I am from South Africa. I didn't at all know the weather here was so cold, but I am glad to say that I have all the clothes for this freezing weather.

When I First got to know that l would be attending this international conference here in Finland, I had no idea what kind of clothes I should take along. I didn't know what to do when I thought of this two-week stay here, with a very formal dinner, a few parties, social gatherings and a dance during the conference.

    Luckily, my friend Julia has been to northern Europe. Yes, she was a great help. She helped me with my biggest problem. She placed an order for some warm suits and dresses, business-type clothes, of course, of dark colors. She also bought me some skirts and blouses so that I could wear the same clothes in several different ways. A couple of lively colored dresses will give me a nice change from time to time. She also helped to choose a very warm raincoat and a pair of boots.

    Oh, how lucky I am to have such a helpful friend. She saved me a lot of trouble, nothing worries me about my meeting, nor my clothes.

    A young and successful man was driving down a street in his new Jaguar (捷豹汽车). He was going too fast. As his car passed, a brick (砖块) knocked into the Jaguar's side door. He was very angry and drove the car back to the place where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver jumped out of the car and stopped the nearest kid, shouting, "Who are you? What are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do that?"

    The young boy was apologetic. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do," he said. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop."

    With tears dropping down his face, the young boy pointed to a place just around a parked car. "It's my brother," he said, "he fell out of his wheelchair (轮椅) and I can't lift him up."

    Crying, the boy asked the man, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me." Moved deeply, the driver hurriedly lifted the disabled boy into the wheelchair.

    "Thank you and God bless you," the thankful child told the man. And the man simply watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

    It was a long and slow walk back to the Jaguar. The dent (凹痕) was very noticeable, but the driver didn't want to repair the side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

    God speaks to our hearts every day. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, he has to throw a brick at us.

      Life is full of miracles. They surround us every day. One of these miracles happened to me recently. I was filling my car's tank at a local gas station. It was only 10 A.M. but I already felt tired. It was a cloudy, gloomy and rainy day and I hadn't slept well the night before. After I paid for the gas I turned my car towards the main road. I looked right and left then my brain sent the signal for my foot to push on the gas pedal but nothing happened. Shocked, I shook my head to clear it and gazed down at my foot.

      Just as I did, though, a truck rushed past my car doing 60 mph. My weary eyes hadn't seen it when I had looked just 2 seconds earlier. If I had been pulling out when I should have been, my little green car would have been smashed and I would have most likely been killed. I sat there for a long time quietly thanking God for sparing my life before pulling out on the road and heading home. This time both my brain and foot worked perfectly.

      As I looked back on that moment later I still couldn't understand it. Did God prevent my brain's signal from reaching my foot? Did an angel hold my toes to keep them from pressing on the gas? One question kept coming back into my mind as well: why? Why did I get this miracle? Why did God spare my life this day? Finally, I felt the answer forming deep within my heart and mind. I heard the words coming from my soul saying: “You still have more to do. Your work is not done yet!”

      Richard Bach wrote: “Here is the test to find if your mission on Earth is finished: if you are alive it isn't.” Wake up each day then knowing that your mission isn't done yet. You have more love to share, more people to help, more kindness to give. You have one more day to be the miracle God meant for you to be.

    Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today , she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home for so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. "I know what it is to be poor and hungry." As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is 19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    "I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved," Pinky says.

Lake Baikal (贝加尔湖)  is the largest,  deepest freshwater lake in the world.Every winter when the lake freezes over (冻结)  for half the year, 80 -year- old Lyubov skates across the ice wherever she needs to go.

Lyubov has been using the ice to travel around her home for her whole life.As a child, she skated about 2.5 miles each way to school and back.She once fell through the ice and was luckily saved by her classmates.

Lyubov lives alone now in a small house on the bank of Lake Baikal.Her children and five grandchildren don't often visit her because they live five hours away by car.She has to look on a group of dogs, cows and chickens as her friends.Luckily, she has the ice to help her feel free！"For me, ice means being able to go everywhere," the grandmother said.

Every day, she skates half an hour to other villages to do her shopping.With temperatures often reaching -40 ℃  , it' s hard for an old woman to live a normal life.But Lyubov says that her everyday skating enables her to live a long and energetic life. " People keep telling me 1 should slow down, but I just can't , " she said with a smile." I don't have time to be bored; there' s too much work to do."