June 2019 Prayer Requests

We are so thankful to God for the wonderful time at the Friends of Estonia meeting! It was great to see our friends and partners, share about the ministry in Estonia, and to be prayed for. We are so blessed to have such friends!

We had a blessed 25-year celebration of the Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary. It was great to be together with the Seminary founders, Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, students, graduates and celebrate this miracle! Praise God four the Seminary!

Please pray for the upcoming Annual conference that starts on June 14. Please pray that it would be a time of encouragement, sharing the vision for the church, and making wise decisions for the future of our church.

Please pray for the different summer camps that are starting the second part of June. Pray for those who organize and those who participate, that the Lord could touch every camper in a special way.

Also please pray for the construction projects that different churches and the camp will be doing over the summer. There will be work done on the church buildings in Rapina and Kohtla-Jarve, renovations at the camp Gideon. Please pray for the success of those projects.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers!

We praise God that BMTS 25 was a very wonderful event with many alumni and friends gathering from near and far. There were around 150 people attending. Seminary founders Wes and Joy Griffin were especially honored. Also, Mary Ann Smith and Tom Harrison from Tulsa received special recognition for their outstanding work on behalf of BMTS.

(Wes Griffin, Olav Pärnaments, Joy Griffin and Urve Pärnaments)

We are grateful that we now have a BMTS alumni organization and Leadership team.

We are grateful for renewed partnerships and friendships, especially with World Methodist Evangelism and with Asbury Theological Seminary (ATS). We renewed a New and more involved Memorandum Of Understanding with ATS.

Pray for students who are finishing up their studies and are graduating this year and for new students next fall.

Pray for rest for our workers, our year has been intense but also blessed.

Meeli and Üllas Tankler

Praise the Lord: in these days we with Meeli actually received the fresh copies of our book  (Handbook on Preaching) from the printing house. The official presentation took place during the festivities of the Seminary’s 25th anniversary. An enormous amount of work is behind us, and we are so happy to see and hear that different denominations in Estonia are interested in it.

My 60th birthday is approaching these days, and the way to celebrate it is a special worship service in our AGAPE church. I am so thankful for the incredible grace of God in my life, and also I ask you to pray for this upcoming service on June 9th, which I wish to be special and meaningful for many.

Also, our daughter Liina had serious surgery, and many people prayed – we are thankful that it went very well. It will still have another follow-up surgery later in a few months, so she needs continued prayers.

Pray for Family Day in our church on 1st of June, that a lot of non-Christian families will come and participate in this event and God shall touch them. Pray for the team also.

Pray for summer activities, as a family camp, St Johns day meeting, youth and children’s work season finishing events. Pray for all work team leaders, that they are moving in Spirit and will be blessed and be a blessing for others.

Pray also, that people will come to services even on summertime and every congregation member will continue to grow in faith.

I am thankful to God; I had a nice time with my family a week ago. One of my brothers turned 50, and they made a celebration with his son, who had his 28th birthday at the same time. I am thankful to God, we still keep some communication, even they are not Christians, and I am the youngest son in our family – the only one who has found Jesus as my Savior. After we have gotten very much apart with my brothers, we can still have good times together.

I am also thankful for all your prayers about my studies in the past years. I can share with you happy news. Finally – all of my hard work is done in the BMTS. There is only one more work to do – defense of my diploma paper on June 6th. It has been a big journey for me, and it has taken a lot. In two weeks it will be time to celebrate! Praise to Lord!

I am thankful to God because we have had such a wonderful person in our church – Nelli. She helped everybody and gave so much love to people. In these days we have made an agreement, she will retire and leave the hard work for someone younger. I have prayed, and I have talked to people about these things. There is a new person starting at the beginning of June and Nelli is ready to give some tips to her until the end of this year. Please also pray that all the changes will go easily and without any bigger issues.

Please pray for the Estonian Methodists Annual Conference in Agape church on June 14th to 16th. It is a big meeting with many people from different places. Please pray that all the preparations will go smooth and the team will work together in Agape church. Please pray for the conference, that may give a Glory to God and let people get inspired in these days.

On June 9 a church will take a picnic, at which young people are responsible for organizing this event. Pray for the weather at a picnic and for church members to get even closer together.

Pray, please, active preparations for summer camps are taking place throughout June. Also, in preparation for the camps, young people will make two trips to the Gideon Camp, where they will conduct on-site preparatory work related to the camps.

Pray for students who will take exams or defend graduate theses.

We are thankful to God for an amazing youth camp at the end of April, where about 50 people attended. The topic of the camp was Love, and we shared about God’s love and also what does it mean to us as Christians. Young people were touched and enjoyed this time together. We are thankful that God has entrusted us with them and pray that He would keep working in them.

I myself am struggling with health somewhat and have had to take some time off to recover. In addition, there are some faithful helpers who are getting tired as they haven’t had much rest due to a lot happening in their personal lives. This means that we have fewer people to help out with our summer camp – pray that if it’s God’s will, it would still take place and be a place where young people can learn more about God and encounter him as we see that they are so thirsty for Him.

We also have two young people whose family is going through a tough time and we can see that it influences these wonderful young people – pray that God would bring solutions and the help they need and that the devil wouldn’t be able to use this situation to destroy them.

Thank you so much for standing with us!

On June 6th the Baltic Seminary 3rd year students defend their Theses.
Pray for God’s strength to enable them to finish well. Pray especially that the graduates will be led by God and blessed to apply what they have learned with us in ministry.

For several months Livia has been praying about possibly changing schools where she teaches English. The situation is extremely difficult, but now a final decision has to be made in the coming weeks.
Pray that God’s guidance would be clearly felt.

Livia’s family is visiting us last part of June and the first part of July. Pray that our time together will be refreshing to us (and to them as well) after a very long and challenging year.

Pray that God will keep the sun shining and the rain clouds away on these final three working-Saturdays, so we can complete the preparations for the official opening of Camp Gideon on June 17th!

Pray for continued funding for the children’s rooms which so badly need to be repaired. Also for the completion of the rooms in the Gideon Hotel.

Pray for the volunteers whom God is bringing to serve in Camp Gideon as kitchen & cleaning staff and as team leaders & room leaders. We always pray that the right people would be placed here, and that God would create an atmosphere of unity and joyful community between all of the Gideon volunteers.

Pray for the children and youth who will be coming to Camp Gideon in less than 3 weeks! Camp season will be here before you know it.

Pray for our Camp Director, Pastor Artur, and his family as we enter into this camp season. It will be a busy but joyful summer, as they prepare for the marriage of their youngest son, Kristjan, in early July!