Project donations

Since moving to Estonia a number of friends have asked if they can support The Salvation Army's work here. We are really grateful for this generosity.

If you would like to organise a fundraiser at your corps or would like more information about specific projects or programmes to publicise at special events please feel free to contact us for more info.

For info about bank transfers please drop me a personal email at:
ced.hills@paastearmee.ee

Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire(wood)!

Life as a Salvation Army officer has exposed me to activities and experiences I would never have dreamt about. Particularly during the last 17 years since my first emergency response, I have found myself discussing subjects that the training college never prepared me for:  rehabilitation of salt pans in India, sewerage system clearance in Iraq, cooking stove manufacture in Kosovo, tarpaulin processing in Mumbai and medicinal herb garden nurseries in Kenya - just some of the rather unexpected openings that Salvation Army ministry have provided.

Our appointment to Estonia has exposed me to another – firewood! This week, before engaging in critical meetings, my earnest prayer was, ‘Lord, send the firewood!’ Let me explain:

Our business in The Salvation Army is ‘saving souls, growing saints and serving suffering humanity’. In order to do this we use all means possible. The Estonia Region is blessed with a dynamic social services programme. Hope House is a residential rehabilitation centre serving the needs of approx 20 men battling addictions (drugs and alcohol). The intensive support programme last around 9 months, after which graduates have opportunity to transition into a less regimented ‘move on’ wing, offering more independent living while they find employment and get some money behind them. The programme – Living Hope – is being used by God in amazing ways. Our Christian faith is not hidden and our funders and government sponsors understand that the transforming power of the Gospel is at the heart of the programme. So Bible studies, attendance at worship at the Kopli corps, and other spiritual counselling are essential and mandatory aspects of the programme. If you have a few spare minutes - why not check out this video.

The other mandatory expectation is that every person in the programme participates in work therapy. Didn’t someone say, ‘the Devil makes work for idle hands’? Well, the team at Hope House make sure that everyone keeps busy – all the time! There are 2 distinct work programme activities. The first allows the guys the dignity of helping others. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the centre is filled with around 200 needy local people who come for a warm meal and a chat. The guys are involved in food preparation and service. It’s their opportunity to serve their neighbourhood and they do it with passion and enthusiasm. On Tuesdays and Thursday local residents come to use the showers or washing facilities or just for a chat and discussion.

Firewood project - it's hard work!

The second activity is our firewood project. A large, rented yard and warehouse complex just walking distance from the centre serves as our firewood project. Logs are purchased from RMK, the state forest management centre then manually chopped down into firewood which is sold in bundles to local residents. It is hard, physical work – and it doesn’t stop for rain or snow! Known in Estonian as http://www.kuttepuud24.ee/ (check out the web page) the project generated around 15,000 euros profit last year – essential funds to help run Hope House.

Our goal is to expand the project. We now buy 24 – 40 m3 of logs each month – our goal is to

Logs arrive ready for chopping and bagging

gradually increase this to around 100 m3 and an annual profit of 50,000 euros. To do this we need a rgular supply of logs – so this week Lieutenant Alexey (Hope House director) Juri (Project foreman) and I met with Ulvar, marketing director RMK. Cash flow is a huge problem for us – we have no funds and live ‘hand to mouth’, so buying a larger monthly wood stock is difficult. So – we prayed – Lord, send the fire(wood)! From the very start of the meeting it was obvious Ulvar wished to be helpful. We left with the promise that a draft contract would be developed and a line of credit investigated. If this works out we will have a reliable, agreed source of wood and enough time to chop and sell the firewood before having to pay for the raw materials. By the way – before my friends working in International Development have palpitations – the forestation is sustainably and environmentally managed.

Reliable 3-phase supply needed for saw

For the next stage we need to equip the project to cope with the larger monthly throughput. We have no direct electricity supply on site so can’t use the second hand industrial saw that has been donated. So our ‘send the fire(wood)’ prayer becomes ‘show your power!!’ If you are a praying person – please remember us. Then we need a forklift to move the wood around the yard.

I sat in Thursday’s meeting thinking, ‘what on earth do I know about forestry and firewood?’. The training college certainly didn’t cover that in the curriculum J But that’s one of the exciting things about ministry in The Salvation Army – using diverse methods to achieve the goal of seeing lives transformed.  Lord – send the fire!

I'm free!!

John Inman as 'Mr Humphries'

 Brits of a certain age might remember Mr Humphries. Created by actor John Inman, his catchphrase, ‘I’m free’, became his trademark. When spoken with Inman’s typical comedy camp-ness, the phrase carried multiple connotations and always raised a smile as viewers interpreted for themselves what this ‘freedom’ might mean!

I confess that this catchphrase came to mind earlier this week as we joined with the people of Estonia to celebrate freedom. Tuesday (20th August) marked another year since the restoration of Independence. Dramatic developments in the Soviet Union in August 1991 resulted in the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania finally regaining their independence and Estonians celebrate this recovery of freedom with real enthusiasm. It’s a public holiday, so we all enjoyed a lovely summer’s day off. As we arrived home from work on Monday 19^th we noticed a large Estonian flag propped up in the hallway of our apartment block. The next morning the flag was

The national flag flown outside our apartment

proudly flying outside.  Throughout the city (and I guess in other cities across the country, too) homes and businesses were decorated with flags. It was a wonderful sight.

Our day started early as Capt Ave (our Corps officer at Kopli) had called us all to a 7am open air prayer meeting at Pikk Herman, the tower of Toompea castle. We returned to the hall afterwards for refreshments as others joined us for an 8am meeting of prayer for the nation, its people and its leaders. Later in the day we joined with what felt like half the population of Tallinn for a wonderful open air concert in Kadriog park. Abut 1,000 musicians, enthusiastic flag waving and a bit of a ’sing-song’. As an overseas visitor and a Brit abroad it was a privilege to

The music festival in Kadriog Park

share these celebrations – a powerful reminder that those who most appreciate freedom are perhaps those who have known what it is to have freedom denied them. Having never lived under the oppression of political occupation I’m surely guilty of taking the blessings of freedom for granted.

This theme continued later in the week as I came across the new mission slogan introduced by The Salvation Army in Australia. Early next month Salvationists will gather in congress for a ‘Freedom Celebration’. It looks to be a fantastic event – but the intro on the web announcement echoes the mission of every Salvationist – in whatever part of the world we serve: The Salvation Army is about people finding freedom.  The Freedom Celebration promotes what we’re doing as an evangelical movement to help people find freedom from whatever confines them from living life to the full.  The freedom we celebrate is found through our faith in Jesus Christ, through a nurturing community, and through actions of service and kindness to others……………we're about people finding freedom.

Freedom from fear. Freedom from neglect. Freedom from poverty and addiction.

Freedom to dream. Freedom to love. Freedom to make a difference.

Freedom to live life to the full.

I encourage you to take a peek at the web site: http://my.salvos.org.au/freedom-celebration/  I pray that the event will powerfully remind those who attend that spiritual freedom is an incredible blessing and one we need to share with others.

Mr Humphries was a fictional character, birthed in the 70’s BBC comedy show, ‘Are you being served?’ As I draw this week’s random rambling to a close I’m reminder that British Salvationists proudly wear 2 x ‘S’s on their uniforms. Last week we removed ours and replaced them with the 2 x ‘P’s worn by members of the Estonian 'Paastearmee'. But these ‘S’s have always meant more to me than the first letter of our organizational name – growing up I was taught that they are worn as a reminder that we are ‘saved’ to ‘serve’. We celebrate the opportunity (and responsibility) we have to serve others and the huge privilege of introducing them to the blessings of freedom through a relationship with Jesus.

Standing on holy ground

One of the blessings of moving to a new country is discovering the different cultures of your new homeland. One of Estonia’s lovely customs is the respect guests show when entering your home by removing their shoes. It’s normal practice that when you enter a home you take your shoes off and leave them by the door. I’ve certainly been checking my socks more carefully when getting dressed in the morning! This courtesy extends beyond friends and house guests. We’ve recently had service engineers visit from the telecoms company. Their first task has been to remove their shoes. This week we located our prospective doctors and went along to register.  On entering the surgery we were confronted with a shoe rack (on which to place our shoes) or a basket of plastic shoe bags for us to put on over our shoes – like the ones you see forensic teams wearing at crime scenes! These are all new experiences for us but seem to show a healthy respect for the homes and properties of others – unless it’s simply an irrational over sensitivity to the risk of germs, of course :-)

Either way, on numerous occasions my mind has strayed to the famous story of Moses and his meeting with God, recorded in Exodus 3. Confronted with the miraculous sight of a flaming bush that was not burning, up Moses turned to take a closer look. From out of the bush God spoke a warning, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ Despite Moses’ fears about his youthfulness and inadequacy, God called him into service and promised His presence for the incredible spiritual journey that would follow.  That ‘holy ground’ experience set the seal upon a lifetime of ministry and spiritual leadership.

This week it has been our joy to meet our new Territorial Leaders, Colonels Johnny and Eva Kleman. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed their company and found their personal ministry to us to be caring, thoughtful and inspirational. It will be a joy to work with them and we look forward to their leadership of our formal installation ceremony at Kolpi corps tomorrow. Following the meeting we will have our first fellowship with the Region’s officers and centre leaders. During worship we plan to sing Geron Davis’s lovely song based on that Exodus 3 story, ‘We are standing on holy ground, and I know that there are angels all around. Let us praise Jesus now. We are standing in His presence on holy ground’.  We appreciate that there may be some natural reservation as colleagues meet us for the first time but we pray that our first moments of fellowship might be blessed by a real sense of God’s presence.

Loksa camp

Inspecting the rooms

A few days ago Lyn and I took our small office team (Kerlin, Evelyn and Shelby)and visited Loksa, the site of our Regional camp. We had heard much about this place, for many years the venue for a regular summer camp programme; the location for men’s, women’s, sport, musicians, Home League, children’s , pensioners and many other varieties of camp! We didn’t quite know what to expect. Would Loksa be a smaller version of the wonderful camp facilities we had visited in America (Echo Grove, Hoblitzel and others)? Would it resemble the ramshackle ‘Blue Peter’ huts at Sunbury? As you can see from the pics the property is a large house, once rather stately and grand but now, very sadly, rather run down and ‘tired’. The water supply is broken so the bathrooms and toilets have a unique aroma (!), the grounds are overgrown, the beds and furniture covered with a layer of dirt and dust, fridges sprouting blossoming mould and spiders having a great time spinning cobwebs. Rooms that must have echoed over the years with the sounds of laughter and fun now stand eerily quiet, looking run down and, speaking frankly, quite sad. As we moved from room to room inspecting the property I sensed a similar sadness descending on Evelyn. She told us about the great camps she had enjoyed over a number of years, the moments of fun, the friendships made and the

Loksa beach - nice, eh? Not a bad spot
for an office outing. Take off your shoes -
you are standing on holy ground!

spiritual high points enjoyed. This place had been so significant in her personal journey of faith; holy ground in the life of a young Salvationist. We have some big decisions to make. Do we try and raise the funds to restore Loksa to a viable standard? Do we scale back the camp programme in future and have one or two weeks each year in a rented, professional facility? Not an easy decision.

In penning this week’s rambling thoughts I draw these experiences together and reflect with thankfulness on those times and places when I have stood on holy ground. Sometimes those moments have come in elaborate worship buildings; other ‘holy ground’ moments have happened in refugee camps or the ruined homes of disaster survivors. While I treasure those ‘special places’ I thank God that His unique, healing and empowering presence is not constrained by structure.  It’s quite ironic that as Solomon dedicated the most ornate Temple that it was possible to build, he had to confess, ‘Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! (1 Kings 8:27). The challenge – I guess – is to make the time, grasp those occasional opportunities, or simply be sensitive to those ‘holy ground’ moments when we become aware of His presence and feel that, even metaphorically, removing our shoes is the very least we can do. Wherever you might worship or gather today I pray the sensing of God’s presence might be a personal reality.

A tale of two cities

It’s been another interesting week during which we sensed the shackles tying us to Tallinn loosening a little! The week started off last Sunday with a 200km journey southwards to Tartu. The roads were wonderful and the scenery stunning (reinforcing our earlier assessment that Estonia really is a beautiful country) – the only downside was travelling on a glorious summer’s day in a car that not only doesn't have air con but which actually kicks out warm air through the rear seat vents even without the heater being turned on! Estonians love a sauna – but in your car!!! We set off early for the 3pm meeting, stopping en route at a windmill/restaurant serving a very tasty daily meal for €2.90 – the best value meal we have found so far.

Maxim shares his testimony

Tartu corps occupies a very nice building on the ground floor of a residential block, close to the city but also surrounded by homes. The compact but smartly maintained worship hall (seats about 60) is complimented by a couple of small group rooms and kitchen and then a nice meeting room/lounge, where tea and coffee and cakes were laid out for our arrival.

It was our privilege to install Cadet Maxim Torgashov and his wife, Candidate Dina as corps assistants. The meeting and worship times were very ably led by local soldiers and friends. Tartu corps is predominantly Estonian speaking so Kerlin translated into English for us and Tanel helped Maxim and Dina by translating into Russian for them. The

Installing Maxim and Dina (Tanel translating)

official installation ceremony is quite wordy – doubly so with translation – but the congregation supported well and gave their new leaders a lovely welcome. Maxim shared his testimony of how meeting with Jesus in prison had transformed him from a life of drugs and alcohol. It was a powerful  and moving word and a stark reminder that we worship and serve a God of 2^nd chances who makes us new and whole. A time of fellowship and delightful meal at Mxim and Dina’s apartment set us up for the journey home. A good day. Our prayers are with Maxim and Dina as they start this new chapter in their life.

On Wednesday we travelled eastwards 175 km to Johvi. Evgeny and Arina have recently started their ministry life there as candidates and full time corps leaders. They have the most gorgeous little boy, Leon (11

New kitchen taking shape

months) and all 3 welcomed us warmly. The corps building has been recently rented; a large 2^nd floor property. The previous occupants had left it full of rubbish and Evgeny and Arina have been working flat out taking van loads to the tip, trying to bring some order to the place. Their willingness to get stuck in, coupled with their vision for what they might do with the place was so refreshing. Thanks to some donated supplies from Finland they were mid way through changing one of the rooms into a kitchen and installing new units. Two residents from Hope House have been living there this week, helping out with the hard work during the day and sleeping in the hall at night. Great job, guys!

Not only have these brand new candidates been confronted with a building requiring considerable TLC but

Johvi corps (upper floor)

after preparing for their first meeting last Sunday they waited expectantly at the hall and not a single person came for worship! Not surprisingly, they were so discouraged. In 27 years of officership Lyn and I have never had to cope with that. We encouraged them to spend the next couple of weeks making contact and visiting those who used to come and then aiming to re-launch Sunday worship at the start of September with a ‘back to church’ special event. Evgeny and Arina are fairly new to the Army but they are quality people. Arina has a Masters in theology and Evgeny is well on the way towards his theology degree. Arina is nervous about ministry among people who have experienced terrible personal challenges. The corps has links with drug addicts and former prisoners and is involved in an aid programme for refugees. We prayed that God would help her to love them and care for them but that He would also give her opportunities for ministry among people she would link with in the course of her daily life – her

Evenhy, Arina and lovely Leon

neighbours, or other mums at the clinic or kindergarten. They would like to turn one of the rooms into a lounge and run parent and toddlers or messy church. They haven’t any equipment or resources, of course, so we pray that help can be found. Before becoming a full time candidate Arina was involved in Christian radio broadcasting, so she would love to turn one of the small rooms into a studio. Evgeny was involved in construction, so the thought of bringing the property up to standard doesn't scare him.

Reflecting on our week we give thanks for positive and enthusiastic new leaders who are bringing the gifts, skills and life experience that God has blessed them with into service as corps leaders. We thank God for their vision and pray that He will help us find the resources we need to turn godly dreams into reality.

To round off the week – we arrived at the office on Friday morning to discover that after a night of torrential rain and thunderstorms the roof of the Kopli corps had been unable to handle the deluge and the upstairs children’s room was flooded! The morning was spent mopping and moving. Life is certainly not dull J

Off with the old – and on with the new

A view over the Old Town

Tallinn really is a beautiful city in which to live. One blessing of the quiet summer programme here in Estonia is the opportunity to indulge in walks during the free evenings. We continued our exploration of the Old Town this week - the history and charm of this place is fascinating – and enjoyed the blessings of the local park in Kadriog. As we sat yesterday to read and enjoy the sunshine we saw a number of wedding groups dotted around the park; making the most of the wonderful setting for their special photos. All those ‘new beginnings’ being celebrated and recorded!

As we walked through the Japanese garden we tried to imagine what the park will look like in just a couple

The park in Kadriog

of months. Having arrived in Estonia during the height of summer we have been warned regularly about the harsh (and long) winters! It is almost impossible to imagine the beautifully tended park buried under deep snow and all those carefully nurtured flower beds hidden. Will the park still throb with activity when deep in snow? We wait to see. It is not until you have seen a city through a full year’s life cycle that you begin to understand the flow of life; the changes, the apparent ‘dying’ and hibernation of the winter and the return to new life in the spring. We look forward to it.

At the moment we are caught up in that natural cycle as it impacts Salvation Army life. These are ‘move days’ – this week officers and centre leaders in Estonia have been moving home. Today we travel 190 kms due south to Tartu to install Maxim an Dina (cadet and candidate) as assistant leaders. It will be our first corps visit outside of Tallinn and we are excited to meet our army family. During this coming week we will

Maxim and Dina farewell from Kopli corps

welcome Aleksey and Julia as they take up new officer appointments in Tallinn. In both places there is nervousness and a sense of anticipation among corps members, staff and residents.  What will the new folks be like? How will they settle? What will they change? As they acclimatise to their new surroundings there will inevitably be adjustment. Rather like the snow covered park, things will inevitably slow for a while as they come to terms with their new surroundings and responsibilities. But, as they find their feet and build new relationships, life will return. It’s the natural process of Army life.

As if to emphasise this –and remind us that no rank in the Army world is exempt from this cycle – we watched with interest as the new General was announced yesterday. We are thrilled that a former TC of Finland and Estonia has been elected (well, with Commissioners Dick K. and Andre C. nominated we had a 40% chance!!). General Cox is a man of God; intelligent, well-travelled, a gifted linguist, business like, not afraid to make hard decisions and – (based on the times I was privileged to share and meet with him as we developed an Emergency training programme) he is a really nice guy with a great sense of humour. 

We remember all those, from General to cadet/candidate, who are moving and taking up new responsibilities this month. As each move into their new roles may the fog of confusion clear rapidly, may the sense of belonging develop soon, may vision for future ministry be clarified and may God bless and guide our Army.