February 2020 Prayer Requests

Dear Friends of Estonia!

We praise God for a good and productive meeting with our Sunday School teachers on January 18. We hope and pray that this fellowship and cooperation will spark enthusiasm for children’s ministry in Estonia.

In the month of January, I’ve done two charge conferences, one in Reekula and one in Narva. Although those congregations are small, I’m grateful to the Lord that they are active in working with children and youth, and that they have the potential for growth.

Please pray as I continue to travel to different congregations for charge conferences, that God would bless me as I serve and travel.

Also, we ask for your prayers as we have started praying and vision-casting about starting a new church. The main prayer requests now are for the Lord’s wisdom and guidance and that He would help us find the right team for this.

On a personal note, please continue to pray for the healing of my shoulder and that the pain would not disrupt my sleep.

During January, I thought that I hadn’t personally met the “Friends of Estonia” team, but in our ministry, we clearly see the fruits of your prayers, we feel the presence of your prayers, many thanks to the whole team for their spiritual support.  I hope there will be an opportunity in the future to thank each of you personally. This photo from the winter camp.

At the end of January, our youth was in a winter camp in a place called Nuutsaku, although this year there is no snow, this did not affect our mood in the camp.

About 35 people were able to get to know Jesus Christ as a best friend. It was a great time when we prayed for each other, studied the Bible together, and fellowship with brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

In February, we plan to visit the teenagers from the city of Kundа twice, the trips are scheduled for February 8 and 15, the purpose of these trips is to strengthen friendly relations with children who still need to know the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We pray to God that each of them accepts Jesus as a personal savior.

From February 23 to 27, we will have a city teenager’s camp, at which time the church is filled with 40 active teenagers from 11 to 14 years old for several days.  This is a great time to evangelize and to demonstrate the love of God, bless us to show the love of God without distortion.

BMTS began a new semester on January 8^th. We were greatly encouraged by several students sharing at the end of the last session how much the seminary has been a blessing to them personally. Pray for students to continue to benefit from their studies and grow both spiritually and academically as we begin the second half of the school year!

March 5-8 Methodist-Related Theological Schools in Europe with Asbury Theological Seminary and Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary will offer a Church Planting Conference in Tallinn at the Baltic Mission Center. There will be instruction from both an Asbury professor as well as a member of our institution. It will focus on the importance of discipleship. Pray for God to move church leaders and students to attend and that it may be a time of growth.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement! Be sure to signup for and read our Prayerchain for more details.

In the first hours of this year’s youth camp we read the Bible all together:  “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.“  We believe God is doing new things!

I was sitting there surrounded with awesome youth and admiring this community, their courage, desire, craziness, energy and deep dedication to God.

I am so, so thankful for supportive coworkers, Jana and Priit Tamm. God has raised the fire up in dedicated church workers in Tallinn and Tartu, so the work there is growing. May God raise up new youth workers. We are planning youth workers training, so let’s pray for that!

UMC Räpina
We made use of the money we got from the Country and got building materials. Check it out!

Thank God for dedicated church members, who had a readiness to help.

Let’s pray for the family, whose 5 children were taken to the orphanage last year.  8 months later some of the kids are back home, their mother had another baby this January, and she needs wisdom, support and help to raise them.

Other things to be in prayer for:

• Starting up of children’s’ and youth work/ministry.
• Let’s pray for negotiations with the buyers of our existing church building.
• Renovation of the new building and finding the remaining funds we need.
• Bringing in evangelical and missional mindset.

Thank you for your prayers!

We are thankful, that Social Services Department is ready also this year to support us. It is only a portion of our financial needs, but this is a great help for us. It is always a need for prayer because there is no guarantee that the money will be given to us every year.

We are praying for an 11-year-girl, whose mother went on rehab for 5 months and she’s at home with a stepfather who has alcohol problems and she is often at home alone.

The Tallinn congregation’s young people led a silk painting workshop and there are pictures of this on our Facebook page.

Pray for the evening we say thanks for our leaders on the 1st of February. That all of them shall be uplifted.

Pray for all different work teams in church, that they´ll do God’s will and all of them will be guided by Holy Spirit.

Thank you for your prayers, I can talk and sing again! 🙂

Pray for our small groups, especially for group leaders, that they could understand God’s Word and grow spiritually.

I praise God for the overall sense of peace in the midst of all the tasks and responsibilities I have had. I really feel that  I can breathe and there isn´t any burden upon me. It is such a blessing.

In the church, everything has been stable. I am thankful for our congregation´s eagerness to pray for different people around them, mostly for their healing. God´s presence has been felt while praying.

Please join me in prayer for:

• the health of the members
• wisdom and motivation for me to write my diploma paper in addition to other assignments
• wisdom to share myself, my time, my strength between my life and work in Tallinn and the church in Paide.

Praise God for the Bible Study Day program we are running for the Tapa, Rakvere, and Sakussaare congregations. 46 people attended the last one which is a huge number for Estonia!

Pray that the participants would continue to grow closer to God in their daily life and experience the transformation He wants to bring.

Pray that God would help us find the balance between ministry and rest to allow us to be most effective for His Kingdom.

At this time I am grateful for a calm Christmas time behind me, and a short vacation in January.

As for my work, there is a great concern because due to the diminishing funding we are losing staff at Global Ministries. My assistant was just now made redundant. Please pray for her as she is grieving – she has been passionately and competently working to support mission with our European partners. Now she is jobless. Please pray for my Europe office – I have lost a knowledgeable coworker and don’t have staff support that I need to do my work.

January has been a very busy month, both at work and in church, the year started at youth-camp. We praise God that under the leadership of Ele Paju new things have started in youth ministry!

Also, the food-banc ministry has exploded, as some laws changed and the amount of food that is given from stores has almost tripled. That means that new volunteers are needed to gather food daily from stores, workers need to come to take food also in the evenings, but finances have not grown.

There was a team-training day in Viitka and Üllas and Meeli Tankler were teaching. January 18-19 was Aldersgate training about Spiritual gifts and ministering at Tallinn Church

Prayers for February:

• Praise God for 100 years of Tartu peace and celebrating 100 years of Estonia
• Võru Food banc – organization of work and volunteers
• Youth ministry planning and developing in Võru county
• Feb. 9th – Aldersgate ministry in Tartu Prison
• Ministry in Tilsi – services (on very first service one person rededicated her life to Jesus)
• Starting Men´s and Women prayer-breakfasts in Võru
• Feb. 29th Külli and Doug Childress teaching-day about Christ-centeredness