Israel - the First Door
- Satu-Marianne Piispa
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Blog series: One Place of Service That Opened Up the Whole World
In this four-part series, I tell how God led me step by step from "The Wedding of the Lamb" to Israel, Pakistan, and eventually also to the birth of Living Faith.
In this series:
Part 1 – What If the Vision Makes You Wait?
Part 2 – Israel – The First Door
◻ Part 3 – Pakistan – The Second Door
◻ Part 4 – The Tracks Are Visible Only Looking Back
Israel - the First Door
When I chose the low entrance of a root cellar instead of the grand doors of concert halls, I did not know what I was stepping into. I only knew that the Lord wanted me to go in through that entrance.
At first, the work I was doing for The Wedding of the Lamb association did not seem to be taking me anywhere. I sat at my computer in Finland and replied to emails that came from different parts of the world.
I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. (Rev.3:8)
Then the first door opened. It led to Israel. At the time, I did not yet know that Israel was not the destination. It was the first link in a chain that would later take me to a place I had never intended to go.
God’s Answer
I came to faith on October 1, 2003. Since then, Israel has been in my heart, and a strange longing for that country (which many believers will recognize!) arose very early on. From then on, I also asked the Father from time to time to arrange for me to travel there.
I had to wait a long time for the trip, but when the time came, God arranged everything almost in an instant...
Then Things Started Happening!
On September 3, 2025, I was placing an order for invitation cards for The Wedding of the Lamb association. Among the Nordic languages, one language slipped in... Hebrew. I felt a strong prompting to order 2,000 Hebrew-language invitation cards to the Wedding of the Lamb. I had not had any prior thought of doing so; the idea came to me in the middle of placing the order, and at that moment, the only other thought I had was, “The Feast of Tabernacles.”
On September 13, 2025, Jani Salokangas, the National Director of ICEJ Finland, was speaking at an event organized by The Wedding of the Lamb association. He was about to begin his speech in the upstairs hall of the venue. I was downstairs, enjoying a well-earned coffee break with a few other people.
Someone at the table brought up matters related to Israel, and without thinking at all, I said out loud, “Father, could You send me there someday too!” At that very moment, the person sitting next to me began making arrangements—immediately and quite concretely, picking up the phone!
I will not go into the details here, but as it happened, my employer was sitting across from me, and half jokingly, very bewildered by the sudden turn of events, I asked, “Can I go visit Jerusalem?” He replied with a smile, “Go ahead, if the funding works out!”
Late in the evening after the event, our team had stayed behind to pray for one another. While they were praying for me, three team members clearly received words of knowledge. Two of them knew nothing about the earlier conversation at the coffee table. One of them prayed: “Thank You, Father, for the mission trips You are sending Satu-Marianne on. Thank You for giving her the courage to take care of the preparations for those trips!” (Courage was indeed needed later in a very concrete way.)
Another person praying saw something like a heavenly sifting sieve: only God’s plan for my life could pass through it anymore, while the unnecessary “debris” was left behind in the sieve.
The third person said: “You are now being given completely new shoes!”
When I got home, I checked my passport: IT WAS VALID UNTIL 2027! In other words, half of what was necessary was already in order. The other necessity was the money for the trip and, with it, the tickets.
So, this happened on September 13, and I was supposed to leave for Israel as early as October 6, with the tickets still not booked, so there was already a bit of urgency...
A Financial Miracle
As a part-time employee, I had no possibility whatsoever of financing more than a vanishingly small part of the trip. If I had relied on human hope, it certainly would not have happened. However, something happened that I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to do, because the outcome was miraculous.
I had never before asked people to support any of my spiritual endeavors in any way other than through prayer. This time, however, I sent a text message to certain people, telling them that an opportunity to travel to Israel had opened up. I told them that, in addition to praying, they could also support the trip financially if they wished.
“The entire amount needed for the trip had been raised in about seven hours.”
I sent the message on Sunday morning at around 11 a.m. At the end of the message, I wrote: “I ask for PRAYER that if this really is the Father’s plan, the entire amount will already be in my account at the beginning of the week!”
About seven hours had passed since I sent that message when I happened to check my account balance. THE ENTIRE AMOUNT had already been more than fully raised by early Sunday evening!
The Significance of the Trip to Israel
Looking back, I have the sense that on that trip, the Father mainly wanted to fulfill my long-held dream of visiting “our second homeland.” (Of course, I took with me 8.5 kg of the Hebrew-language invitation cards to the Wedding of the Lamb that I had ordered earlier. I delivered the cards by morning train to Tel Aviv to the director of an organization’s work in Israel.)
“God had arranged for me to go to Israel in a way that was a supernatural miracle. Yet once I was there, I wondered what I was actually doing there.”
I can honestly say that while I was in Israel, I spent half the time wondering what I was even doing there. It felt strange to be “just on vacation.” The timing was also during the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall, when everywhere was full of tourists. I generally do not care much for places like that.
At the time, however, I had no idea what the true purpose of the trip was.
A door opened by God is not always the destination. Sometimes it is a passageway to the next door.
We see one stage. God sees the connections between the stages.
The true significance of my trip to Israel only became clear to me a week and a half after I returned to Finland.
That was when the second door opened.
Pakistan.
Blog Series: One Place of Service That Opened Up the Whole World
✓ Part 1 – What If the Vision Makes You Wait?
✓ Part 2 – Israel – The First Door
→ Next: Pakistan – The Second Door
