Estonia Report from our College Students

Hello Everybody!

We have arrived safely in Estonia and have been here for about 5 days now. This is the first time that we have had any down time since our arrival. We have a had a very busy past few days, but we are having a wonderful time!

Our first day in Estonia was a little rough on all four of us, the jet lag was pretty intense and it was cold and rainy, but we were just so thankful to be here! Once we arrived we ate lunch with Robert and Amy, Robert is one of the Pastor's at the Baltic Mission Center and Amy is his wife from Tulsa, and helped around the BMC preparing for the 100 Celebration of Methodism. It was a good way to keep us awake. The next day the four of us,Dustin, Emily, Chris and I, were the welcoming committee for all the people coming to the celebration. We sat at the Hotel Viru for 9 hours welcoming people. It was really neat! There were Bishops and Superintendents from South Korea, Norway, Estonia, Russia, America and a few other places. It was really exciting to get to talk to them and hear about different ways that Methodism and Christianity are influencing the world. The celebration was out on this beautiful island called Kuurasaree. It was wonderful to worship God with people from all over the world, to hear their passion for bringing God to the nations and to celebrate their history.It was a great learning experience and was also very encouraging. The boys are shooting a documentary while we are here and got some wonderful footage while we were out on the island. We returned to Tallinn, the capital, late Saturday night and went back to our guest house and went to bed. On Sunday we woke up and and went to church. The service was very special, because the Russian and Estonian congregation were combined, which does not usually happen, so the service was spoken in Russian, Estonian, and in English. It was really neat. Sunday afternoon we went to the Zoo with the youth group from the Baltic Mission Center and we had a blast! It`s really neat to get to know these people on a more personal level and to actually get to hang out with them! Tom Harrison and Mary Ann Smith also arrived yesterday, but we have not really seen a lot of them yet besides getting ice cream with Tom last night!

Thank you all so much for your prayers! Continue praying for opportunities to share Jesus with people and for deep relationships while we are here. Sorry if this was a boring e-mail, but there was a lot to share! God is doing some amazing things here in Estonia and we are so excited to be seeing first hand!

In Him,
Rachel Read