IRJA ESKELINEN

Christian Outreach, Department Director

I am 49 years old and I have a Master of Theology degree. I am a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (since 1989) and the secretary general of the Finnish White Ribbon Union (since 1987). My husband, Juhani, has an M.S. in engineering and he teaches at the University of Applied Sciences. We have one daughter, Anni, who took part in the Convention in Melbourne as a little girl (Maybe some of you remember her!). I have no special hobbies. If I have spare time I like to read e.g. biographical and devotional literature. We live in Helsinki, in the capital of Finland, in suburb, in a small townhouse.

My email address is irja.eskelinen@suomenvalkonauhaliitto.fi. We will make a special link concerning the Christian Outreach Department to the Finland´s WCTU´s homepage at www.suomenvalkonauhaliitto.fi. I hope that the link will be in use by November 2007.

Next year my primary goal as the Department Director will be to support our local chapters to arrange the World White Ribbon Prayer Day at 28th of September 2008. My task will be to outline the structure which the White Ribbon Sisters could use and apply when arranging the occasion. I think that the World White Ribbon Prayer Day could be at the same time also an opportunity to make our work visible. This being the case, during the day there could be e.g. a short course or some lecture about some current topic. We could then finish the day with a common prayer.