LIFE STORY/AS TOLD BY ERKKI MAKELA - Continue

 MY YOUTH IN FINLAND

I was born in 1955, the youngest of three boys. I grew up near the southern coast of Finland in an area now known as the city of Vantaa. My mother got baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses a few years before I was born. However, my father opposed the truth and did not allow my mother to study with us children or to take us to congregation meetings. So she would teach us Bible truths when my father was not around.

From childhood onward, I took a stand for Jehovah. For example, once when I was seven, my schoolteacher became furious with me because I would not eat Verilattyja (Finnish blood pancakes). With one hand, she squeezed my cheeks to separate my closed lips, and with the other, she tried to force a fork with a piece of pancake into my mouth. I managed to knock the fork out of her hand. 

Next time: LIFE STORY/AS TOLD BY ERKKI  MAKELA - Conclusion

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