ROBERT@kontu.utu.fi (Robert W. Johnson) (10/22/90)
My name is Robert W. Johnson. My wife and I need your prayers, desperately, to say the least. About two years ago I was working for The University of Texas at Austin on their IBM 3081. I got transferred to working on a VAX/VMS cluster, and I hated every minute of it, and learned very little over a period of a couple of months. I was extremely discouraged, to say the least. I advertised on one of the LISTSERV lists that I had some documentation if anyone wanted it. I got two requests, and I added a note to the bottom of the letter I sent back to the requestors that I was looking for a Senior Systems Analyst position and did they have one open. I got a reply back, and it was from Finland. Several years earlier I had decided if I ever was going to get "away from it all" that Finland is where I wanted to go (I have wonderful Finnish relatives in Montana and the US). I talked via computer with two people at this university in Finland that wanted to hire me, and they seemed like very nice people, spoke excellent english, had a job opening that paid less than what I made in Austin (I thought my wife and I could stretch things). Ends up that when I get here I was communicating with two idiots. This place stinks, to say the least. Not many people speak english, there is very little on television, and Finland is an economic hell (I don't make enough money to live on and pay the bills) with everything costing twice what it did in Austin. We are going down the tubes financially, very lonely and cut off, and rather desperate to get back to the states but don't have the money and don't have a job to go back to. We are stuck here, "lured" here by a couple of real idiots and our own stupidity (everyone I talked to in Austin before we moved here only had reservations about my wife and I coming here, I really don't know what got into us except I had a bad job situation and suffered headaches every 3 days in Austin for 15 years and my wife "thought" that Finland would be closer to Europe--she thought European culture would be good for me and she is a native of France). To top it all off I got sick last december, coming down with a high fever that resulted in a 2 1/2 week LSD-like trip. I was in a Finnish state mental hospital for 2 months and then home (no pay) for another 1 1/2 months. I still have to take very strong sleeping medication at night (no natural sleep in 9 months now), a laxative every day, and am physically and mentally weakened. Life has been hell for me lately and for my poor loving wife also. This illness is another reason that we are trapped here in Finland. It has so weakened me physically and mentally that I really do not think that I could work eight hours per day back in the states (right now, I have it fairly easy here in Finland). Please pray that the lord would get us back to the states, financially secure, and for my health. ppplllleeeeeaaaassssseeeee. We need your prayers to get out of this trap and back to civilazation, and for physical and mental well-being. Thank you for your loving care and concern, (I know the power of prayer) Robert W. Johnson robert at firien (BITNET) robert at kontu.utu.fi (Internet)