Tanja @tanjaostman@dingdash.com

Facebook and Instagram censorship are ridiculous! The Made by Jim Bob account is censored and deleted from Instagram, over and over! He creates new accounts with similar names... This is one example of the dangerous memes he is sharing... 😉 What happened to free speech? I wish more people would be on DD!

Taking pictures at sunset close to our home. A beautiful field of sunflowers. My son taught me that they face east - and these actually do! He's learnt it from Minecraft... that strange game with big pixels is teaching him lots of things, not to mention English vocabulary. He is studying English his fourth year in school, and he understands more than I did his age (13).

The red wooden thing is a toilet (imagine the smell) at my in-laws' summer cottage (in Finland). The funny thing is that people enjoy primitive life in the Nordic countries at weekends and holidays where most people have a very high standard of living, and live in perfectly built houses with triple glazing windows and superior quality over all.

Here we have no electricity and no running water. We bring the drinking water with us, and wash the dishes in rain water. We have a gas fridge and stove. And wash ourselves with rain water in the sauna (or in the sea) that has a wood-burning heater. Enjoying the last days of "summer" (around 18°C).

On my evening walk close to our home.

Don't you eat it! 🍄

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde wants Sweden to help the Taliban “government” to become feminist, and focus on gender issues… It’s not satire! Do you think they will listen to a Swedish woman if she raises her voice? I don’t know if I should laugh or cry! Sweden is the most extreme country in the world when it comes to values (secularism and individualism, the upper right corner). The opposite to the Swedish value system is the grey area. Sweden has taken in lots of migrants from countries in the grey area, and there have been cultural clashes and they don’t know how to handle it. Neither party. I don’t want to be rude against Mrs Linde, but I ask for a little more humility, perspective, and self-awareness! Sweden is not the same country anymore as when they had Raoul Wallenberg and Dag Hammarskjöld.

My husband Johan was running half marathon today. For me it was enough just to bike 9 km (back and forth) to go and watch him. This is quite the opposite of a city marathon...😅 very few participants, and in the countryside outside of our village.

"Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and editor in chief of MedPage Today, argues that mandating vaccines for "every living, walking American" is, as of now, not well-supported by science.../... The risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 in kids ages 5 to17 is 0.3 per million for the week ending July 24, 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We also know that the risk of hospitalization after the second vaccine dose due to myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, is about 50 per million in that same age group." (Source: US News.com)

I always notice errors in my post afterwards... both typos and grammars. Sometimes I use the same prepositions as in my mother tongue Swedish. Most prepositions are actually the same. Many idioms and expressions are even the same, so I can translate what I want to say directly from my head. But some are not, and I might notice my errors after posting. We even have many similar words, so I sometimes spell them Swedish, like using a K instead of C.

This is so sad, especially when his background is worship leader and Church planter. His wife Lisa grew up in a charismatic church, and they were leading worshipin such environments. They are extremely talented musicians! I'm not American so I don't fully understand the (Church) culture over there. Is it common that people leave the Christian faith for some kind of interreligious belief? I have read that young people/young adults are frustrated with the American Christianity, and leave churches en masse. Especially frustrated with megachurches with more focus on strong leaders than on Jesusbeing the head, and putting up shows etc. Some leave for house churches, some for more liturgical churches, and some lose their faith, and some get into yoga, mindfulness and eastern philosophies. What's your experience or perception? Do you know what happened to Gungor?

Continues here: In September our government will discuss the covid passport. Mrs Henriksson, has been pushing in this direction. I wrote very kindly to her, for instance “we are many parents that are very worried about giving vaccines to 12-year-old children, as there are documented risks, like heart inflammations… it’s vaccine (Pfeizer) that is not even approved yet… I hope that our society won’t discriminate people [the passports] who choose not to have the vaccine… There are many highly educated people I know that are skeptical, but keep a low profile about their opinions, since they risk to be discriminated or bullied."

I am so sick and tired of all this. I belong to a minority (even among Christians), who is not vaccinated. Of course, I believe the virus is for real, but there are bigger things going on in our world in the political arena. Some days I feel low, exhausted, anxious and frustrated. We need to pray for and encourage one another!

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/pm_marin_vaccination_of_12-15-year-olds_set_to_begin/12048065

Summer pictures part 5. From the Finnish archipelago.

Summer pictures part 4. These are from the Finnish archipelago.

Pictures part 3. My husband's third youngest cousin William's wedding. Pictures were taken of the guests with a Polaroid camera.

Pictures part 2. From a scout camp in Vasa, Finland.

I have had a break from DD and enjoyed vacation. Our summers in the Nordic countries are bittersweet – beautiful and too short. As soon as the sun is shining, we want to get to the beach/be outside. In the southernmost city of Finland, Hangö (Swedish)/Hanko (Finnish) there are 30 kilometers (19 miles) of sand beaches. We were there by the beach at a Christian family camp for a few days. I have also been a leader at a scout camp, where everything was simple and done outdoors, including cooking on fire. We have had an unusual warm summer, so I think I have been more outdoors than indoors. Next week it’s time to go back to work, and I don’t look forward to the dark autumn and winter – except from the last part of winter Feb-March. Hope you all are doing well! (I will share pictures in several postings, since it’s possible to share only four pictures at a time).