April 2020 Prayer Requests

Dear Friends of Estonia!

I hope that in spite of these difficult times our countries are experiencing right now, you are still full of hope and feel the presence of the Lord, who promised to never leave us nor forsake us!

We pray that the Lord would have mercy and stop the spread of the virus all over the world.

We pray that people would turn to the Lord during this time and find grace, salvation, and hope in Him.

Because of the restrictions here in Estonia, we are not able to meet for worship or have any form of gatherings. But several of our churches are having online services, so we ask for your continued prayers that these would be a blessing and reach people where they are.

Our pastors need to be creative about doing ministry in this new situation, and many are using different internet platforms to do small groups, prayer meetings, and Bible studies. Also, they make phone calls to those who don’t have internet. We pray that we could be witnesses in new ways as the Lord leads us.

Please pray for our island of Saaremaa, which has been hit the hardest.  The island is closed off, and there are many cases there.

May the Lord bless and keep you all safe this difficult time!

Pastor Robert along with Pastor Aleksandr Fjodorov and worship leader Andrei Davõdov we were invited to the national tv station ETV+ to record a 30-minute short service in the Russian language. It will air on the 5th of April at 7.30.

These are definitely hard times we are presently living in. We will be praying for all those affected by this terrible virus directly or indirectly around the world.

Please be in prayer for the seminary to be able to complete its work in this strange new world. Presently we are doing work remotely. We are exploring and inventing new ways to teach classes via various technologies while still attempting to maintain educational quality and a spiritual atmosphere.

Also, and even more importantly, for students, faculty, and staff who are dealing with lives disrupted due to being holed up with limited movement, adapting to educating their children at home, stress related to job security and future finances, and also concerns about themselves or those close to them catching the virus.

In some ways, due to the global nature of this pandemic, most of your prayer requests and our prayer requests are similar. Containment, healing, comfort, wisdom, economy, and God’s glory. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

Read and Signup for the BMTS Prayercain 

Hard times give birth to strong people. Strong people create good times. Christ is our hope. We will pray for a speedy normalization of the situation, both in our countries and around the world. Due to the virus, we canceled all scheduled events.

However, this is a good time for the young generation to go online, we organized online services, online worship evenings, and even now we are recording the play on Good Friday.

Bless us in prayer for the wisdom of God, so that we can use the situation as efficiently as possible for the Kingdom of God.

Bless us with the love of God, so that we will recognize the needing brothers and sisters from the church and provide them with support and care.

We are also having hard times, but praise God everything is possible with His guidance and wisdom. My family is well, we are living outside, and we are very thankful to God for this beautiful Spring and His presence.

I hope you are all having peace, God’s presence, and good health.

Estonian Language Youth

This time has been a  great challenge for our Youth Board.
Altogether we are continuing the work consulting, encouraging, delighting in over online, giving challenges, and praying for each other.

During the coronavirus, the Youth Board has organized two youth events online.  They would like to have them every day. We are trying to do our best!

Let’s pray for these youth who don’t have an individual’s learning ability.

Let’s pray that youth and also youth board can see all these opportunities on how to reach each other and how to spread the Gospel.

UMC Räpina Congregation

Every need in the world is an OPEN DOOR to share God’s love. That’s why, as a church family, we’re responding to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis, not by panicking or hiding out of fear, but by serving the people who are most vulnerable.

We are in stronger cooperation with the local Government.

My husband and I are calling and visiting old church members once a week.

Less than half of our congregation don’t have internet, so I am sending written sermons and materials by post.

Let’s pray for wisdom and guidance, God’s protection, and life over Räpina and over the world.

We are grateful to God that, during this difficult situation, we still have the opportunity to help and serve the children from our Children’s Center and their families. The Lighthouse is closed for children now, but we help them with their homework by telephone and messenger and also provide food and take it to their homes.

Please pray for us and workers that God would protect us as we take food to their homes and that He would bless and protect the kids. For many children, it is difficult to study at their homes, especially for those who don’t have parents who are able to support them.

We wish you God’s blessings and protection!

For three weeks now, we have had services online. Please pray for these broadcasts. It is a totally new thing at our church and we pray that God will touch people at their homes through this. Please pray for people in our congregation who have lost their jobs and for elderly people and anyone who may feel alone.

Also, please pray for the financial situation of the church. Since the services are online, it is not possible to donate at church and people are not used to donating through the internet.

Pray for our people and country, that this pandemic does not cause too many problems and people will be healed, and also pray for people who have lost their jobs. Pray for mental problems during the crisis, pray that people start to search God in this situation.

We have been Facebook live last two Sundays and kids are out of school since the 12th of March. Estonia has been good in its online educational structures, so the learning is continuous, even the music, art, physical exercises.

Kaupo is available from Tuesday to Friday in Church for personal prayer, counseling, and communion.

We just started women and men morning prayers and everyone was so excited, but already the second time we moved to online to zoom environment. But it works well!

Võru foodbanc (Foodbank) is one of 5 foodbancs that is still working, we are limiting personal contact, and continue the ministry. It is obvious that the need for food could grow next months. Several of our volunteers are retired people, who are in a high-risk group, so we try to keep them 🙂

Superintendent Robert has taken a great lead in front of the church and asked the full church for fasting and prayer March 25th-31st.

I am still working in place, as we are counted 24h care centers, after some days I need to announce new limitations to our children, but praise God they have been very good. We all learn new IT-capacities in several instances, psychology, teachers, etc., prefer different ways of communication. Yesterday I felt like Harriet Olson in 19th-century phone-center, taking tablets with skype to one child, another tablet with zoom to another child, with IT-specialist explaining to court secretary how to find us in skype 🙂

Praise God we are all well right now, trusting the Lord and there are new open doors to pray, witness, encourage, love, etc.-
We love you and the friendship with you is soooo special!

Pray for health and protection from this virus including emotional health during quarantine!

Pray that we would be able to adapt to teaching online, both for Livia in the public school and for me at the Seminary, that the students would be able to complete their studies as planned.

Pray for financial stability, as this virus is causing serious hardship.

I believe that God can use this crisis to shake the world for His glory. Pray that His people would respond accordingly.

At this time I am just grateful that by God’s grace I can be at home (and not stranded in my travels somewhere where I could not get back home). I and my family are doing well. So, I would not add any additional prayer requests but invite everyone to pray for the vulnerable people wherever they are, and for the end of this crisis.

Present time has changed a lot in our way of life. Thank you all for your prayers! My mission trip to Ethiopia was canceled, which first was hard to accept and yet I saw I can only trust God in the midst of it. The cancel of my trip has given me more time to spend it on my studies! I still haven´t heard anything from the flight company, so this is my prayer to have it solved regarding the tickets and let’s keep in our prayers Lufthansa, the flight company, as they are busy with interacting with their clients. As half of our team managed to go to Ethiopia a week earlier, the project was started and fulfilled by them. Let´s pray for the students in Sodo, Ethiopia that they might learn and get the best out of it.

I am working from home and this has been smooth, my student has got used to the new rhythm as well.

My biggest praise in this time is for my church members. We haven´t had our services for three Sundays so we started to call our members at least once a week to ask how they are doing. This has brought us closer and members have started to call to each other more often, praying with each other and sharing the words of encouragement. Praise God they are all well and may God keep us protected!

I am thankful to God, I am doing well physically and have not found any virus or sickness.

I am thankful to God, we can reach out from church by the technology now. The congregation, we are communicating, is much bigger actually now and the Gospel goes for many more people.

Please pray for Külli Pilv and her family. They have been sick in the last weeks and have not tested for the COVID-19 virus, because it is not possible to get tested. The whole family is giving updates that their health is improving. Please pray for them to recover fully and everything will be fine.

Please pray for the wisdom to the worship leaders and pastors for the coming Easter. It will be an extra difficult time to preach about the great joy at the time when most of the world is dealing with pain and grief.