January 2020 Prayer Requests

Dear Friends of Estonia!

Happy New Year to you! Hope this year will be blessed and full for all of you!

Thank you for your faithful prayers for the Methodist Church in Estonia and its different ministries! We are thankful to God for you! Please pray for all those people who came to our churches over the Christmas time for different services and special events and heard the Gospel. Please pray that the Spirit of the Lord would continue to work in their hearts and that they would come to Christ and find a church to be part of.

Please pray for an upcoming event for the Sunday School teachers on January 18, as we gather to encourage each other and think about how best work with children. We will be forming a new children’s ministry team and please pray that this process would go smoothly and we would find the right people for that. Please pray for the charge conferences that will begin in January and me, as I will be traveling a lot visiting different congregations over the next 5 months. Thank you for your prayers!

On January 17th our youth organize an evening of worship, pray that we will be blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit.

From January 24th to 26th, our young people go to a winter camp, pray for a safe journey and for young people to take root in Christ.

Youth:
An exciting year together with the Methodist youth has passed, whereas I have been given the privilege to be a part of the activities.

The UMC Estonia superintendent, Robert, longs to see the Church becoming younger – we need to start youth work where there is none and invest more in this ministry. This longing was confirmed even more when he had the opportunity to serve 40 young people from 9 different Estonian Methodist congregations during our fall and winter youth camp. Most of the congregations don’t have a youth leader. In many of them, youth work is led by dedicated youth themselves who takes leadership. Let’s pray for the youth leaders!

Our youth board had an opportunity to take part in the GLS leadership conference where we received encouragement and blessings, being together in the midst of those inspiring stories. For the first time, a group of UMC youth from all over Estonia participated in the GLS Youth.

GLS Youth

The liturgical year finished off with an exciting teamwork training for our youth board, as with the help of Jana Tamm, we mapped our cooperation with different entities. Based on that map we formulated the areas to be developed, and the strengths, concerning both our team members as well as our board.

We had a very blessed and amazing winter youth camp that took place around New Year’s Eve. We had an opportunity to spend time with Christians in a wonderful campsite where we had excellent accommodations, a professional kitchen, and there were many different possibilities to have a diverse and engaging outdoor program. They also had an exciting program throughout the camp and spiritual activities to help youth grow in faith in the living God.

Please keep us in your prayers and bless the youth. We need that! 😉

Winter Youth Camp

Räpina UMC:

We are grateful for:

On the 1^st Sunday of Advent, our family celebrated 9 years of serving the UMC Räpina congregation. We had a great privilege to baptize one child, one adult, and also to receive new members to our congregation. Thanks to God!

Advent in Räpina

Advent in Räpina

The illness my husband Tanel has had for a long time has been alleviated with the help of physiotherapists, and his working ability has recovered supernaturally to 80%.

Our son Benjamin has been very dedicated serving in the youth work of UMC Võru congregation and has been inviting his workout mates and school mates to take part in the activities.

Prayer request:

Serving from distance.
Starting up of children’s’ and youth work/ministry
Renovation of the new building and finding the needed finances
Bringing in evangelical and mission mindedness

Pray for our youth leaders and for all young people in our church, that they grow in faith and will be rooted in Christ.

Pray for our new members, that they continue growing, too and find their right place and work in the congregation.

Pray for our pastor and his wife (and children, that they will be healthy), that they are in God´s will and filled with Holy Spirit.

Pray for my health also, I´d like to have my voice back, it´s already 4 weeks some problems with my throat and voice.

I am thankful to God because He pulled me out of the job that I did not enjoy anymore. I am starting the new year totally different! My first thing is His Kingdom and I will do some other job with my remaining time.

Please pray for one member in Agape church, who has a lot of things going on right now. God´s grace and help are very much needed to fix all of the different questions. May God be gracious to that one person and to others in the church.

Please pray for Agape church and people who visit and attend worship. Pray wisdom to the leaders that can help everyone feel welcome in the church. Please pray for active members in the congregation, that they might want to be a part of Agape church, and give their best to build up God´s Kingdom in Pärnu.

Pray for the Bible Study Day Lívia & Mark will lead on January 25th for the Rakvere, Tapa, and Sakusaare congregations. Pray that it will inspire the congregations to a deeper life in His Word.

Pray that God would give us wisdom and strength in organizing and using our time in the best way to accomplish His calling without leaving us exhausted.

You can contact Mark at: mark.nelson at metodistikirik.ee (replace “at” with @)

We are thankful to God for last year, for all people, organizations, and churches who supported us! We are grateful for a wonderful summer camp with a team from Calvary UMC in Nashville, and for an activity week with a team from Asbury UMC in Oklahoma City. Not to mention the most blessed Christmas Party with gifts for lighthouse children, for our kids, and staff. God was so merciful to us!

We pray that the Social Welfare and Health Care Department can provide financial support for us again this year. They have not yet answered whether they will support us again this year. We ask to pray for all kids and that God would give wisdom and power to staff.

Thank you for keeping us in prayer.

Have a blessed New Year!

Editor’s Note: You can donate to the lighthouse directly 
MTÜ Children’s Center Observatory
Account number: EE872200221016718181 Swedbank
Or you can contact admin@friendsofestonia.org and we can help you get the funds to the lighthouse.