Fall 2004

Dear friends,

We arrived in Tallinn on St. John’s night – the longest day of the year and Estonia’s biggest national celebration – and were deeply satisfied to be back in the land of family, friends, dark bread and weekly saunas. There wasn’t much time for rest though. Our first two weeks were full of preparations for our partnership project with Pastor Eerek and Pilvi Preisfreund who minister in the small town of Avispea.

Both Eerek and Pilvi grew up with Lea in the Viimsi Church. Eerek has been pastoring the Avispea congregation for seven years. Avispea is a small farming town in North-East Estonia. In a rural church with 24 elderly members, there is no money to pay a pastor. So Eerek works as an engineer at a local dairy. His job keeps him busy all week and is frequently demanding—the Soviet-era machines break down! Pilvi cares for Andreas (7) and Mattias (2), and also is studying to become a primary school teacher. A week after our mission with the Preisfreunds finished, they will have taken their first vacation in three years!

After those two weeks of preparations, we joined up mid-stream with “Alongside Discovery 2004” (AD2004) mission project at Le Leibfrauenberg Christian conference center near Strasbourg, France. Every two years Alongside offers a leadership and mission project for young people interested in discovering our Christian identity, vision and mission in the context of modern Europe. This year’s project was special for us because two friends from the Viimsi Church, Astrid Raja and Jaana Tamm, took part. Many of you met Astrid and Jaana last summer on our Youth Mission Exchange project. AD 2004 was a great opportunity to “spur them on to love and good deeds” and to broaden their vision for how God can use them in his kingdom. Thank you to many of you who helped us to send them with your financial gifts. It would not have been possible without you! Seeing Astrid and Jaana again, we were overwhelmed with a sense that the teenagers we had known are becoming such astounding young women. It makes us proud!

To top off our Estonian pride, another good friend, Pastor Meego Remmel, president of the Estonian Evangelical Alliance, and rector of the Baptist and Free Church Union Seminary, and his family joined us for AD2004. Meego lectured on “Conflicting Estonian Christian Perspectives of the EU Expansion” and “The Ecumenical Movement in Estonia”. Though he felt these subjects were not his areas of expertise, no one was able to tell the difference. After his lectures a number of the participants came to me and said that they would have attended AD2004 if only to hear Meego speak!

At the heart of AD2004 were three mission teams sent out to serve Alongside partners in Albania, Lille, France (among Muslims) and Lea and I led the team to Estonia. Our team included Alongside Trustee Alan Knepper, and Barbara, John and Zach Knepper from California, Marielle Gérard from Washington, Jana Bohadlova from the Czech Republic, Amanda McLamb from North Carolina, Christy Biernes from Florida, Kyle Tate from Wyoming and Peter Jones from California. In Avispea, we joined the Estonian youth with whom we would work, camp and offer our seminar. Selected by their pastors for our camp based on their commitment to Christ, desire to grow and potential to lead, they were: Anita, Verner and Villi from Rakke, Lembi from Lehtse, Triin and Merle from Antsla, Mango from Otepää, and Heigo and Andres from Viimsi.

Our goals were to serve the community of Avispea together and in the process to deepen our walk with Christ through Bible study and prayer; to develop skills and confidence to serve more, and to plant the seeds for future cooperative ministry between the Estonian participants. The project culminated with a 3-day children’s camp offered to the Avispea community. Not only did our youth participants shine in their leadership roles but the camp drew an amazing 42 children from a town of 125 people! At the team debriefing on our last night in Estonia, each participant recounted how God had built them and stretched the limits of their perspectives. Lea and I were thrilled at the success of all our goals.

When the Estonians returned to their own towns, and the AD team to France for the last week of AD2004, and the Preisfreunds began packing for their Sweden vacation, Lea and I returned to Viimsi for a few weeks with family and friends, dark bread and weekly saunas.

Now we are back in Vancouver and the next semester of studies at Regent is fast approaching. I’ll be studying hermeneutics, preaching, systematic theology and Hebrew. Lea will take an introduction to Biblical languages and a Christian counseling course. I am continuing the process toward ordination with the PCUSA, will lead a weekly community group at Regent, and will also work as an Intern in the youth ministry of a local church. As if this were not enough, we’ll also be putting together a plan for our next summer project in Estonia. Thank God there is a barrista in the family!

Thank you for your support of our ongoing ministry to Estonia, especially as we balance life on both continents during this season of growth and study! We’re very grateful for the freedom to minister and to mature as God’s servants that your partnership allows us.

Blessings,

Matt & Lea

PS – A letter like this gives little space for deeper description of our projects and vision and so we’ve created a web-site for those of you who would like to explore a bit more. You can find a report and picture gallery for our project in Avispea at www.edminsters.com and we’ll be adding more content all the time.