Estonia Brotherston Missions Update

February 2025

SIX MONTHS!!

In some ways it feels like we have been here forever, and in other ways the last half a year has gone by so quickly…
But today we are giving thanks to God for a whole six months - His love, kindness, grace and sovereign plans.
And a huge THANKS to all of you for your love, support, encouragement and generosity!

CHRISTMAS

We stayed in Estonia for Christmas - and had a great time with some new friends and lots going on at the church. It was an interesting time to learn about some of the traditions here! Mostly, we got to help tell lots of people in a very atheistic country that Jesus is the Son of God. Our church service was even on Estonian national television!

VISITORS

In November our great friends - Pastor Rebby Gore (Ireland) and Pastor Vanessa Karera (London) came to visit for Thanksgiving! (That’s HOW GOOD Abby’s Thanksgiving dinner is!)
Then in January we had a visit from Elim’s International Missions Director - Marty Davison… closely followed by Pastors Ryan and Julie Campbell (Belfast) and their two daughters Sofia and Amayah! (Who also happen to be my sister, brother-in-law and nieces!)

It has been wonderful to show people around this amazing city and people.

Thankfully only Marty’s glasses got broken when we went sledding at Lauluväljak! (Estonia’s Singing Festival Grounds - you should google it!)

WHY ESTONIA?

Very good question! (Väga hea küsimus!)

This small nation (1.3ish million people) had a move of God in the early 1990’s, similar to other former Soviet countries. God did amazing things and many churches were established.

More recently evangelism has slowed dramatically and the church here needs some help with passing on the faith to the next generations - most of them have never had to do this before!

One of the reasons we believe that God called us here is to help both the Estonian speaking and Russian speaking churches with their work among the next generation.

Please keep the youth and kids of Estonia in prayer. Many of the churches, youth groups and kids work are very small and this can become discouraging. However, it is exciting to see that God is stirring something at this time.

MINISTRY

It has been a privilege in the last couple of months to:

Host more and more dinners - especially to connect with the churches here.
Serve in our church - Toompea Kogudus.
Preach/teach with six different churches or events.
Lead teen boys small group (Craig) and teen girls small group (Abby).
Decorate a room at the church for the small groups.
Organise the ‘Majakas Christmas Ball’ for the youth group.
Attend Elim’s Global European Conference in Spain. (Craig)
Work on a strategic team at church.
Partner with two new EKNK churches on young leader projects.
Lead worship for the youth group in Estonian. (Abby)

FAMILY

We celebrated:

Aliza’s 12th birthday!
Sianna’s 14th birthday!
Our 17th wedding anniversary!

We all continue to learn language (everyone now learning both Estonian and Russian!)

Everyone is doing well… although Tamara (aged 7) is still finding it hardest to adjust to school in a new language.

UPCOMING

Please keep in your prayers:

Cultivate Ireland interns (Elim Ireland) are in Estonia from 3-10 March.

Team from APA Belfast are helping us to run the first children’s outreach in the Toompea church - 11-21 April.

Youth work among the Tallinn youth especially. Also, the new projects starting with Paldiski and Valga churches.