Oxana was a new reader that I read with only twice, but I was so glad to get to meet her and read with her for even that short time! She is such a sweet lady!
Please continue to remember these people in your prayers :)
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Pictures of Bethany's readers
Now that I have told you about my readers, here are some faces you can put with them while you're praying :)
Please continue to remember these people in your prayers :)
Please continue to remember these people in your prayers :)
Here are a few pictures and summaries of some of Dayna's readers!
This is Kaili! She was one of my Estonian speaking readers. She came late into the program but we still got to know each other very quickly and she is such a sweet person. I loved getting to know and talk with her about our lives and our beliefs about God, even if it was for a short time! She is going to continue reading with Brandon once we go back home, so pray that their lessons may be blessed!
This is Artjom! He is a member here at the church and has done LST several times, so we worked on an Acts workbook instead of Luke so we could cover new topics. He has such a kind heart and we really bonded about the ups and downs of living our lives as Christians in this world.
This is Katrin, who is also an Estonian speaking reader! My sessions with Katrin have been so enriching. She is really searching for something to believe in, so we usually spend the whole lesson discussing anything and everything about our beliefs! She is so open and asks me so many questions and I am just so excited about what God is doing in her heart. Please pray that she will find Him!
Alex is also a member of the church here and we are working on the Book of Acts. This kid is hilarious, we laugh together a lot and he teaches me so many things and I teach him. He is very interested in gaining knowledge about the world and the Bible, so reading with him is always entertaining.
This is Jana. Such a sweetheart. I have really connected with this girl. She has opened up to me about the struggles she has dealt with in her life, and she really soaks in what I tell her about God's love and His purpose for each of us. She is incredibly sweet and could really use a strong relationship with God to help guide her through life, so please pray that she may find that one day!
Here is Nikolai, the minister at the church here! Nikolai met with me several times to just read the Bible together and work on his pronunciation, but to also just discuss various parables and Jesus' teachings. I really enjoyed hearing about his life and thoughts on the Bible, we had some great conversations!
This is Marta! She is also Estonian speaking. I met Marta at camp and she came to meet with me a few times! We had some great conversations about feeling God's love. She will be getting baptized this Sunday out at another camp! Please pray that she will be blessed as she embarks on her new journey with Christ!
This is Larissa! She is a beginner in her English, but she is so hard working and so enthusiastic. Her kindness just shines through when she smiles or laughs during our lessons. She asked me to share with her how I found God, and she told me her own experience! She told me she is interested in attending church here which would be a blessing for the congregation!
This is Stasya! She was very shy and timid when we first began, her English was very beginner. But as we continued she became more comfortable and opened up a lot more! She has a belief in God, but would really benefit from developing a more active relationship with Him. I hope I have planted to seed that inspires her to do so! She is such a sweet girl and God could do great things with her!
Monday, 8 August 2011
The Arts Party!
Here I am with 4 of my readers! I was so happy they all came to the party.
This is Alex, Jana, Artjom, and Stasya!
Hard at work illustrating lessons from The Book of Luke!
The Mab Lib that Andrea created for the party!
Beth with two of her readers, Svetlana and Alice!
The team standing in front of RUSSIA!
This is a photo from our trip to the town of Narva last weekend. Narva is located right on the Russian border so we got to take some pictures with it in the background! It was pretty awesome!
Here we go!
It’s our last week. How on EARTH did 6 weeks fly by this quickly? I still feel like it was just last week I was stressing about the weight of my carry-on for the flight over, and all of a sudden I’m going to need to start worrying about it for the trip home. This time in Estonia has been completely blessed in every aspect of the word. I feel like I have grown personally and helped others grow or at least feel loved by our Lord Jesus Christ. I have built so many new friendships and strengthened those I already had. I have been given a new perspective about the things in life that are important and the things that are not so much worth my time. My readers have really gotten me excited about sharing my faith and opening peoples’ eyes to everything that God has done for us. Please pray that this last week of reading sessions really instills God’s presence in the hearts of my readers, and that our time together can give them the start they need to the journey of finding a relationship with Him. That would be awesome. Thank you so much for everything, those who have supported me! Great, great things are happening in the kingdom of God every single day, and I am nothing but a tiny part of it, but it’s still a part of God’s body as it says in 1 Corinthians 12:12,
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
Monday, 1 August 2011
MY (Bethany's) readers!!
Now it's my turn to tell you all about MY readers :) It has been so great to have gotten to know these people over the past two weeks, although it has also gone by so quickly. I can't believe we're already half way through our reading sessions! Although, I could also choose to be optimistic and see it as the glass being still half full...still HALF of our reading sessions left to go! Yipeee!!! Okay, anyways...
At the information meeting before we started reading, I had 6 readers, and since have gotten 5 more - so in total I have 11 readers. And now i'll tell you a little bit about each!
Vlasta
Vlasta is a middle aged Russian woman with a husband (who is also my reader) and two grown children. She is a hairdresser, and her mother owns a salon that she works at with her. Vlasta is very sweet, and was pretty quiet and shy at first, but now is starting to open up to me quite a bit more. I have had quite a few interesting conversations with her about her interest in Buhddism, Chinese medicine, weather or not animals have souls, and some Russian history. She is at a place where she doesn't quite know what she believes, but she is definitely searching for what the truth is, and I am so happy to be able to be there and introduce her to the bible and the truth of Christianity. She is very attentive when I talk about my faith and the truth of the bible, so I am very excited to see what is going to happen with our conversations in the next couple weeks!
Veniamin
Veniamin is Vlasta's husband, as I said before. His English level is quite a bit lower than her's, so it was a struggle the first couple sessions to have a conversation with him. He understands everything I say perfectly, but just struggles with how to take his thoughts and make them into sentences. Our last couple sessions have been getting better though, as I believe his English is improving, and we have had some good talks (albeit slow talks) about what he believes about the bible, and what he thinks about religion in general. I am starting to understand and get to know him more and more, as he also becomes more comfortable and willing to share. He, like his wife, is also searching. They study together the Luke workbook before they come each time, and I can see they want to know what the truth is. I am praying that their hearts be opened to God and the amazing gift that he has to offer them!
Irina
Irina is a pretty awesome lady! She's middle aged and lives with her husband and her son who is living in Russia, and she works as an engineer. She is a first timer to LST and was very shy at first, always apologizing for her English, even though it's actually very good. By the time our second session began, she was already more confident and more talkative, and asked me more questions and seemed interested in my life. We've had many quite interesting conversations about the Orthodox church, and her childhood and where she came from etc. She mentioned to me one day that after the first session she didn't think she would come back, but now she feels like she wants to because it is helping her English so much, and she is really enjoying it! I've also had the opportunity to share with her the gospel message, and she told me she is very interested in learning more about the relationship aspect of God rather than just knowledge of Him - so I am pretty excited to see what is going to happen, because she said she is going to be thinking a lot more about it on her own time, and I hope we'll talk more about it in our sessions. Pray that God continues to open up her heart and give me the correct words to say!
Valeria
Valeria (also called Lera) is my sweet little 12 year old reader! She was at Camp Balchyoca, and has been going to the camp for a few years, but I didn't really get to know her at camp because she wasn't in my cabin, so it's been nice to get to talk to her. She doesn't understand very much, and her English isn't the best, so for the first couple sessions, I would do pretty much all of the talking and she would mostly stare at me and not say a lot. She's very shy, so that also makes it more difficult because she says even less, but it has been getting better and sometimes I can get her talking for a while. If I ask her about her life, and family, and school, then she starts opening up more, and smiling more, so we tend to just go through the lesson pretty quick and talk about other things. A couple times we have done different things, like walk down to the grocery store for ice cream, or color in a coloring book, because it is easier to connect with someone her age in that way. It has been pretty hard for me to get on very deep spiritual subjects and figure out what she believes about God, because of her English level, and also because she is so young and I don't think fully understands. So I think the best way i've been ministering to this girl is to just by showing her love, and showing her that I want to talk to her and know her, and doing fun things is a good way to do that!
Lora
Lora is a sweetie pie - one of my favorite readers! She was also at Camp Balchyoca and was in Chelsey and Anna's cabin, so I saw her and met her very briefly, but didn't really get to know her too well. She is 16, going into grade 10 at school, and is just the sweetest girl - we've had a few good laughs together!! She's so attentive and listens and is really good at English, and I can tell that she really wants to learn it better, as well as talk to me and learn about me. We've had quite a few good conversations about God and the text, and she's told me various different things about what she believes about God. She calls herself a Christian, but doesn't really practice it, and she seems to be searching for something, and i've had the opportunity to talk to her about the gospel message, which she seemed very interested in! We've also talked about forgiveness and loving enemies, and she agrees with all of the teachings of Jesus, I just think it's a matter of time before God captures her heart! Please pray for Lora as we continue to have reading sessions and I attempt to pour God's love into her life!
Elena
Elena (also called Lena), is a very sweet middle aged woman is a church member here at the Asunduse church. Her son, Alex, is a reader with Dayna and he was at Balchyoca this year, so it's cool that they both are reading with LST. She has done LST before with Brandon, and was completely done the Luke workbook, so we decided that we could do the Acts workbook together! She's such a sweet Christian lady with a huge heart, and it's really nice to have a reader who is also a Christian, because it's more like a bible study. We go through the lesson and talk about the meaning of the story and the significance for us, and she has such a high knowledge of it I feel like maybe she is teaching me! I can tell just by her body language, and the way she talks and the way she listens to me, that she loves God, and wants to study his word, and improve her English. It's such an encouragement to me, and i've loved getting to know her!
Svetlana and Alece
These two girls are best friends, and are so much fun! They read with LST together last year, as well as with Brandon in the Spring, and I guess it feels more comfortable for them to read together because that's what they did before too. They are both 18, going into grade 12 next year, and they're so trendy and cool - the first session we had we didn't get to the lesson at all, we just talked the entire 45 minutes! They love to talk and are really confident, and their English is excellent, so it was so fun for me to just talk to them and learn about their lives and tell them about mine! Alece has been coming to the Asunduse church for a couple years, and knows all of the people here, and about a year ago she invited Svetlana also, so they have been coming sporadically together ever since. They call themselves Christians, and understand the bible and are very quick to answer questions from the workbook, so it seems like they know lots already, but i'm not sure how deep their faith runs in them and how genuine it is played out in their lives. I really hope to learn more about them in the next couple weeks, and become better friends with them, so I can see where their hearts are and be able to minister better and show them the life of a Christ following Christian!
Alexsei
I have only had two reading sessions with Alex so far! He came the first week, and then went on vacation to Tartu for all of last week, so it's hard to know what to say about him! He is 25 years old, and comes from Tartu - he actually used to hang out with the people from the church there, before he moved to Tallinn for school, and went to camp once also, so that is his connection with the church here. He is Orthodox (like most Russian people would call themselves) but isn't practicing any religion. He believes there is a God, but doesn't think that it makes that much of a difference in people's lives or changes anything about them. It's convenient to him - its more beneficial to believe than to not believe, but it doesn't matter either way. He should be coming back to Tallinn for this week, or maybe next, so i'm hoping in the short time that we'll be reading together that I can connect with him in some way, and introduce him to God and show him that he can have a better life if he's in relationship with Him. Please pray for that!
Alexandr
This Alex had only come to read once, but he was definitely my most difficult reader! He's 14, and knows pretty much no English at all. In order to do LST you're supposed to know at least a little bit of English, so you can have a conversation with someone, but he knows zero! The one session we had was pretty difficult because I would do the talking and then ask him a question, and he would just stare at me and say nothing. A little bit awkward to say the least...that session ended early, and i'm not exactly sure what's going to happen with him. He has a friend that is reading with Andrea, so we might do a joint session and his friend can translate for us, because it is virtually impossible to have a true session when they can't speak any English. Please pray for him, that we can get across to him somehow, weather through his friend, or him attending our beginner class that happens on Sundays and Wednesdays!
Anja
Anja is an 18 year old girl who just joined LST last week, so i've only had her once! She is very sweet, but pretty shy, so she wouldn't say a lot at first. I didn't know if it was mostly from being shy, or maybe she didn't understand English as well as I thought. We talked for a while and I asked her questions to get to know about her life, and then went through the lesson, ! I just hope that the more she comes, the more she becomes more confident and willing to share and open up, so please pray for Anja as well!
Karina
Karina is also a reader that i've only had once so far! She came to the beginner class last Sunday (one week ago) and discovered it was too easy for her, so she signed up for LST! She's 15 and going into 10th grade I think, and she is also pretty shy. She's brand new to LST so we started with lesson 1, and went through it pretty quick, cuz she's really smart and good at English. The rest of the time we talked about her and her family and friends and life, and I got to learn more about her, as well as tell a bit about my own life! I also am hoping with her that even though she joined late, that I can make a good connection with her and introduce her to the bible and God, and make some sort of impact in her life!!
Well, that's all of my readers! I hope I didn't bore you too much with this reallllly long post! I wish that we had pictures with the readers now so that you could see, but we haven't taken any yet! As soon as we do that, we'll post them up on this here blog here :) Love you all and thanks so much for praying and being supportive of us!
At the information meeting before we started reading, I had 6 readers, and since have gotten 5 more - so in total I have 11 readers. And now i'll tell you a little bit about each!
Vlasta
Vlasta is a middle aged Russian woman with a husband (who is also my reader) and two grown children. She is a hairdresser, and her mother owns a salon that she works at with her. Vlasta is very sweet, and was pretty quiet and shy at first, but now is starting to open up to me quite a bit more. I have had quite a few interesting conversations with her about her interest in Buhddism, Chinese medicine, weather or not animals have souls, and some Russian history. She is at a place where she doesn't quite know what she believes, but she is definitely searching for what the truth is, and I am so happy to be able to be there and introduce her to the bible and the truth of Christianity. She is very attentive when I talk about my faith and the truth of the bible, so I am very excited to see what is going to happen with our conversations in the next couple weeks!
Veniamin
Veniamin is Vlasta's husband, as I said before. His English level is quite a bit lower than her's, so it was a struggle the first couple sessions to have a conversation with him. He understands everything I say perfectly, but just struggles with how to take his thoughts and make them into sentences. Our last couple sessions have been getting better though, as I believe his English is improving, and we have had some good talks (albeit slow talks) about what he believes about the bible, and what he thinks about religion in general. I am starting to understand and get to know him more and more, as he also becomes more comfortable and willing to share. He, like his wife, is also searching. They study together the Luke workbook before they come each time, and I can see they want to know what the truth is. I am praying that their hearts be opened to God and the amazing gift that he has to offer them!
Irina
Irina is a pretty awesome lady! She's middle aged and lives with her husband and her son who is living in Russia, and she works as an engineer. She is a first timer to LST and was very shy at first, always apologizing for her English, even though it's actually very good. By the time our second session began, she was already more confident and more talkative, and asked me more questions and seemed interested in my life. We've had many quite interesting conversations about the Orthodox church, and her childhood and where she came from etc. She mentioned to me one day that after the first session she didn't think she would come back, but now she feels like she wants to because it is helping her English so much, and she is really enjoying it! I've also had the opportunity to share with her the gospel message, and she told me she is very interested in learning more about the relationship aspect of God rather than just knowledge of Him - so I am pretty excited to see what is going to happen, because she said she is going to be thinking a lot more about it on her own time, and I hope we'll talk more about it in our sessions. Pray that God continues to open up her heart and give me the correct words to say!
Valeria
Valeria (also called Lera) is my sweet little 12 year old reader! She was at Camp Balchyoca, and has been going to the camp for a few years, but I didn't really get to know her at camp because she wasn't in my cabin, so it's been nice to get to talk to her. She doesn't understand very much, and her English isn't the best, so for the first couple sessions, I would do pretty much all of the talking and she would mostly stare at me and not say a lot. She's very shy, so that also makes it more difficult because she says even less, but it has been getting better and sometimes I can get her talking for a while. If I ask her about her life, and family, and school, then she starts opening up more, and smiling more, so we tend to just go through the lesson pretty quick and talk about other things. A couple times we have done different things, like walk down to the grocery store for ice cream, or color in a coloring book, because it is easier to connect with someone her age in that way. It has been pretty hard for me to get on very deep spiritual subjects and figure out what she believes about God, because of her English level, and also because she is so young and I don't think fully understands. So I think the best way i've been ministering to this girl is to just by showing her love, and showing her that I want to talk to her and know her, and doing fun things is a good way to do that!
Lora
Lora is a sweetie pie - one of my favorite readers! She was also at Camp Balchyoca and was in Chelsey and Anna's cabin, so I saw her and met her very briefly, but didn't really get to know her too well. She is 16, going into grade 10 at school, and is just the sweetest girl - we've had a few good laughs together!! She's so attentive and listens and is really good at English, and I can tell that she really wants to learn it better, as well as talk to me and learn about me. We've had quite a few good conversations about God and the text, and she's told me various different things about what she believes about God. She calls herself a Christian, but doesn't really practice it, and she seems to be searching for something, and i've had the opportunity to talk to her about the gospel message, which she seemed very interested in! We've also talked about forgiveness and loving enemies, and she agrees with all of the teachings of Jesus, I just think it's a matter of time before God captures her heart! Please pray for Lora as we continue to have reading sessions and I attempt to pour God's love into her life!
Elena
Elena (also called Lena), is a very sweet middle aged woman is a church member here at the Asunduse church. Her son, Alex, is a reader with Dayna and he was at Balchyoca this year, so it's cool that they both are reading with LST. She has done LST before with Brandon, and was completely done the Luke workbook, so we decided that we could do the Acts workbook together! She's such a sweet Christian lady with a huge heart, and it's really nice to have a reader who is also a Christian, because it's more like a bible study. We go through the lesson and talk about the meaning of the story and the significance for us, and she has such a high knowledge of it I feel like maybe she is teaching me! I can tell just by her body language, and the way she talks and the way she listens to me, that she loves God, and wants to study his word, and improve her English. It's such an encouragement to me, and i've loved getting to know her!
Svetlana and Alece
These two girls are best friends, and are so much fun! They read with LST together last year, as well as with Brandon in the Spring, and I guess it feels more comfortable for them to read together because that's what they did before too. They are both 18, going into grade 12 next year, and they're so trendy and cool - the first session we had we didn't get to the lesson at all, we just talked the entire 45 minutes! They love to talk and are really confident, and their English is excellent, so it was so fun for me to just talk to them and learn about their lives and tell them about mine! Alece has been coming to the Asunduse church for a couple years, and knows all of the people here, and about a year ago she invited Svetlana also, so they have been coming sporadically together ever since. They call themselves Christians, and understand the bible and are very quick to answer questions from the workbook, so it seems like they know lots already, but i'm not sure how deep their faith runs in them and how genuine it is played out in their lives. I really hope to learn more about them in the next couple weeks, and become better friends with them, so I can see where their hearts are and be able to minister better and show them the life of a Christ following Christian!
Alexsei
I have only had two reading sessions with Alex so far! He came the first week, and then went on vacation to Tartu for all of last week, so it's hard to know what to say about him! He is 25 years old, and comes from Tartu - he actually used to hang out with the people from the church there, before he moved to Tallinn for school, and went to camp once also, so that is his connection with the church here. He is Orthodox (like most Russian people would call themselves) but isn't practicing any religion. He believes there is a God, but doesn't think that it makes that much of a difference in people's lives or changes anything about them. It's convenient to him - its more beneficial to believe than to not believe, but it doesn't matter either way. He should be coming back to Tallinn for this week, or maybe next, so i'm hoping in the short time that we'll be reading together that I can connect with him in some way, and introduce him to God and show him that he can have a better life if he's in relationship with Him. Please pray for that!
Alexandr
This Alex had only come to read once, but he was definitely my most difficult reader! He's 14, and knows pretty much no English at all. In order to do LST you're supposed to know at least a little bit of English, so you can have a conversation with someone, but he knows zero! The one session we had was pretty difficult because I would do the talking and then ask him a question, and he would just stare at me and say nothing. A little bit awkward to say the least...that session ended early, and i'm not exactly sure what's going to happen with him. He has a friend that is reading with Andrea, so we might do a joint session and his friend can translate for us, because it is virtually impossible to have a true session when they can't speak any English. Please pray for him, that we can get across to him somehow, weather through his friend, or him attending our beginner class that happens on Sundays and Wednesdays!
Anja
Anja is an 18 year old girl who just joined LST last week, so i've only had her once! She is very sweet, but pretty shy, so she wouldn't say a lot at first. I didn't know if it was mostly from being shy, or maybe she didn't understand English as well as I thought. We talked for a while and I asked her questions to get to know about her life, and then went through the lesson, ! I just hope that the more she comes, the more she becomes more confident and willing to share and open up, so please pray for Anja as well!
Karina
Karina is also a reader that i've only had once so far! She came to the beginner class last Sunday (one week ago) and discovered it was too easy for her, so she signed up for LST! She's 15 and going into 10th grade I think, and she is also pretty shy. She's brand new to LST so we started with lesson 1, and went through it pretty quick, cuz she's really smart and good at English. The rest of the time we talked about her and her family and friends and life, and I got to learn more about her, as well as tell a bit about my own life! I also am hoping with her that even though she joined late, that I can make a good connection with her and introduce her to the bible and God, and make some sort of impact in her life!!
Well, that's all of my readers! I hope I didn't bore you too much with this reallllly long post! I wish that we had pictures with the readers now so that you could see, but we haven't taken any yet! As soon as we do that, we'll post them up on this here blog here :) Love you all and thanks so much for praying and being supportive of us!
My Readers!
Dayna here! I’ve been waiting to make a post about my readers because I wanted to actually get to know them before I start telling you about them. I feel like over the past two weeks I have been able to start building relationships with these people, so here I am now to tell you about it!
1. Iren
Iren is a Russian woman in her 60’s. She appeared very nervous and shy when she showed up at the information meeting, and she could barely speak any English at all. This made me worried that I wouldn’t be able to communicate with her during our reading sessions. During our first lesson she was having a super hard time understand anything I was saying or what the lesson meant. I was pretty discouraged, and Iren didn’t show up for her next lesson so I thought she didn’t want to come back at all. We ended up communicating about a second lesson, and let me tell you, it was MUCH better! I had prayed for the lessons going smoother and that’s exactly what God gave us. Iren had studied the lesson beforehand, we still went through it very slowly but steadily, and we even talked about God and what she believes. She said that she prays for others but not for herself, and when I brought up the subject of her mother she started crying because she had recently passed away. They way she looked at me as I squeezed her hand to console her really made me feel like we connected. She started asking me about God’s plan for our lives and I showed her some Bible verses and she thanked me so genuinely. I can’t wait to read with her more!
2. Stasya
Stasya is a 15 year old Russian girl. She is very shy! She reads well, but in the beginning when I’d ask her questions she would just smile and shrug. I couldn’t figure out if it was because she was nervous or she just didn’t understand me! When I asked her questions about herself she began to loosen up, and she even brought in pictures of her family to show me. She began to study the lessons ahead of time and also brought a dictionary, those helped a lot and our conversations began to flow more smoothly. She tells me she and her mother believe in God, but she doesn’t know much about Him. We have had conversations where I’ve explained to her the Holy Trinity and baptism, she seemed very interested in hearing what I had to say. I am excited to see what more I can show Stasya about God! Pray that we will continue to connect!
3. Alex/Sasha
I have this guy’s name two ways because I honestly don’t know what to call him! The name Alexandr has so many forms here that everyone calls him something different. I’ve been sticking to Alex because it’s easy. I met Alex last year (very vaguely) at camp because he is a church member here at Asunduse in Tallinn. He is Russian, 18 years old, and easily one of the smartest people I have ever met at that age! He plays competitive chess, people. We spend a LOT of our reading sessions talking about the world and different cultures. Canada’s landscape absolutely fascinates him. He also always asks me questions about if something is actually true about North American culture or not. My reading sessions are typically done with a Luke workbook, but Alex has done that one more than once so we do an Acts workbook together. It’s a new challenge for me and I enjoy it! We talk a lot about the purpose of religion and all of the varieties out there. Alex is a very interesting kid!
4. Jana
Jana is one of my favourite readers! She is also 15 years old and Russian. She is very into music and her style shows that. She reads with me every day and I find her very easy to talk with because she really attempts to participate in our conversations. We laugh a lot because I will ask a question and she will have no idea what I am saying so she just says “what?!”. We have had some more serious talks as well, for example she told me about how her best friend helped bring her out of a stage of depression in her life and help her see good in the world. When I ask her questions about God she always tells me what she thinks, she believes in God and was baptized in the Orthodox church when she was 7. I asked her how that came about and she told me that her mother read her some Bible stories and she decided she believes, but now she doesn’t know very much about God. I am hoping we can go more into depth about her beliefs and begin to strengthen that into and actual relationship with God!
5. Artjom
Artjom is an awesome kid. He is Russian, 18 years old, and really good friends with my other reader, Alex. Artjom was baptized at Camp Balchyoca last summer and I didn’t really know him then, but I am so glad I’ve gotten to connect with him now! He also is working on the Acts workbook with me during our reading sessions like Alex is. I can tell he really cares a lot about the text we are reading and the questions I ask him, I always look forward to talking with him. I feel very equal with him because we can bond over the awesome, yet tough parts about being a young Christian. I look forward to getting to know him more!
6. Katrin
My Estonian reader! After last summer in Tartu with all Estonian readers, I was so happy when Katrin signed up with me! Katrin is a very sweet woman who is finishing up university and needed help with her English to graduate. Her English is very, very good though, much better than she thinks. As we have gotten to now each other, our reading sessions have been really amazing. There was one session where I started out explaining to her who Elizabeth was, which led to John the Baptist, which led to talking about denominations (what I believe vs. others). She was a complete open book, asking me all these questions about baptism and what happens to our souls when we die. She told me that she has no idea what she believes, she wants to believe in something but has no idea where to begin. This is ideal for me because now I am able to inform her of everything I know about God and His love and power in our lives. She said that sometimes when she is really lost, she goes to a church and sits there in peace and she feels so much better afterwards. I really hope I can continue to connect with her about this!
7. Larissa
Larissa signed up with me after she came with a friend to our Canada party! I was so excited to have another reader. Larissa is crazy, in a good way! She is over 60 years old, but she is so energetic and enthusiastic about English. She is not afraid to make mistakes when she speaks, which is very entertaining but also helpful! Once she finally understands what the lesson was about, it’s like a light bulb goes off in her head and she knows some of the stories from the Bible. She is my newest reader so we still haven’t gotten too in depth about each other’s lives, but she’s a sweet lady and I’m looking forward to knowing her more.
8. My Miscellaneous Readers
I have a few readers who don’t quite qualify as “LST” readers. One of them is Nikolai Vasjutin, who happens to be the minister here at the Asunduse church. I meet with Nikolai almost every day, and seeing as I’m not needing to spread the gospel to Nikolai, we instead work very diligently on his English pronounciation abilities. We pick a book of the Bible, like Luke or Mark, and we go over parables and afterwards we discuss them and talk about topics related to the reading. Nikolai was actually a product of LST, and it’s amazing to hear the story of where he came from to where he is today. God does amazing things through this program and this church is very blessed to have Nikolai and his wife Olga, and his daughter Anna.
Another girl I scheduled to meet with a few times was an Estonian we met at camp named Marta. Marta doesn’t live in Tallinn so that’s why she doesn’t quite qualify as a reader. Marta has decided to get baptized in mid-August, and knowing that, I talked with her a lot about how she came to the decision and how God and touched her life. The way she described it was so simple, she just felt him in her heart and it felt so good. She has such a sweet soul and I really hope God can do some great things in her life!
Anyways, there’s my extremely minimized version of what I’ve been up to during these first two reading weeks. Please continue to pray for our team and our efforts here! Estonia is a very special place with incredible people. We’ve got two more weeks to go and I am so excited to see what God has planned for them!
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