December 2021 Prayer Requests

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your prayers throughout this year. We are so grateful for your faithful friendship to Estonia.  As we prepare our hearts this Advent season, we pray that God’s peace and joy would fill your hearts. We wish you a blessed Advent and Christmas!

Please pray for this Christmas season, that the Lord would work in a special way in our Christmas services and outreach programs.  In Estonia, many people who don’t usually attend church come to church on Christmas Eve, so we pray that they would experience the warmth and welcome of the congregation and the love of Jesus, our Emmanuel. We will have Christmas outreach programs in our churches, but also in some other places like schools. One of these special events will happen in Paldiski, where a new pastor is serving and the mayor gave permission to hold a children’s Christmas party in the community center. Please pray that wherever the message will be preached, people would learn about the true meaning of Christmas and God’s love.

UMC Youth work
We are thankful to God for the possibilities, blessings, and challenges we have had this year and which have led us closer to God.

The mighty hand of God has been over the methodist youth and has led us through the whole year.

We had a special celebration for youth leaders in UMC Paide to thank them for the input and shared info about different youth ministries, their challenges, and joys. We prayed for each other, encouraged and felt the blessing of having each other side by side. Let us pray that the unity may grow!

We are going to have a youth camp at the end of the year (from the 30th of Dec to the 2nd of Jan). We need your prayers! Let us pray for the organizational part, for the team, and for the youth. We desire to experience the life-changing presence of God and see changed youth.

UMC Räpina
Let us continue to pray for the small group work and for new leaders.

May God bring forward the new leader of our church building project.

We are thankful for all the prayers as our son Benjamin is recovering from the operation and his overall wellbeing is getting better. God has been with our family in mighty ways!

I am grateful for God’s grace in my personal and professional life. It has been a blessing to be challenged to do various lectures and seminars – both in-person in Estonia as well as online. These events have given me new opportunities to learn more and dig deeper into different areas and topics.

Please pray for the next speaking engagements I have in December.

Please pray for new missionaries we are about to send to Europe. Many practical details, especially related to visas and work permits, need a solution.

Thank you for your fellowship in prayer. Have a blessed Advent season!

Pray for unity both in church and in society!

Pray for Christmas time, that people who are coming to church will meet Jesus! Pray for this whole season will be a time of thinking more for eternal things.

Pray for the little newborn baby girl, who is in hospital, she has water in her lungs and she is not able to intake oxygen properly.

Greetings from Children Center Lighthouse!

We thank God that the children successfully completed the first trimester of school. We pray for the approaching Christmas. For many children, Christmas is associated with receiving gifts, but it is also a good time to tell them about the Gospel and the true meaning of Christmas. Although we are not having a big Christmas party with our guests this year, as we did before the coronavirus crisis, we are still celebrating with the kids and the staff. We wish for all the children to experience the love of Jesus through gifts, songs, and the Christmas story.

Due to the increase in gas and electricity prices in Estonia, the bills of the children’s center have grown very strongly in the last month. As the children’s center has the gas heating system installed, last month’s bill was 3 times higher than before. We ask God to help in a situation where the children’s center’s utility bills have exceeded all expectations so that we can continue to provide service in the existing place.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and wish you peace and joy in Christ.

On December 25, we plan to hold a divine service for children, pray for the possibility of holding an event and for the touch of the Spirit of Christ to the hearts of children and their parents.

On Saturdays we hold a ministry for teenagers, support us in prayer so that teenagers can accept Christ as their Savior.

Lívia and I are developing an Advent Bible study series that is being distributed to all Estonian Methodist congregations. Pray that we will have time, strength, and most importantly, the Spirit’s leading, that this would be a blessing to the members of the congregations.

Pray for strength and wisdom for Mark with all he needs to do to catch up on grading and regular Seminary administration after a busy semester.

Pray for Lívia as recently quite a few co-workers have been coming to her with their burdens and struggles. Pray that God would give Lívia wisdom and strength to help and guide them towards the One who can really help.

The wife of a BMTS graduate, Simon, has died suddenly. He is Ghanaian and graduated in 2020. After 4 years here alone, his wife and two kids had just received visas to join him in Estonia. Please pray for Simon and his kids, both for the grieving process but also for their plans for the future.

Mark and Livia share more frequent prayer requests in their own newsletter. Sign up Here.

I thank the Lord for so many of you praying for me and for Agape church in Pärnu. It is a very important and big support for me. It is a great blessing from God, I am so thankful for it.

I am thankful for open churches in the pandemic situations in Estonia. It´s been a hard time for pastors and leaders in the churches. Thankfully things have been going well and churches are open.

I am thankful for some new beginnings in Agape church. There are some new groups that started in the last couple of months. Thank the Lord for these beginnings. These things also need prayers for the future. I hope there will be more groups in the congregation and people can communicate with each other on personal levels more often.

Please pray for Christians in the churches can share the real meaning of coming Christmas. It also means everyone could find out something to leave behind and let it go for giving their time for Jesus Christ.