Estonia Arrival!

We all arrived on Saturday evening in Estonia. The Tallinn airport is nice and has only 14 gates! It was a quiet modern airport and easy to get around. We had all our bags and were in a van heading to Johvi within 40 minutes. The trip from Tallinn to the Kohtla-Nomme orphanage near Johvi is was about 2 hours. We stopped half-way to eat some shish-kabob called “Shalik” on our way. We didn’t arrive at the orphanage until nearly 10pm. We were settled in rooms and briefly met the director who was leaving on vacation and needed to be in the airport at 3am. All of us as the staff that were there met around a table for tea to introduce ourselves and allow them to ask questions. All they knew was that some “English” people were coming for a visit! So we explained that we would be here a week and that we were Americans from Texas. We built relationships that evening, but I had really planned to have a meeting like this on Sunday afternoon, not the night we got in! But they had questions and wanted to know more about us. It was about 12am before we got to bed after being up about 30 hours!

Sunday we went to church and worshiped together for about 2.5 hours that morning with a group of about 40 members. Our new friends prepared lunch for us at the church that afternoon. We met with Pastor Artur Pold that afternoon. He was leaving to go to the USA on Wednesday so that would be the only time we got to see him. Later that afternoon they took us around Johvi and we visited some waterfalls pouring into the Gulf of Finland. It was a nice day to do this and with some snow still on the ground in piles, it created a temptation to throw a few snowballs!

On Sunday evening we met with the head counselor and the schedule told to us on Saturday evening was changed. She coordinated with the Sillamae orphanage on the timing on when we would come. For most orphanages, it is better for them for a group of visitors to come in the evening. So, there were competing time slots. Nevertheless, we worked it out and we travel to Sillamae 1 hour to work with those kids from that orphanage from 5-6pm. Then travel to Kokla-Nomee from 6-7pm. Eat a quick dinner and then begin our program with Kokla-Nomee orphanage from 7:30-about 9pm. Then we sometimes get to have some social time with the older kids in the orphanage who are not interested in the crafts that the younger kids would do. It’s a great way to reach them.

Sunday was a great day, but also a day of rest from the long trip. We were excited to begin our activities the next day!