43 years and still at it, still growing, still going and still advancing!!
They were amazed as they watched. Paul got up, went over to the Communist Party Students table, and engaged them in a conversation about the Gospel! Once their disbelief began to fade, their line of thought went something like,
"He must really believe in order to do this! We’re going to pay attention to what he has to say to us when he is finished with them!" And they did. All this started in 1972.
Matti and Marja (pronounced Ma-ree-ya) paid great attention to what Paul and Helen Lappala had to say. And have been making disciples ever since, and are still at it! 43 years later, 4 children, several grandchildren, two countries, numerous hours of Bible Study, and many mountains moved by prayer later.
Laura and I just returned from spending two weeks in Helsinki Finland with Matti and Marja Leisola to celebrate our 35th year of marriage together, as well as celebrate the seminal work Laura's parents carried out in establishing the Finnish Navigator Work 1970 to 1974
Matti and Marja had just believed in early 1972. They gave their lives to Christ and asked God to send someone to help them. He did! Paul and Helen met them at the Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto www.aalto.fi) and began their discipling relationship.
The Leisola’s have been living and discipling among the many people God has given them over the past 43 years. In Finland Matti obtained his doctorate and went on to lead his research team at the Swiss University of Technology from 1981 – 1988. In that context they led many to Christ, one couple being from Mexico who lived next door to Navigators in Mexico City!
They returned to Helsikini and worked in industry from 1991 to 1997 in his area of specialty of sugars, proteins and enzymes and effectively shared his faith there.Matti then returned to the Helsinki University of Technology as a professor and finished his career there as Dean of Biochemical Technology and Engineering, now known as the School of Chemical Technology. And once again, he shared his faith, made disciples, and lived and discipled among the people in this context he knew so well.
Matti has become a world leader in the area of Intelligent Design, of clearly seeing how God has authored creation and the impossibility of evolution explaining and articulating the origin of living organisms, let alone the wonder and power of the Human Beings, created in the Image of God, designed to steward creation in such a way as to give glory to Him! (If you want to dig more on your own, check out this link: http://vixra.org/abs/1504.0130
