Prayer service at Home of Hope with COVID-19 room setting.
Dear friends, I’m sharing with you some good and some not so good news.
First, the good news.
- My father and founder of Tartu Acadmey of Theology, Pastor Eenok Haamer, celebrated his 85th birthday on May 17. We praise the Lord that He has given him and his wife Eha strength to continue to serve daily three congregations in Estonia.
- We were able to get an agreement with our creditor to postpone the loan payment for five more months. The next payment is due October 15th, 2020.
- At least at the moment, it seems that Estonia is handling well the Corona virus situation and we hope that we are able to keep this status.
- We already have some new classroom reservations for seminars in June.
- We are working toward the opening of the Pastoral Care Center and making preparatory work to start a 24/7 pastoral care telephone line that will be funded by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Hopefully we will be able to launch in the middle of June.
- The Christian radio is working in full mode at the Home of Hope and more and more people are again finding their way into our facility.
The opportunity to launch the state funded 24/7 pastoral care telephone line is a great acknowledgement to the work that we have done over almost three decades. I’m personally responsible for launching this telephone line and my work days are ending after midnight and starting early in the morning. I was hoping this summer would be more relaxing after last summer when I was unable to have any holiday because of Home of Hope construction and fundraising. Seems that coming summer won’t be much different. But I’m joyful that we can see good results of our work and we are able to share God’s word and blessing with Estonian people.
Second, not so good news.
We have a really big deficit in our annual budget. In order to balance our fiscal year we need to raise $56,953 by June 30th. We have some extra time to raise funds for the next loan payment but we have to continue our daily work. We can’t postpone our daily activities. Our work never stopped during the Corona virus lockdown. Classes were held over the internet and all work was done from a distance, as much as possible.
The Corona crisis is causing big changes in different ways but our work is becoming more and more important in the midst of this crisis and uncertainty. We want and we have to support our fellow citizens.
East European Missions Network is now Spiritual Orphans Network
Our good and long time mission partner East European Missions Network in the US changed its name and is now the Spiritual Orphans Network (SONetwork). This is an exciting development as several mission organisations joined with this new initiative. They continue to serve the Lord in a mission field but in a more effective and fruitful way. Check out their new website www.sonetwork.org to get more information.
Friends of Estonia Summit in ZOOM
I have already organized two Zoom meetings and those have been very uplifting moments. That’s why I’m planning the next Friends of Estonian Summit via the internet using ZOOM June 4th at 12:00 am US Central time. Here is the invitation for you to join:
Siimon Haamer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Friends of Estonia Summit
Time: June 4, 2020 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 864 3976 2687
Password: 310952
Everyone is welcome! You don’t have to let me know in advance, you just click this link enter password and join. Probably you even don’t have to download ZOOM to join but if that’s still needful you can download it onto your computer from here.
Blessings,
Siimon Haamer
Dean of Tartu Academy of Theology
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