Author Pirkko Rytkonon has a Finnish heritage. She grew up attending Finnish Free Churches and Finnish Pentecostal Churches. I have a Mennonite background, and grew up attending Mennonite and Alliance Churches. Comparing our backgrounds drew me to her memoir BETWEEN US: A TRUE STORY OF LONGING FOR LOVE AND LETTERS. Set in the early 1970s, it features the long-distance courtship between her as a student in Canada and her future husband, a seminarian in Finland.
The Mennonites I grew up with and the Finlanders Pirkko describes both have distinctive food traditions. My parents were Dutch-German Mennonites immigrants from Russia to Saskatchewan. I grew up eating cabbage borscht, pluma moos (plum soup), sausages, and vereniki (like pierogies). As a teenager, Pirkko worked in a Thunder Bay, Ontario restaurant that served beef stew, kalakeitto (lake-trout stew), and Finnish pancakes. She ate rye bread at her grandmother's house in Finland, and pulla (sweet bread) in many Finnish and Finnish Canadian households.
Pirkko and I both grew up in faith communities that valued Bible study, prayer, God's guidance, missionary work, and high standards of Christian conduct. Many Mennonites I grew up with frowned on dancing, smoking, drinking, and going to movies. Pirkko's experiences in her Finnish community were similar in this regard.
Her connection with seminarian Antti began when a church friend asked her to write to him because he wanted to improve his English by corresponding with someone in that language. Through their correspondence, they gradually become what she calls "soulmate friends." Was there a romantic connection between them? Her doubts regarding the potential future of their relationship precipitated much of the conflict in their story. For example, he wanted to become a missionary in Ecuador. She wanted to stay in Canada. That wouldn't matter much if they weren't a couple. If they were, it would matter a lot.
Antti dreamed of a "partner called by God"—a wife who would help him in his pastoral and missionary work. Could Pirkko become that partner? She didn't feel worthy or gifted in the appropriate ways yet she longed to be more than a friend to him.
When Antti came to Thunder Bay to serve as a temporary pastor, she borrowed her brother's car to give him a tour of the area and take him home to meet her family. Yet the nature of their relationship remained "up in the air." Even after they declared their love for each other, she still wasn't sure God was leading them to marry.
Pirkko tended to be unsure and impulsive. Sometimes these traits worked in her favour; sometimes they didn't. Antti was a more confident and phlegmatic person.
How did these two find a road to the altar? What challenges did they face along the way? If you read the book, you'll find out. It's 243 pages, available from Amazon as a paperback and e-book.
There are similarities between Pirkko and Antti's story, and the story of Susie and Simon in my 1970s Mennonite novel SONG FOR SUSIE EPP. Susie lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Simon lives in Sage City (Kamloops fictionalized). When they become pen pals, Susie is plagued with doubts about their relationship. What is it and what does it become? The novel explores the answers. It's available from online sellers including Amazon and Chapters Indigo.
