I had a chance to experience a lot.

I saw different things and ways to live, from cities to countryside.

And learn about life in a way I could not have if we had always lived in the same place.

What was always the same in my life was the church.

There was always a church; there was always Sunday school, Scout or Youth group.

Later on, there was always a choir to join.

When I was in Junior High School I went to a mission to Estonia with our youth choir.

At fifteen I went to mission trip to Germany.

It was just after the two Germanies were united and I had an opportunity to talk with a pastor from East Germany who had been in prison for his beliefs.

I was able to visit the church and the church members and hear how they life had been under the communist rule.

And I was able to visit Buchenwald, a visit that changed many things for me, forever.

Here one of the songs we used to sing in choir.

4. Pekka Simojoki - Herra Kädelläsi (Lord, on Your Hand)

Lord, on Your hand, I can live, it is the safest hand in the world.

It is my joy to be close to You, I can only trust in You.

I want to sing Your deeds.

When I was in High School I moved to my own apartment.

It was a big thing for me, I became independent.

I lived in an apartment above our church, right next to my uncle and his family.

Not so independent but for me, I was on my own.

My apartment become very fast the unofficial meeting place for our church's youth.

We would talk, watch movies from VCR (yes, I'm that old, record players and VCR, LOL), talk, and listen to music from my cassette player.

One of the groups that would always be playing was Guardian, and this song brings me back to that little apartment with big windows and thick walls.

Aparment filled laughing friends.

Or on my own in teenage angst, wondering if I will ever really know what love is. 

3. Guardian - Do you know what love is?

Then I came to Ecuador and my musical distress begun.

It was also literature withdrawal because there was no way to get books in Finnish.

And I could not even speak Spanish, learning to read books in Spanish seemed like a very far away dream.

Finally I got some books in English and was able to read them.

Just like I was able to get few Amy Grant CDs when the cassettes I had brought from Finland with me fell apart.

I just didn’t feel comfortable enough listening to music in Spanish, it was too new, too different.

Those few books and Amy Grant CDs were my lifeline to the world I knew of.

2. Amy Grant - Baby, baby

It's been more than 15 years since I came to Ecuador.

I don't want to do the math and count the exact number.

Because it is such a long time and I'm so old.

It has not yet been half of my life but it won't take many years for my life in Ecuador to have been longer, than the life I lived in Finland.

I speak Spanish, I'm able to read books in Spanish, give speaches in Spanish and dream in Spanish.

I also feel latin rhytms.

They are part of who I am now.

And I have learned to love the music.

It is part of my life.

1. Alex Campos - Sueño de morir (Dream to die)

Tears and blood all mixed up, it was Your dream to die.

Blood and silence was the price, the price of my life.

Forever I will be Yours, an offering to You.