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| Preaching |
It was a bit more than a week ago when I had the privilege of preaching at the Young Adults' Weekend on Västeräng campsite.
Västeräng brought out all sorts of emotions and generated all sorts of thoughts in me. It's a place where maybe more than anywhere else in Sweden I have felt a bit of an outsider. Let me explain. It's nothing to do with the camp itselt or people I met there - all of this was wonderful, and everyone was super friendly! But nevertheless it is a place where the sense of past and my own historical baggage makes me feel somewhat alienated.
The truth is - I've never experienced a place like Västeräng before.
I think the Swedish Adventist church bought Västeräng - which was just a big lake-side farm with its fields and forests - sometime in the late 1940s (please correct me if I'm wrong). So it has been a place where generations and generations of Adventists have grown up, quite literally. Just a few days before the campmeeting I had a conversation with Y. who sometimes sends me emails. I told her I was going to Västeräng to preach. She then shared with me her first childhood memory of a big tent meeting in Västeräng. Y. turned 80 a month ago... That's how old the place is. That's how deep this place goes in the collective psyche of the church.
On the other hand, in the late 1940s in Estonia no-one thought about buying a campsite for the church, all people thought about was survival. No-one dreamed about enlargening the church ministries, it was a time when church buildings were taken away from the church, when ministries were shut down, when books were copied by hand and in secret. The Estonian Adventist church has its own campsite now - bought some 5 years ago. It is a nice place with a lot of potential but without any roots. No traditions. No generational memories. No bonfire songs handed down from parents to children.
That's why Västeräng brought out so many conflicting emotions in me. It was with wonder and awe and slight envy that I took part in the camp traditions, listened to the old funny songs sung at the bonfire on sunset, ate a big bowl of ice-cream on the last evening of a camp, canoed on the lake, and breathed in the dusty air of the old buildings.
I will most likely always remain a bit of an outsider there. And that's perfectly fine. But I do hope that one day my own children (God willing!) would grow up, spending summers on Västeräng and breathing its air without the painful past of me and my parents' and grandparents' generations. I hope they will continue with all the traditions and songs. I may even let them eat some ice-cream on Saturday evening way past their bedtime. 😄
