Pastor Artur's Church in Johvi, Estonia - April 16

After visiting the Narva Orphanage and driving by a Shelter in Narva that we didn’t have time to see, we drove westward to Sillamae, about a 25 minute drive from Narva. There, Milan and I were going to be passed off to Pastor Artur who would drive us back to Johnvi (pronounced “Ickvey”). There was a Children’s home in Sillamae we were hoping to see, but Pastor Artur needed to get back to town as he had a meeting. Pastor Artur is very influential in Johvi with his outreach to the community. He is a member of the City Council and that was the meeting he had to attend.

Artur took us to his church and gave us a brief tour. Then he showed us where we were staying. It was a very comfortable room that has a separate bathroom and even internet access. That gave us some time to rest from the trip as both of us had to wake up at 5am to get to the bus that left for Estonia at 7:15am. So, the two hours did us some good.

Artur returned at about 6pm and members had fixed us dinner. We spoke for a while and then went to a service that begun at 7pm. Artur asked me to share a little about the SAC ministry and what we were doing. In his sermon, Pastor Artur talked about seed planting. I spoke about the same things with regards to our seed planting among the orphans we minster to.

After the service we made plans to visit several places in the surrounding area of places that their church was directly involved in or where they visited often. On the schedule for Friday was to visit two orphanages, a camp, and a Day Center for Disabled Children that is due to open in September. All this was planned before heading back to St. Petersburg on Friday afternoon!