{"id":25486,"date":"2026-03-10T11:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/?p=25486"},"modified":"2026-03-10T11:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:04:16","slug":"from-two-languages-to-one-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/from-two-languages-to-one-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"From Two Languages to One Fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"

25 February 2026 | Helsinki, Finland [Averonika Beekmann\u00a0with tedNEWS<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Two Seventh-day Adventist groups in Helsinki, Finland, the Finnish-speaking Annankatu congregation and the Estonian-speaking home group Elutee Kodukirik, are joining together for joint Sabbath worship services, a move organisers hope will strengthen the groups and help them reach more people, as the Estonian group marks 20 years of meeting together this year.<\/p>\n

The Elutee Kodukirik group\u2019s leader, Marianne Valtna, said the past year has brought significant changes in attendance, prompting conversations with local pastors about how to support the ministry. \u201cA year ago, there were more of us in the spring season, but fewer again in the autumn season: some moved away from Finland, others got sick, and so we discussed with the Finnish pastors what to do to have more people in our group,\u201d Valtna said. The idea that emerged was to organise joint services with the Annankatu congregation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI complained during the meeting with the pastors that our group was regressing a little, and then Pastor Atte Helminen had the idea that if we couldn\u2019t move forward, we had to take a step back and organise a joint worship service with the Finns,\u201d Valtna said.<\/p>\n

\"Adventists
Adventists in Helsinki gather for the first joint Sabbath service on 21 February, as the Finnish-speaking Annankatu congregation and the Estonian-speaking Elutee Kodukirik home group worship together<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first joint service took place on 21 February, with the next scheduled for 30 May. Valtna noted that the Finnish congregation benefits from the shared preaching responsibilities and that the joint programme creates variety for both communities. The partnership also expands the Estonian group\u2019s visibility, as Annankatu services are streamed on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe some Estonians living in Finland will notice us, and people in Estonia will learn more about us and be able to find the Elutee Kodukirik home group. This way we can increase our visibility,\u201d Valtna said.<\/p>\n

Outside the joint worship months, the Estonian group still meets once a month in Helsinki. Valtna said everyone is welcome, and that meeting dates, along with future joint service times, are shared on the group\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

[Photos: Marianne Valtna]<\/em><\/p>\n

The original version<\/a> of this article was posted in Estonian on the Estonian Conference<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finnish and Estonian Adventists in Helsinki unite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":25489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1583,1584,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-estonia-latvia-lithuania","category-finland","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25486"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25515,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25486\/revisions\/25515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}