Saturday

I have a couple of photos that my interpreter was able to take in between translating and trying to figure what I said and then the best way to interpret it. People in the states have problems understanding me, so sometime it's really a problem for my interpreters! But Aldo did a great job! When I first heard his name was Aldo, I thought I was going to meet one of my long lost relatives from Italy. But Aldo is Estonian through and through.

1. This is a picture of our break time. Notice how high the 'break' room is from the church pews and then where the picture was taken was the floor where the class is. Like I said before three LONG floors up. This picture was taken at the beginning of the week, because by the middle of the week there were two tables full of cookies, with coffee and tea and water and juice. Good food!!!!

2. Here's a picture of me and Heldur the National Director. He was always taking pictures, stills and videos. He told me he hasabout 3 hours of video besides a DVD full of stills.

3. Lunch time. I found out yesterday that we have been eating lunch in the building where the Ministry of Agriculture is located. The bowl in the top left had the consistency of very loose jello and it had rhubarb in it. The white in the very middle was a dab of sour cream. It was very good.

4. And here is one of me teaching.

5. One of the pews in the church. The seat is very narrow and hard, and the back is very straight. Notice the speaker in the middle of the row. The church has a reverberation time of about 2 seconds and the sound lasts for about 12. While teaching the class one day a tour group came through the church, they were a choir. While we were in the middle of class all of a sudden we heard this choir singing. From inside our room the sound was wonderful.

I don't think I ever mentioned a bit of the story about the church there at Olevista. I don't mean the building, I mean the people. Back when Estonia was under Communist rule the communist rulers of Estonia decided that a good way to get rid of Christianity in Tallinn was to put several denominations together under one roof. Make them fight for leadership of the church. They thought that the leaders of all the churches wouldn't be able to get along with each other. The building they picked for this was the Olevista church building. (We won' t talk about how the communist's used the tower for their listening devices and radio signals since it was the tallest building in the city at the time.) I believe that was about 50 years ago. (I might be wrong about the timing of this though). As you can tell it didn't work. What man meant for destroying the church of God turned out to be a blessing. The church here in Olevista has about 1500 members. Praise God.

Because the church is an historical landmark it's likeness is found on all kinds of souvenirs both very nice and well a little bit on the gaudy side. Like the picture of the church on an ashtray or on the side of a shot glass. Ah, capitalism at its best!

John