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!