November 2019 Prayer Requests

Dear friends,
Thank you for your prayers.

We thank God for a great pastors’ meeting (Nov 11-12).  We had a very meaningful time in the presence of the Lord, worshipping, learning and supporting each other. We are thankful to God for our congregations in Tartu and Kohtla Järve, who celebrated their anniversaries in November. Tartu celebrated its 96th anniversary and Kohtla Järve celebrated 25 years of ministry.

Kohtla Järve celebrates 25 years.

Over fall break, we had two youth camps, one for Russian-speaking youth and the other for Estonian-speaking youth.  Both groups had a wonderful experience.

We are so grateful for your friendship and faithful prayers for Estonia and we wish you a blessed Thanksgiving.

We praise God that we are on the verge of being able to publish Ken Collin’s book: The Scripture Way of Salvation: The Heart of John Wesley’s Theology into Estonian for the first time. It has been something we have desired to do for many years and we are thankful for the hard work of many who helped to bring this to fruition. It will be a useful tool for our students and the Estonian Church. We are also thankful that we were able to announce this pending publication with Collins himself when he taught at our school earlier this month.

We ask for continued prayers for our finances. We have been blessed this year to be able to host the 25th-anniversary celebration and upgrade our translation equipment, however, our finances are tight as we enter the fourth quarter of 2019. Pray for God to move our old friends and new partners to give. The Seminary staff will also be taking part in a three-day seminar on fundraising next week. We pray this gives us new ideas to implement.

We are thankful for all our students and ask for continued prayers for their studies and that they may have continued ministerial opportunities to put their new learning into practice.

Editor’s Note: You can give now. Details can be found on the Seminary Website.

On November 3, a youth team will travel to the city of Kunda to conduct an evangelistic event for children and adolescents, pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit and for newly changed destinies.

On November 9, we spend a day of community service in the church, pray for good weather for this day and the union of hearts through common labor.
On November 16th there will be an evening of worship, pray that God would bless us with His presence so that people would have a personal meeting with God.

We are thankful to God –

God carried us through youth camp with abundant blessings.  We had warm and amazing cooperation with Russian youth leaders.  The youth team did wonderful work (it was the first bigger event with this team).  We saw changed and deeply touched youth. One 14-year-old, a non-Christian boy, gave a wonderful testimony.

God touched youth in the prayer journey and prayer evening.  I felt how God was carrying me during this camp (my husband was at the hospital, I had to take care of my 4- year old niece and 7-year-old nephew at the camp).

Estonian Language Youth Camp Fall 2019

Prayer requests:

• Youth team continuing cooperation
• Winter camp preparation
• At the moment our youth are the son and daughters of EMC pastors and leaders, that God may grow them deeper.  These youth are new generations of leaders in EMC.  We need God’s wisdom about how to grow and lead these youth leaders.

We are thankful for 6 new children at the Children’s Center, who came this autumn. One boy came from Social House, where our church Sunday School teachers are doing Bible lessons for children. This boy is also attending our church Sunday School class with his mother and we figured out that as children some of our church members were this mother’s neighbor and played together often!

The mother grew up in a family of alcoholics and her life has been full of difficulties. She has now started attending our church services. Please pray that her whole family will give their life to Jesus and that God can help to solve their problems.

One girl’s mother will be released from prison soon, but the girl doesn’t want to live with her. Let’s pray for God’s wisdom for her to choose – either go live with her mother or stay in an orphanage.

Some children have very serious problems with learning at school and some of the bigger guys are starting to make friends with gangs that use alcohol, smoke, and drugs. We hope God will help them make the right choices in their lives.

Editor’s Note: There are video slide-shows of Summer camp and Asbury UMC’s visit on the lighthouse center’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ChildrenCenterLighthouse/

• Pray for unity in our church and congregation.
• Pray for our pastor, he needs somebody as a helper, pray for finding the right person and also for finances to pay salary to that person.
• Pray for our youth work and leaders. Especially for a young woman, who has severe health problems.
•  Pray for all small group activities in our congregation, and for every person’s growth in faith.

Praise God for the month of October!

We had wonderful South-Estonian Bible school day with RÄpina, Viitka, Ruusmäe and Tartu people to study why we are Methodists day before Võru 25th Anniversary – which was a great celebration with about 90 people, lots of music, fellowship, and food – praise God that He has to lead the way.

On the same night, the first youth meeting took place with new leadership and several new teenagers – praise God!

We decided to do again the fund-raising event in church with new leadership – and praise God Jesus was with us and many people came to thank us and say that they loved to come back to church.

We were praying the funding for Võru Foodbank and praise God some doors gave, so we can hopefully continue (more doors are opening for ministry, but funding was needed)

Prayer Needs: Starting an Alpha course next month, continuing with teaching.

Koit and Viive Kask who presented the Võru church building 26 years ago.

Praise God! He is good! October has taken a lot of my energy, fortunately, we have an annual autumn break in our educational system at the end of October, so I had a good time of rest! At the end of the break, we had  Methodist Church youth camp (24th-27th Oct), which was very uplifting as well as fulfilling. God was present and touched the lives of young people through healing and through his word. and May God bless our new youth work team led by pastor Ele Paju!

You can pray for:

• the renovation of our church floor
• my studies as I am about to start writing my thesis
• my student, that I may have patience and love for him

Pray for Mark teaching on the Problem of Evil at a congregation organized Bible study program run by one of our graduates on November 4th. People from many different congregations and denominations attend so pray that this event would be blessed.

Pray for the Bible study day Mark & Livia will be leading November 23rd for Rakvere, Tapa and Sakusaare congregations. Pray for God’s leading and wisdom as we teach.

Pray for Livia’s work in the new school where she teaches. Pray that the relationships within the staff would be positive and that God’s light would be visible.