belly dancers, bombs, singing and Jesus.

Good day to everyone!

It has been such a busy 8 days and I am hoping that I can catch you all up in this blog post.

God has been doing great things here in Estonia. 7 days ago I left with my team to go to a city in Estonia called Elva. That day we met with a great team from the city and had some training with them. Later on in the evening a team from Salem Chapel church in North Carolina made it to Elva after 46 hours of traveling. They should have made it much sooner than that, God had different plans with them. They were very tired but joyful when they finally made it. We had some training with them that night and then we all went to get rest for camp.

The next day (Sunday/Pühapäev) all of us went to the church in Elva to join their congregation for service. After the service Chris and I left to head to Tartu to pick up all the materials for camp while Kati and Evelin went ahead to Sihva to check on the facility where camp would be. The team from North Carolina stayed with the team from Elva because they would be joining the students for camp to ride on the bus with all of them. This year we wanted the camp to begin on the bus, which seemed to work really well.

As Chris and I were finally heading to Sihva with the materials Chris received a phone call. We were told from Kati that there was a group of belly dancers that were putting on a concert in the school we would be staying at and we would have to wait until later to set up. This meant one thing, IMPROV. So, that is what we did. Everything worked out very well, we ended up starting our first session right on time as planned. Later on that night around 1:30 in the morning some locals decided to mess with our camp and throw mud at the windows of the rooms that the girls were staying in. We could not get them but it ended up being a short night of sleep. God was in control.

The next day we continued on with our sessions and had our first English Environments which consisted of Comics, Meet & Greet, and CSI:Estonia. The students had a great time. At the end of the day we were pretty exhausted. We had seen the students were really struggling to listen to and talk about the story of God. Some were even at the point of saying, "I don't care about God, don't talk with me about it." We were very trusting that God had the students in His hands. The night of the second day of camp the fun began again at 1:30 in the morning. This time though it was homemade vinegar "bombs." When the first set of these "bombs" went off we called the police and basically the police said we don't care, call us if it happens again. Well we ended up calling again, after the second set of "bombs" went off. This time they came out and the local kids had already ran away, so the cops took one of the blown up bottles and set and watched over the school for the night. That night was another short night of sleep. God was still in control.

The next two days we continued on with the Story of God and English Environments which now consisted of The Amazing Race, Jeopardy, and World Villages. The story became very tough for the students as we began to talk about the flood (where God killed everyone on earth) and other stories where the students seemed to see God as mean. Somewhere in this time we had a student leave camp because there was too much God involved. It was very cool though that in the last 4 or 5 parts of the talk to see the mood in the room changed. We began to talk about the Israelites and how they kept messing up and going back to God who would forgive them. As this part of the story wold go on I believe that students began to realize that the people were the problem and that God was always consistent and Holy (good, right, and perfect). God was in control and grabbing the students hearts.

On wednesday we introduce the students to the part of the story where Jesus was born and about the live he lived. All the miracles he did and how he loved and forgave everyone. This is where things really changed and the students were relieved because, "Ahh, finally something good in the story!" On Thursday morning the story of Death and resurrection was told and the students talked a lot about this in their small groups. After the meeting on Thursday we had lunch and took many pictures and then the students got onto a bus with the team from North Carolina and headed home. God had been so in control everyday that week even when things could be very hectic. I made so new very special friends this past week at camp and I won't forget them.

We had students who changed and were very interested in looking more into this "God thing." One guy, who I am very proud of, decided that God was pretty okay after stating at the beginning of the week, "I don't care about God, don't talk to me about it.

On Friday we had a great "grill and chill" and picture party with the students from Elva. We had an opportunity to share somethings we were all grateful for and then I took a moment to thank God for all of those things, the people there and the food. It was a very cool moment. We had goodbyes that night, this was very difficult to say goodbye to everyone. We had all been so close that week. After goodbyes, our team + the North Carolina team headed back to our hotel in Elva to get some rest before our early morning the next day.

On Saturday we got up around 5 to 5:30 in the morning to have breakfast and then head to Tartu to catch a train to Tallinn. The train ride was great, it consisted of good sleep and conversations about where the church (as a whole) is at in the States. The rest of the day was so much fun. We did soooooo much walking but it was totally worth it. The team split up and went shopping and sight seeing. Then we met up and took a journey to a place where over one hundred thousand people were gathering to sings songs together. Laulupidu 2009 was going on this year. This happens once every four years and I was so glad we were all able to be a part of it. After Laulupidu we walked back to down town Tallinn to go back to our Hostel to spend the night. The next morning we sent the North Carolina team in taxi to the airport to begin their journey home. After sending them off our team met up with Märt and his family for lunch. Then we met with our two friends Meelis and Johnny D. to get on a bus and head back to Tartu.

I hope this all made sense to you guys. I was just trying to get it all out in one entry. I learned a lesson here, make entries every couple of things as things are happening! haha.

Over the past two or three weeks some very cool things have been happening in my life and I am very excited to see what is to come from it. God has been blessing everyone here so much and I am so glad to be a part of what is going on in this country.

All the Glory be to our Father!

-brett