September 2021 Prayer Requests

Dear friends, Thank you so much for your prayers! Your prayers are a great encouragement to us! We just had our Annual Conference. We are grateful for a time of worship, prayer, discussion, and learning about the present and the future of the Methodist church in Estonia.

Please pray for all the pastors who return to their homes to serve those communities and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Please pray for a newly ordained elder and appointed pastors. May God bless their ministry.

Please pray for our pastor and former District Superintendent Olav Pärnamets who was taken to the hospital due to health issues. Please pray for his healing. Thank you for your prayers and may God bless you all!

Please pray for the seminary as we are now beginning a new semester. The new is always exciting and we are excited to begin this year.

This year, we will be experimenting with hybrid learning where some students will be in the classroom and others will be joining online. Pray that this format is better able to accommodate the needs of our students without affecting the quality of their education or their ability to be connected with one another. Pray also for teachers to be creative in trying new things in the classroom. We are so grateful for their work.

Pray especially for the new students who are beginning their studies this semester. We have 15 admitted new students and a few more have paperwork in the final stages. We pray they could follow their call to ministry.

Pandemic continues to cast a shadow over our daily lives and we pray that it lifts soon. Some of our core people have been sick.  We are praying for their complete recovery and for the protection of their family members. We now test students and workers at the beginning of every study session.

We pray for all our supporters and that all their needs would be met abundantly in Christ. And we thank God for their continued support of the seminary. There is more funding needed to finish this year successfully, please pray that our end-of-the-year fundraising will cover the seminary’s needs.

We finish the camp work this year. Everything is good. 1,000 people visited the different camps, many children open their hearts. Thank you who pray and help.

Editor’s Note: If you are on Facebook, you should be friends with Artur. You can get all types of updates on Camp Gideon and Jõhvi church. Like this one:

We renovated the next room in camp Gideon. (from September 2nd)

UMC Youth Work

• We are really grateful for every youth and dedicated coworker in local congregations
• We are very grateful for blessed summer camps and programs
• We are grateful for the possibilities of gathering and having opportunities to organize youth programs. Praise God!
• Let’s pray wisdom, healing, and God’s presence upon Youth Committee members
• Let’s pray for an awakening among the youth
• May God bless this new Season and beginning of Youth work

UMC Räpina

• We are very, very grateful for my husband’s healing. He is working again!
• Let’s pray for our desire to start a new small group in Räpina
• Our big dream – a new church building needs a financial miracle. God, You have everything!

I am grateful for the summer. Though it was quite full, I felt blessed by serving our teenagers and youth of our Methodist church. We have so many wonderful and talented young people. There are some pictures from our Summer Conference where we had a great time with our teenagers.

On the other hand, summer has had its challenges health-wise. I am recovering from Covid and praise God, the illness hasn´t been that severe.

• Pray for my full recovery and that of my family (mom, dad, and two brothers).
• Pray for Eivin´s health as well, he has suffered from fever for weeks now and it doesn´t leave.
• Pray for our youth, for their growth in faith and protection over the new school year.
• Pray for my new working season. I need God, his grace, and wisdom- I am going to work in two schools this year.

I appreciate every prayer and may God be with you all!

I am in the midst of the Institute for Multicultural Ministry in Stuttgart, Germany that I asked you to pray for in the previous letter.

It has been a wonderful experience and I am just so excited to see how richly God has blessed this training (retreat). We have multicultural leaders from all kinds of backgrounds (Scandinavian, German, Central-European, Irish, British, Ghanaian, South-African, etc., etc.), and the encounters and exchange are enormously enriching. Thank God for this!

I have another responsibility ahead of me. In September, I have to give leadership to the (in-person and hybrid) meeting of ECOM (European Commission on Mission) in Norway. This (as most international meetings nowadays) has many complications. Please pray for all different aspects to run smoothly.

Pray for our annual conference on 3.-4. of September. That all people will be able to come, including our bishop. Pray for wisdom to all participants.

Pray for unity in the Church.

Pray for all schools. That students and teachers will work safely, that this year schools will be open all the time.

Pray for the spiritual growth of our youth and children.

Pray, that churches will be open for services and people will find help from the right sources.

Praise to Lord for Agape´s 100th anniversary. I am happy to say, things went well and we had many joyful people celebrating with us in Agape church.

Please pray for the Agape congregation´s unity after the annual conference on Sep. 3 to 5. The annual conference will bring changes in pastoral ministry in Agape church and may Lord keep the congregation in His peace.

Please pray for the wisdom for me on how I could interact with all the crowds behind the worship videos. There are hundreds of people clicking on Agape church´s worship videos. The church needs to work out some possible tools for them, so they can send prayer requests or some sort of messages to communicate with the congregation.

Please pray for my physical health. I´ve been sick with Covid and got out of isolation right before Agape´s anniversary. It´s been really intense time and my physical body is not recovered from the illness yet. I do not feel on my normal level of physical power and I am still more sleepy. I wish, God will put His grace over my body and everything will be fine in some time.

Please pray for the new school year which begins this week – for children, families, and for the teachers.

God bless you!

Pray for Lívia as the school where she teaches is under renovation and so the classes are divided between two buildings in different parts of the city. Pray that the construction would be done on time and that God would provide the grace and strength to deal with the stressful situation.

Pray for Lívia and the situation in the school where she teaches where there are serious issues between leaders and teachers. Pray that God would give Lívia the wisdom to know what her role is in this situation and the strength to fulfill it.

Pray for the Seminary as we finish the accreditation report, that God would give us wisdom and guide us to the result He wants for our school.

Pray for the Seminary as we adapt to hybrid learning with some students online and some in the classroom. Pray that all would go smoothly and that the students would receive the education they need.