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Between Us: A True Story of Longing for Love and Letters
With the Letter in the Mail…
Pirkko, in her final year of high school, answers a request to teach English to Antti, a seminary student in Finland, and they embark on a pen pal relationship. She visits her relatives for the summer and attends a conference where they meet.
In Canada, Pirkko works as a part-time waitress where young men flirt with the girls. After several failed attempts at dating, she decides that single life is her destiny. She moves away from home to university in search of purpose, but she can’t get her pen pal off her mind.
Nothing else matters to Antti besides following God’s guidance, but he’s intrigued by the girl behind the letters. His focus on God keeps him unattached. He’s even sworn off dating until his graduation year.
They share faith, but not life goals, and become soulmates. She wonders whether to stop writing. Two years later, Antti arrives to work as a summer intern at her church in Canada. Instant attraction consumes Pirkko, and she makes a shocking declaration that could jeopardize her chance at love.
Can they have a future together despite the obstacles and ocean between them?
Pirkko, in her final year of high school, answers a request to teach English to Antti, a seminary student in Finland, and they embark on a pen pal relationship. She visits her relatives for the summer and attends a conference where they meet.
In Canada, Pirkko works as a part-time waitress where young men flirt with the girls. After several failed attempts at dating, she decides that single life is her destiny. She moves away from home to university in search of purpose, but she can’t get her pen pal off her mind.
Nothing else matters to Antti besides following God’s guidance, but he’s intrigued by the girl behind the letters. His focus on God keeps him unattached. He’s even sworn off dating until his graduation year.
They share faith, but not life goals, and become soulmates. She wonders whether to stop writing. Two years later, Antti arrives to work as a summer intern at her church in Canada. Instant attraction consumes Pirkko, and she makes a shocking declaration that could jeopardize her chance at love.
Can they have a future together despite the obstacles and ocean between them?
234 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 21, 2023
11 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 8, 2023
Pirkko Rytkonen has written a lovely memoir. The honesty, vulnerability, sweetness and freshness of a young immigrant girl, as she becomes a young woman in love, is very appealing. I admit it caused me to “sigh” many times, as I recalled my own younger self, from many years ago.
Although I personally was not an immigrant, there was much in the book’s description of the distinctive Finnish-Canadian culture that felt familiar, since I grew up having an immigrant dad. I enjoyed this book very much! It was a good, easy summer read!
Although I personally was not an immigrant, there was much in the book’s description of the distinctive Finnish-Canadian culture that felt familiar, since I grew up having an immigrant dad. I enjoyed this book very much! It was a good, easy summer read!
March 25, 2025
Author Pirkko Rytkonon has a Finnish heritage. She grew up attending Finnish Free Churches and Finnish Pentecostal Churches. I have a Mennonite background, and grew up attending Mennonite and Alliance Churches. Comparing our backgrounds drew me to her memoir BETWEEN US: A TRUE STORY OF LONGING FOR LOVE AND LETTERS. Set in the early 1970s, it features the long-distance courtship between her as a student in Canada and her future husband, a seminarian in Finland.
The Mennonites I grew up with and the Finlanders Pirkko describes both have distinctive food traditions. My parents were Dutch-German Mennonites immigrants from Russia to Saskatchewan. I grew up eating cabbage borscht, pluma moos (plum soup), sausages, and vereniki (like pierogies). As a teenager, Pirkko worked in a Thunder Bay, Ontario restaurant that served beef stew, kalakeitto (lake-trout stew), and Finnish pancakes. She ate rye bread at her grandmother’s house in Finland, and pulla (sweet bread) in many Finnish and Finnish Canadian households.
Pirkko and I both grew up in faith communities that valued Bible study, prayer, God’s guidance, missionary work, and high standards of Christian conduct. Many Mennonites I grew up with frowned on dancing, smoking, drinking, and going to movies. Pirkko’s experiences in her Finnish community were similar in this regard.
Her connection with seminarian Antti began when a church friend asked her to write to him because he wanted to improve his English by corresponding with someone in that language. Through their correspondence, they gradually become what she calls “soulmate friends.” Was there a romantic connection between them? Her doubts regarding the potential future of their relationship precipitated much of the conflict in their story. For example, he wanted to become a missionary in Ecuador. She wanted to stay in Canada. That wouldn’t matter much if they weren’t a couple. If they were, it would matter a lot.
Antti dreamed of a “partner called by God”—a wife who would help him in his pastoral and missionary work. Could Pirkko become that partner? She didn’t feel worthy or gifted in the appropriate ways yet she longed to be more than a friend to him.
When Antti came to Thunder Bay to serve as a temporary pastor, she borrowed her brother’s car to give him a tour of the area and take him home to meet her family. Yet the nature of their relationship remained “up in the air.” Even after they declared their love for each other, she still wasn’t sure God was leading them to marry.
Pirkko tended to be unsure and impulsive. Sometimes these traits worked in her favour; sometimes they didn’t. Antti was a more confident and phlegmatic person.
How did these two find a road to the altar? What challenges did they face along the way? If you read the book, you’ll find out. It’s 243 pages, available from Amazon as a paperback and e-book.
The Mennonites I grew up with and the Finlanders Pirkko describes both have distinctive food traditions. My parents were Dutch-German Mennonites immigrants from Russia to Saskatchewan. I grew up eating cabbage borscht, pluma moos (plum soup), sausages, and vereniki (like pierogies). As a teenager, Pirkko worked in a Thunder Bay, Ontario restaurant that served beef stew, kalakeitto (lake-trout stew), and Finnish pancakes. She ate rye bread at her grandmother’s house in Finland, and pulla (sweet bread) in many Finnish and Finnish Canadian households.
Pirkko and I both grew up in faith communities that valued Bible study, prayer, God’s guidance, missionary work, and high standards of Christian conduct. Many Mennonites I grew up with frowned on dancing, smoking, drinking, and going to movies. Pirkko’s experiences in her Finnish community were similar in this regard.
Her connection with seminarian Antti began when a church friend asked her to write to him because he wanted to improve his English by corresponding with someone in that language. Through their correspondence, they gradually become what she calls “soulmate friends.” Was there a romantic connection between them? Her doubts regarding the potential future of their relationship precipitated much of the conflict in their story. For example, he wanted to become a missionary in Ecuador. She wanted to stay in Canada. That wouldn’t matter much if they weren’t a couple. If they were, it would matter a lot.
Antti dreamed of a “partner called by God”—a wife who would help him in his pastoral and missionary work. Could Pirkko become that partner? She didn’t feel worthy or gifted in the appropriate ways yet she longed to be more than a friend to him.
When Antti came to Thunder Bay to serve as a temporary pastor, she borrowed her brother’s car to give him a tour of the area and take him home to meet her family. Yet the nature of their relationship remained “up in the air.” Even after they declared their love for each other, she still wasn’t sure God was leading them to marry.
Pirkko tended to be unsure and impulsive. Sometimes these traits worked in her favour; sometimes they didn’t. Antti was a more confident and phlegmatic person.
How did these two find a road to the altar? What challenges did they face along the way? If you read the book, you’ll find out. It’s 243 pages, available from Amazon as a paperback and e-book.
April 9, 2024
This is a wonderful story of Gods blessings upon those who wait. Pirkko didn’t run ahead of the Lord. She tells her love story through the letters written between she and her husband. This relationship started as pen pals with some education involved and blossomed in time to a true romance that was covered in many prayers. Thanks for sharing your story.
March 15, 2024
An enchantingly enlightening and immensely inspirational true-life story of a pure, unadulterated love relationship in life's ups and downs, assured with god-fearing dedication and fulfilment!
September 21, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Pirrko and Antti’s unusual love story! This is a page turner that keeps you interested in their penpal relationship from the time they started corresponding until they met, and then follows their long distance dating relationship through their unlikely, but nonetheless true marriage. This book melds the history of two people with a common heritage and shared devotion to God, and explores how Antti and Pirkko built a relationship based on trust, purity, and love. I highly recommend buying and reading it!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews