reflections from Soma

Craig and I returned in the end of last week from Soma school in Tacoma, WA.
It was a great time. Definitely very stretching.

There were 11 international guys attending Soma School (+ around 10 americans)

Most lasting impression on me was left by Jeff Vanderstelt and his talks about the Gospel, what is church, and the identities of church/christian. It was specially powerful to me cause trying to understand the Gospel has been an area where God has working in my heart the most. I am convinced that the understanding of Gospel (and the full gospel) has to be the foundation of everything that we do, and everything we are.
I am still trying to process some of the things Jeff said about the gospel. For example the full gospel (means+purpose):
Means of Salvation (Gospel power): God-Sin-Jesus-Faith not works
Purpose of Salvation (Gospel story): Creation-Fall-Redemtion-Restoration

It was great to see how their church model worked. Instead of "come to us" (attractional model) they are definitely hard-core "lets go out to them" (missional model). They are really gospel based. people in their communities really get that the church is the people. And it was also interesting to observe their dialogical story-based teaching style. People in Soma really know the Story (their term for the bible, more specifically for the redemptive arc of bible stories).

Missional communities (small groups) are really on mission, that can be the specific neighborhood or target-group specific mission. Besides that very many people had their own personal mission projects. That was really great to see.

We are starting to process everything that we heard during that week to see what can we learn from it for our local context.

Seattle skyline

Appart from everything I learned there, it was hard to be away from Anna and Emma. But I have to tell you, NW seems to be a great place to go back to. I love the nature there. Totally my type! Maybe one day I can go riding the bikes in the mountains with my family there

Czech-Estonia-USA

We just returned from spending a week with Josiah Venture family in Malenovice, Cz. It was a refreshing and a stimulating time. Starting with JV council meetings where we concentrated on what is needed in different countries to double the fruit in the next 3 years.
The theme for this years spring conference was spiritual warfare. So often we forget that we are soldiers in the battle field filled with unexpected attacks. Instead we have the mentality of retired bum who has got a free ticket to heaven and doesn't know what to do with his time.

JV council members

Emma loves two things above all other:
1. Animals (furry and moving)
2. Babies (not so furry but also moving)
She went hysterical in the conference when she saw another small kid.

We got back today evening.
At 3am i will catch a bus to Tallinn to fly to Seattle, USA. Craig and I will spend a week and couple of days in Soma school (church planters school that Acts29 network Soma school is organizing). I am really looking forward to that time. It will be great. But at the same time I really would want to go right now since I see that there are many strategic things that would need my attention here. And i dont want to leave Emma and Anna behind.

You can be praying for all the travels and that the time there would bear kingdom fruit in the years to come in Estonia.


These are some pictures from the JV spring conference

Fried brain

I don't know if you have ever felt that your brain is so full of information, that it can not take any more. ALl the places that we have visited and things that i have heard have pushed me into this limit and now things are starting to mix up in my head.
Today was a great day that we spent around the Sea of Galilea - the center of Jesus' ministry on earth. While I am still processing everything in my head, i will share with you a picture of my friend from South Africa. Watching him dancing and singing makes me feel sad that i dont have any black peoples blood in me!

Strategy

In Jerusalem you can see almost on every step the conflicts between Christianity jewish and muslim religions. That has been going on for centuries. One visible element of that is the fate of different building through centuries when they have switched sides. It is not uncommon for a church to become a mosque and then a church and then a mosque.

Golden gate is in the middle of the wall. Around and below that you can see the cemetary

One specially sneaky thing that the arabs have done is visible if you look from the Mountain of olives to the temple mount. There is a big sealed gate leading to the old city. It is called the Golden Gate. According to the jewish tradition (based on some bible texts) that is the gate from which Messiah will enter the city of Jerusalem. To prevent that from happening the muslims have sealed the gate and created a muslim graveyard in front of that gate. And of course no jew will step into the muslim cemetary. You can call that preventive strategy. Or cheap play.

Looking for my master to return as the King of Kings,
Peep

Life-changing contrast

It hit me yesterday, looking up to the huge and massive archways of the Holy Sepulture church - the huge power of religion.
What has been done in the name of it. How many lives have been impacted for better or worse through out thousands of years. Were they jewish, muslim or christian. Intimidating and saddening.

The power of religion from one hand - and the Message and Way of Christ on the other hand. I wonder what would Jesus feel and do if he would come to nowadays Jerusalem. What would he feel and do if he would come to our church. If he would come to me?

Yeah, i cant forget the contrast between religion and the person and work of Jesus...

Holy Sepulture church - possible location where Jesus died (catholic and orthodox tradion)

Jews celebrating bar-mitzvahs by the western wall

Group of israeli soldiers (they are so young) in a bible-study group in the old city

Israeli driving

I guess driving can be tricky even in the Holy Land.

pics

The western wall. The golden dome is moslem temple called The Rock, locted in the Holy of holies of the jewish temple.

Travelling in the beduine way

Surnumere mudamees

Discipleship in action

THis is where David was running from king Saul

Beduine hospitality

In the wilderness

Why was the Son of God, Jesus, led to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit right after he was baptized? I dont know. But we returned from the Judean desert where Jesus was tempted.
80% of the world's deserts are not sandy but rocky. And Judean desert is one of the rocky ones. Kilometres after kilometres hilly slopes and only yellow-white-brown stones everywhere. If you are not careful you can fall and cut yourself pretty bad.

I have to say that the Israel that we have seen so far is not like a well kept, nice and neat western country. It is strange to think that countries and nations have been fighting over this small and barren (50% is desert) land for thousands of years. I guess that is what can happen when God chooses a piece of land and declares it His own.

Conference is starting in half an hour so i'll get going. I will update the pictures in the evening.

Shalom

Palestinians in the sauna

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

I am sitting in a nearby cafe shop with wireless internt to write the last couple of words before heading to bed.
Today people are still just flying in and so it was a free day to do whatever you wanted. We spent couple of hours in the center of the city, wandering around without any purpose and direction.
On thing that is really confusing for me is to figure out what religion or nationality are the native people that i meet on the streets - arabs, jews, orthodox greek or armenian. The only easy target to spot is american church tourist. And there are a lot of them.

I have a new head cover

Are thes jewish or palestinian guys - im not sure.

I just had one of the most memorable sauna experiences. After delicious dinner i decided to test out the spa in the hotel. I met 4 palestinian guys in the turkish sauna. They were middle aged and very hairy. They didnt speak a lot of english and i spoke none of the arab. But we had fun communicatin. After explaing me all their names (Suz means horse in hebrew and rabbit in arab for example) they rubbed eachother with sope and started massaging each other. After that we headed to the hot tub. It was a small hot tub and there were 5 of us. I also understood that you can not be a true arab if you dont have 12 kids. And then they talked about their different lives, but i could not figure out what they meant by that.
Tomorrow we have to get up at 6am. So time to walk through the warm and dark night back to the hotel.
Shalom.

Shalom

After a smooth day of travelling we made it to our hotel at 4:20am. We were the first ones to arrive from the whole 200 people that will be here for the GYI summit the next 11 days. It was great to finally get some sleep in nice beds. We had a great time in the plane with Märt (director of Going UP and my brother) and Mihkel (director of Freedom youth movement) talking for hours about ministry in Estonia.

In Schiphol airport: Mihkel meditating in the meditation room (while the arabs were praying towards meka in the background)

View from my window

I have to say that although outside the hotel looks very fancy, inside it is in a typical mediterranian style, where everything is not in very tidy and fixed up. But thats the south.

The conference will start this evening and before that we had couple of hours to swing by the center of Jerusalem. It is hot and sunny - just like the middle of summer in Estonia (sometimes). Quite a differece from the snowy Estonia :)

I am really looking forward to the next days, as we will be following Jesus' footsteps in this holy land and city. Jesus on location - that is the theme for the days. My prayer is that the person and work of Jesus would become more real to me.

PS In the hotel internet access is so costly (230EEK per day) that i have to figure out some other ways to be connected every once in a while.

1 picture = 1000 words

hey everyone,
just wanted to let you all know that i put up the pictures from our U.S trip yesterday. even thought every othe picture is of emma, i still hope you have a chance to look through them, there might even be one of you in there!
it was such a great time for us, thank you for making it such an enjoyable trip!
CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR WEB ALBUM

Making the shift

Estonia sure seems to be grey and dark this season of the year. Specially if you make the transition from a hot and clear skies sunny Sothern California. It took us 29 hours to travel from door to door, but it went surprisingly smoothly inspite of travelling with a enormous amount of baggage and a 8-month old baby. We didn't loose our luggage but the airlines broke the stroller that we had bought just one week before we flew to the states.
Last night Emma was up and crying for 4 hours straight. And when the baby doesn't sleep then the parents are up also (at least mommy is!).
But it is good to be back.

Day 19: Traffic and Exponential

I have spent almost 3,5 hourst today in traffic. Its awful. I dont think i am strong enough of a christian to live in LA. I would be experiencing road rage every time i'm on the road.

Appart from the traffic the Exponential conference that is about creating a culture of generousity in your church has been really stretching for me personally. That is something that I really want to see in my own life, in our family and in Risttee church! I'm ready for God to continue his work in me also tomorrow. Besides im very excited to hear for the first time in my life Rick Warren and Joel Ortberg talking.

Out of everything in the conference today the thing that talked to me the most was the video of Malawii Miracle - the project that WACC church did to raise money for building an hospital in Malawii.

Day 18: I'm not a whiner

I'm very proud of myself. Today we were in the outlets shopping for 5 hours and my duty was to babysit Emma during all that time. But i did not WHINE! Learn from me guys!

PS Of course there are guys like Rodney Brown, Rich Richardson and Joel Thomas who actually enjoy shopping and consider it a great way to spend time. I dont even pretend to be on their level.

Day 17: My personal record!

I went to church 5 times today. Do they give some type of an award for that? Thats my personal record i'm sure. If you add to that also a church service on saturday evening, then thats even more.
WACC has 4 services over the weekend and I was able to give a short greeting in all of the services. I think it went quite well. WACC church continues to model to me and our church generosity in ways that we have not seen before. In september when i saw Bill (the pastor of WACC) then i mentioned to him that we lost our camera after the summer english camps. As a church they decided to give us a great new Sony HD camera + Final Cut studio for Mac. Once again I am blown away how much people believe in us and the ministry in Estonia!

One thing that is great for all the churches in LA is that they can have the cafeterias and reception areas outside all throughout the year. In the pic: WACC church

Since I was already in LA then there are 2 churches that i have wanted to visit for a long time:
Mosaic church that gathers in downtown LA in a Mayan theater. And the Rock Harbor church, which is the "cool" church for the college students and single adults.

I went to the 7pm service in Mosaic. Lets say that it was a different experience. Mosaic gathers in a theater that is filled with all these sculptures and decorations that are mayan cultural and spiritual symbols. The people that had gathered (maybe 300 people) were different than the average people. I guess the best i could describe them would be multicultural urban artistic types. I did not feel that i am the target group. The worship was rocky-edgy-hard-indie. I didn't recognize any of the songs. Speaker was quite ok. Too bad that Erwin McManus himself wasnt there.


Rock Harbor gathered for the last time at 9pm. It took me an hour to get there from Mosaic. Although the service was so late at night, it was totally packed probably 1000+ people. And that was the 5th service over the weekend. The Rock definitely was much more main stream. There were the typical american college student type people unlike in the Mosaic. By that time i was already quite tired, so i spaced out couple of times in the the 1hour and 40minutes long service. Some things that were very cool - they had a great dance in the service and it even had a point that was very creatively communicated and tied into the sermon. And from the announcements i remember that the Rock sent over 2000 people to short term trips this last summer! Thats awsome. They want to live out the servants dna of a missional church.


By the time I got home it was close to midnight and i sneaked to bed so that i wouldn't wake up Anna and Emma.

Day 16: Atl - LA

Today we started the last leg of our trip - the plane from Atl to Los Angeles left in the morning. Emma was quite good on the 5 hour flight. If you want to learn coordination then i have an exercise for you - try to change extremely poopy diaper in the airplane restroom where the ceiling is too low for you to stand up even.
It still amazes me how different the cities of Atlanta and LA are. Even from the plane you can tell what a difference there is. Atlanta from the air is all green, full of trees. Just two strips of concrete are in Buchkead area and downtown. Flying in to LA is a different deal all the way. You are flying in the desert for 2 hours and then starts the city but that is only concrete and stones. No sign of green almost at all. One thing is similar in both cities though - traffic is horrendeous in both!

Day 15: Fall

Yesterday we visited the largest house in United States - the Biltmore Estate. Thats one big house. Built in the style of European mansions/castels but only 120 years old. The house was decorated with for christmas and it was really beautiful, even the sceptic that i am liked it. There was also a choire that kept singing in the big lobby for all the guests. They were awful though.


Today we are driving back from the Cove. Fall can be so beautiful. Too bad that in estonia we dont have that many sugar maple trees as here in Pennsylvania, North Carolina or even Atlanta. I love about travelling that sometimes you get to travel in time also - fall in Estonia seems a long time ago but here it is just getting here.

Day 14: The Cove

Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove - thats where we are with all the international partners of NP.
In spite of the fact the average visitor here seems to be a southern baptist couple in their 70s, this place truely has a different feel to it. Everything here is so peaceful, calm and beautiful. Great place to connect with God.

Surrouned by beautiful forests

The foyer of the training center

Praying around the globe

Two things that make me smile here:
1. There are bibles everywhere. Even in mens bathroom. I guess if you got to spend more time there you might as well read some chapters.
2. All the waitresses/ladies in the restaurant (most of them are in their 60s i guess) wear a ankle-length blue jean dress. The last time i saw those things was in the beginning of 90s when we got the first second hand clothing packages to Estonia...

Day 13: Friends

Our time in Atlanta is already so filled that we just can`t find time to meet all our friends. What a shame. Next time we just have to plan for couple of more days here.
What a miracle it is to think that just 3 years ago we did not know anyone from Atlanta and now we have so many great friends here!

Emma with her new best friend

Besides being the most popular bachelor in Atlanta, Rich is also known for his sense of style

Jim - the king of Polo

Day 11/12: Move conference

55 people from 15 different countries all over the world (from Indonesia to Brazil) have gathered to Atlante for North Point partnerns conference. Hospitality and kindness is such a characteristic to everyone from NP church that i have come to contact!

It has been great to get to know some of these people and hear about their struggles and celebration stories in planting churches in the cultures that are so different from each other. And of course sessions with Andy are a treat.