Christmas in Võru and other updates...

Well, after the cleaning of the tent, Liina and I drove an hour south to her hometown of Võru. It is a nice small town with a lake. We had a nice dinner with her family and then we did gifts. The catch in Estonia is that you have to earn your gift. You have to say a Christmas poem, solve a riddle, sing a song, make up a dance, or show the family some love before you get your gift. It makes the evening quite interactive. The next day, we had some morning porridge and then took a 10 km hike around the lake. It was good to get out, get some fresh air, and enjoy the nature. Liina and I came back to Tartu and just enjoyed spending some time together before our lives get really busy.

Liina is still off this week and is enjoying her last week of vacation. Liina is officially done with classes and lectures and only has now in front of her: 5 months of internships, final exam, graduation, and then entrance exams/interview for residency. For 2 months of the intership, she will be away in a different cities to experience how other hospitals are. Hopefully, it will work out for me to change some things around to see her half the time when she is away. Also, I am working hard to cut my away travel in half this year. I was away 4 months last year from Liina. We have agreed not to be away from each other more than 2 months this year. It has really challenged me to think of do I need to go to this or not. How important is this for our ministry at Going UP or is it more important that I stay home and just be with family.

As to my health, I hope to continue to lose weight. Estonian doctors don't beat around the bush. This is where the bluntness comes in. My doctor just told me, Chris your fat. You must lose weight. Fortunately, I did not need a doctor to tell me that, plus I had lost some weight already. I have continued to stick to a healthy diet with Liina and also I am doing some training through out the week. So far, I have lost 35 lbs. I only need to lose another 10 - 15 lbs. to get to where my doctor will be ok. It has been a nice to make excercise back into my routine. It was something that I was missing when I was on bedrest just a year ago. It has been harder to train with the snow and ice, but Liina has helped me find other alternatives. Just have to keep motivating myself even through the darkness.

Thank you again for all of your prayers through this last year. Liina and I have definitely felt protection this year with our relationship. I have been growing stronger with my health, but I just have to watch how hard I push myself. Liina tracks me pretty well and doesn't allow me to much wiggle room. Doctors keep pretty good accountability. We look forward to another amazing year watching what God does through His church here in Estonia. God Bless!

A joyous night...

Well, the tent service went well. It was a little cold, but many new faces showed up. Many neighbors and teachers of our youth showed up. Many older ladies cuddled up around the heaters to keep their feet warm and our choir brought blankets to wrap around themselves. Many Risttee people were excited about those who came from their personal invitations. Also, we don't know how many came from the 300 gingerbread cookies we gave out in the city center. Our prayer, our hope, is that this service helped open doors for those personal relationships to continue. We heard positive feedback and some positive constructive feedback from some of the first time people and many hope to see us again next year. One women told the couple that invited them to Risttee, it was very good, but I will remember to wear two pair of socks next year!!!

Christmas Service in the Park...

The day is only half over, but it has been a long day already, but for others even longer. Where we normally have church decided to be closed this holiday, so new ideas and innovative ideas where made. Risttee church decided to rent a huge tent and put it up in the park to hold our Christmas Service. If you don't know Christmas is the the one day of the year that people in Estonia actually go to church. So today is a huge day for the church. We are excited to see how it will all end up. Many people have been walking by looking at us put up this tent and wondering what we are up to. Many ask us about the service and we hope that with our invitiations and curiosity will allow some new Tartu people to come to our tent service. I am excited to see the program with our band, choir, and also Peep will give a small talk. As one member of our team said of all this tent buisness, this our birthday present for Jesus and for the people who may come and hear about him for the very first time. Tonights service is a gift that we want to present to Christ so that he may be glorified with all that we say, do, and our attitudes with preparations. We are excited to see what God will do tonight at his son's birthday party!!!!!

Crazy Santa Claus....

Santa Came to Tartu this Christmas in a rather special way. Some locals got together and did a little show down in the center of Town on the river. For a one fellow, he feel in, but lets hope his wetsuit will keep him warm for a little while as the ice floats by him.

Weekend in Tallinn...(cont)

On Saturday morning and afternoon I had the opportunity to assist Märt with a small group training at Oleviste church. They are the biggest baptist church in Estonia and some would say are quite a focal point for Christians spiritually. It is definitely different working with a small village church compared to a large church. We have much to learn as we continue to work with different churches in many different contexts and even the culturally differences in every city.

Märt did a great job bringing creativity to the meeting. We pray that the training will help them continue to move forward with doing small group ministry up in Tallinn. It was a great opportunity for us to observe and to get to know their leaders. We hope that we were not to radical in our presentation, but hopefully challenged them in a new way with Biblical truth with being a steward of their small group.

Weekend in Tallinn...

This last weekend I was up in Tallinn working on things for an upcoming conference for Estonian youth leaders, which will take place in the end of February. I had a great meeting with one youth leader to talk about conference things, but it was special moment for me since it was my first long meeting done only in Estonian. I think this youth leader was quite patient with me, which was nice. So hopefully, my estonian is making progress. I just have to keep working at it.


Later that Friday night, I was able to go meet up with Märt to go to one youth night with one awesome youth leader Mihkel. He has a really huge heart for the youth of Tallinn and is doing some interesting things to try to reach them. Tallinn is definitely a hard place to do ministry. It was great to see what they were doing, how much the youth are involved in leading things, and Märt was able to speak there about being a fisher of men. It was fun to be together, hang out, and just observe what is taking place up in Tallinn.

Sunday evening concert...

Two sundays ago, Liina, Kira (Liina's younger sister) and I went to to St. Johns church for what we thought would be a wonderful Christmas concert. The church was pretty full and the music was good. It definately had a jazz feel to every song. The only problem or disappointment was that none of them were actually Christmas songs. Just a certain young artist doing different estonian songs at Christmas time in a church. At least for us it gave us a reason to come together and get dressed up. We had the most fun after the concert in our Town Square. There were sheep we could pet or feed, hot cider to drink, and other estonian festive activities. Tartu is definitely a beautiful town all year long.

GU Partner Confernce

We made it. We had some snow on Friday and Saturday, but all of our partner churches made it safely to Tartu. It was nice having some fresh snow. Snow makes everything clean. It is as if we get a fresh start to a new day. To make new paths. To try new things.

Our different partners really said that they enjoyed this day. The day was filled with sharing the gospel and our vision for the next year. We took time to share stories with each other and to encourage one another. Then in the afternoon we went to the Tartu Toy Museum. It was cool for me as different leaders were excited to say that I had this toy and that toy. There were very interesting toys that they had during the time of the Soviet Union. This journey back in time brought many memories back for all the leaders. Also, this helped us to move into our next time of the conference, "Dreaming!". We were not sure how this was going to go, but everyone of our leaders and co-leaders had ideas of what they wanted their youth group to look like in 5 years. They also knew some steps of how to get there. Many of the main leaders enjoyed hearing the ideas of their younger leaders and probably many ideas will become integrated soon. Finally to end the day, we went to one of our Ristte church members Fun Zone. It is an awesome place to hang out, play games, and interact. It was great for me to be able to get to know some of our new partnerships leaders better. We are excited to see what the future holds for the next year. It will be great to start working with them more closely starting in January helping to prepare them for Enlgish Camp next summer.

Hectic week...

It has been one crazy week. I have to admit that I am quite tired or even exhausted, but I am excited to what is ahead. We are having a partner conference here in tartu with all of our partnerships around estonia. We just finished up the last of the details, so now to home to rest for a big day tomorrow. We will have a couple of new churches with us tomorrow, so it will be great for our older and newer partner churches to get to know each other. These partner churches are the ones that we do english camp or other type of camp with.
We are excited to have some cool things planned for them tomorrow. I am especially looking forward to our dreaming time. For many estonians it is hard to really dream big. We will have a time for dreaming together about what youth work in estonia could look like or even become. Then we will help make some steps of how to get there together. I think this will be a great learning experience and very insiteful for me as I listen in on to what these next generation leaders have to say. Please be in prayer for this conference. Will let you know how it turns out.

Getting to know team...

Here are few pictures of the team that I get to work with. Last Friday, we took half a day to go away together to different points in southern estonia and share stories, eat and go snowtubing together. It was a fun time and also a great time to get to know new team members. It was quite insightful as we answered the question, "Why to do you love Estonia?". Also it was fun that we had a chance to ask each other questions that showed who we really are and how we can pray for each other.