Proud!

I am very proud today of Oskar. Yesterday Reena was telling me that one of our neighbors down the street was going to get a fine from the city if she didn't clean the side walk in front of her house. This is very sad. The lady that lives there is about 80, she can barely walk. She is very sweet and comes to our house to use our phone because she doesn't have one. When she comes from 2 houses down, it takes her about 1 hour for the round trip to our house. I have offered to take her, but she says she needs the exercise and also it kills a lot of time. When they put in the new road they added some very nice sidewalks and wide bike paths. It takes a lot of work to get them clean because as they clean the street, the big trucks throw bury half of the sidewalk. So yesterday evening I went out with Oskar to clean our neighbors sidewalk and he helped. He took this big shovel and as i broke down the 2-3 inches of ice, he cleared it off to the side. Not bad for a 3 year old and the whole time we talked about why we are helping our neighbor and also about Jesus. As a father, I hope I am helping to stamp Oskar a servants DNA, one where he does his best to help those around him and meet needs where he sees them.

Christmas Outside

Next Wednesday on the 24Th at 4.00PM Estonian time, or 9.00AM Eastern time we will have our Christmas Eve service here at Risttee. Christmas Eve is the one time a year Estonians go to church. Most of the big Lutheran churches have several services to accommodate all of the visitors. We got some bad news from our normal rental place, they couldn't get anyone to work on the 24Th, so we didn't have a location, so what did we do. We got some crazy idea, lets have the service outside, in Estonia in December. So we found a tent, that's the picture above and we will have our service there. We are planning at 45 minute service, with music, choir, video and all the normal things associated with a service, and we will have a really cool decor in the tent with 20 live trees and 2 stages and all kids of things to make it comfortable and also warm. We will have to set it up and tear it down all on the same day, but we hope that it draws a good crowd and helps connect people to the church afterwards. If you think of us, pray for all that's going to happen a week from today!

Sunday Reflections

We had a crazy busy weekend here in Tartu. On Saturday we had "Tagahoov" our monthly family event with a program for parents and children. We had over 60 people there and it was a great success. Our theme was "Its better to give than receive". It fit with Christmas and all that fun stuff. The event had singing and kids doing motions, drama, games and a bible story. We also had a childrens choir come and sing a few songs.

After the program we had the next room set up for the kids to do some really cool things. The girls made 3 different Christmas tree ornaments. The boys got to put together a wood car. We had little kits made up and the boys had to just attacch the pieces with different screws. It was a great chance for dads and sons to do something together. Also, we had borrowed a Nintendo WII and a big group of kids enjoyed some sort of game where you had to move on a special mat and match the moves on the screen. The kids really enjoyed that and you could barely talk over the laughter coming from the kids playing the game. It was a good chance for our church to make some new contacts and invite many of our friends with children.

Yesterday I got to preach. I really enjoy this. We are in the second week of our Warrior series. We looked at the story of Gideon and saw a few differences in his life of how he started and how God used him. It gave a good represetnation of how I saw that he was a "boy" at the start and how he changed to being a "Man". I challeged the guys there to start being men, by taking responsibility, seeing more than just themselves and to act not over react. Peep translated and I really feel good about how everything went. Next week we wrap up the series before Christmas.

Reflections on Sunday

Yesterday we launched our latest series called "Sõdalane" which translates to Warrior. Its a series that is about men and manhood. We took some time this week to create some cool decorations. We had a banner made for the centerpiece and also man some cool light boxes out of some wood and some light blue plexiglass.

Everyone walked in and their eyes light up at what they saw. When you have a well designed room and stage it really helps people to get into the service a bit more. Plus this gives some guys with some building skills a chance to server with their talents. Our band did some "manly" worship music. Basically it was a little more upbeat than usual. We made a few new video pieces. Peep made a video about how men need to seek adventure and to make his point he went out to the forrest and spent the night without a tent. After using the video in his opening it really changed the room and everyone was eager to hear what he had to say. I get to speak this week as we talk about moving from a boy to a man. I hope to make a video to use in my sermon about how different cultures and tribes make men into boys. I think it will end up being more of a comedy piece, but I really think it can help make a big point.

Prayer breakfast Video

Here is the video that I made for the prayer breakfast. I am not completely pleased with the final product. I envisioned something more than what came of it, but due to a lack of time and clear vision, this is was the final product turned out. Of course most of you probably can't understand what is being said in the video, but you can enjoy and dream about whats being said.

Porn Sunday

This Sunday at Risttee we had a special week called "Porn and Popcorn". Probably not the most popular theme for the first week of the advent season, but one that we had to talk about. One of our elders Innar has been called to God to talk about pornography and its affect on our society and also the church. Following the lead of an American ministry, xxxchurch.com, Innar and a few other good Christian guys in Estonia have started xxxkirik.ee. The ministry is in its infancy but has already been greatly blessed. The group has been invited by many schools to come and present their material, also youth groups have invited them to come as well. For this Sunday, we served everyone some popcorn and then let Innar have the mic and share about the problem of pornography. It was a really cool morning and one that was challenging for everyone there.

I was pretty amazed to hear that the Christians struggle with pornography as much as non Christians. I think this is the main motivation of these guys to talk about it. There is a huge elephant in the room, we all see it, but no one is talking about it. The stories Innar shared of people that have struggled with it and how it has affected their lives and eventual victory was inspiring. Also, he shared about a software that you can put on your computer that reports to someone else what your looking at on the Internet. This is really cool and something I recommend for all guys to do to help with this.

The most amazing statistic was that about 40% of porn is consumed by women. This totally blew my mind. Here you think its just a guy thing, but its not. In fact, housewives are the main group of women that use pornography, this really gives new meaning to "Desperate Housewives".

With all that said, we at Risttee are trying our best with such a young congregation to talk about the elephants in the rooms and help our people find and live out the Gospel in every aspect of life.