April 2019 Prayer Requests

Thank you for your faithful prayers!

We praise God for a fruitful time of study and fellowship with our pastors and lay people on March 15-16.

We also praise God for a special youth service with youth from all over Estonia that took place on March 23.

We would like to ask for your prayers as I continue to travel with Urmas Sassian, the chairman of the Conference Council, to the charge conferences for each of our Methodist congregations in Estonia.  We pray that God would bless this time with each congregation and that He would give us the wisdom and grace to lead and encourage these pastors, ministry teams and congregations.

There is a Spring Break Youth Camp coming up at the end of April (April 25-28).  We pray that God would touch the youth who come in a special way and speak into their lives.

With Easter coming soon, we pray that the Spirit would draw people to church for the holiday who may not usually come to church.  And that our pastors and congregations would be ready to welcome them and preach the Gospel.

Külli is learning to play the violin! Read more in the BMTS Prayerchain newsletter

Praises:

Praise God Kaupo is in the moment in Barbados and all team has experienced the mighty outpouring of Holy Spirit, several healings and the words of knowledge.

Special visit to England with Johannes – and he had a special encounter with God for the first time

Praise God my new work in children’s home has been very blessed and the Lord has given several good times both with children and colleges.

Prayers:

After the national election the conservative parties have received many voices and are now in process to form a coalition, but it has been worst time, a lot of anger, accusation, nasty words have followed it – please pray peace and unity to Estonian society and that the working parliament + government will be established.

Please continue to pray for our children and youth ministry, that the Lord will call out new workers to this important field.

Aldersgate ministry in Tartu prison April 7th

Aldersgate ministry in Jõhvi Meth church 26-28.04

Joosep´s high school graduation

My mom´s health, she fell in January quite badly and broke her arm, that the arm will be restored

Summer Conference in August

One girl in children-home, who is very broken and suicidal, that she will become free.

I am back from my sabbatical study leave and my first report is: praise the Lord, the sabbatical time indeed was MOST fruitful! I (together with Meeli) have completed the handbook on preaching (the last time anything like this was printed in the Estonian language in Estonian Methodism, was 1914!!!) Also, other denominations have not come up with anything comprehensive in recent times – so it is most needed in our country. It is just about ready to go to print and will be published by the 25th anniversary of our Seminary. Huge work is behind us.

The prayer concern in relation to this: I have tried to raise funds for all the publishing expense, and while I have had some success, the needs are still not fully met.

Another reason to thank God is that I am very well connected with my colleagues and constituency.

Blessings, and many thanks for your prayers.

Pray for our youth Alpha course, that every participant and crew also continue growing in Gods will. Pray for our kids and young people, that they are close to God every day.

Pray for our pastor’s family, especially for kids health.

On the 14th of April, we will have a Youth service together with the Estonian community of our church, join us in prayers for the two communities to become closer.

During the period from 17th until the 19th of April we will organize fasting together with all our church, please pray for the younger generations to join us in this to grow and strengthen spiritually.

There is also an event on the 27th of April for teenagers in celebration of Easter, please join us in prayer for these teens and children, for the Holy Spirit to become their best Friend.

Praise God for a positive and constructive attitude among our pastors during the recent pastor’s training weekend. Praise God for positive steps that are being taken to practically help with their work in their congregations. One of these is a collection of articles to help pastors understand the Biblical teaching and pastoral implications of current issues. Pray for the team (of which I am a part) given the task of writing these articles!

Pray for Livia as she makes decisions concerning where God wants her to serve in the next school year. Pray that God would guide and open the doors for where He is leading.

Pray for the Seminary as we prepare for our 25th-anniversary celebration in May. As a new secretary started this week we have a huge challenge to prepare for what can be a very significant event. Pray for God’s blessing, for His strength and unity within our team.

Please pray with me for my work out of the church. I am not feeling well for working different shifts over the weeks. The change of time is not so good for me and I am looking for some other job. I have also found one and I made my first interview there. Please pray that God may open the doors for me and close others, I do not have to enter. I would like to do things what He would like me to do!

Please pray for the coming spring season in Estonia. I will have hard times doing everything that I am looking at. I have a lot of work to do around the home too, after the winter. I still need prayers for very strong time planning in the coming weeks.

Please pray for my studies in BMTS, when I have 2 more classes to pass. Everything will be wrapped together in the first week of May. I need to push hard on my thesis before that time. Basically, I have to finish half of the work in 3 next weeks. Thankfully I have gotten all the information I needed. It all depends on how much time I can commit and stay focused on it.

We praise God because the seminary received accreditation for the next three years. We also ask for the Estonian Methodist Church that Easter may be a blessed season where people are able to focus on Christ’s resurrection and what it means for them personally and as a church.

I had a great blessing of my own that I was able to travel to Israel and tour the Holy land with my oldest son. I am very thankful for this personal blessing.

We are praising God for what He is doing in our youth work – We’ve had two youth evenings with young people from different Methodist congregations all over Estonia and it’s been a great time to connect and share our faith.

We also had a youth leaders’ training at the beginning of March where we had about 15 active young people taking part. They are eager to learn to work towards supporting their local congregations and we pray God will lead them step-by-step.

We ask prayers for our next big event that will take place from 25th to 28th of April, which is our annual Spring Camp. We had about 50 young people and organizers in our last camp and we’re very excited about this one. We are going to talk about God’s love and what does it mean to us as Christians in our lives. Pray that God would touch young people, move in them and draw them deeper in Him. Also, pray that everything will go smoothly and the last details will be taken care of.