During the fall of 2005, God placed a supernatural Faith in my heart to believe that one day Ruurikkala would be used in God’s plan for his kingdom’s work. During the middle of morning prayer, I had this thought that: “One day Ruurikkala will become a home for YWAM youth, a place where we will educate people to serve God’s church with their own gifts”. I experienced how God was crying into my heart: “Ruurikkala belongs to me!”

Because I had been born in the city of Evijärvi and knew Ruurikkala’s worth, I smiled to myself at the possibility of that idea. Over a year passed by and the thought of Ruurikkala being used as YWAM based stayed in the bottom of my heart, but then in fall of 2006 I noticed that I began to think of the idea more and more, beginning to pray for Ruurikkala and dreamed of Ruurikkala full of youth, who want to change this world. It came to the point where I could not sit stagnant any longer, and I decided to be obedient to God and take steps of Faith which even to me always didn’t make sense. These decisions followed with a time of being in a storm but God was in control and he was organizing things with tremendous speed and power.

It was miraculous to see how God brought different people together and spoke to many about this place, and started showing us all, that God was really taking this place back for its original purpose. In the spring of 2007, we made attempts of getting Ruurikkala but we could not come to terms of the price. At the end of 2007, the doors began to open for Ruurikkala.

In the spring of 2008, we went through a heavy prayer battle over Ruurikkala. We weren’t the only buyers desiring that place, and our offer wasn’t even close to the amount that competitors were willing to pay but we decided to continue to offer the amount that God had revealed to us in the fall of 2006. The battle looked as though we were defeated many times, but God encouraged us time after time that we should continue praying and believing in him.

In April of 2008, our situation changed surprisingly, when another Ruurikkala buyer backed out, without explanation. Something had happened, something that we still to this day don’t know about, but they decided to back out and we were fortunate to buy Ruurikkala in June of 2008. The bible says that God affects our desire to do good works and helps us in this, and in this process we really were able to see God work amidst us. Father, Ruurikkala belongs to you!

Roope Laukkonen
Base Leader
YWAM Ruurikkala