These Three Remain
Staff and students of the Estonian Methodist Theological Seminary
The devastation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine brought death to thousands and disruption and dislocation to millions of Ukrainians. We were caught on the edge of this and also found ourselves dislocated, struggling to find our place in the world. Hope for the future at times has been hard to find as the things that we expected to be able to count on disappeared. “But these three remain: faith, hope and love.” - Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13
Thanks to hope, we do not abandon ourselves in the face of the powers of death, of disappointment, or of humiliation. Hope of the fullness of life awakens our senses every morning. - Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Hope: Theology for a World in Peril
While we did experience some of the disappointments Moltmann speaks of we were not abandoned by our God who is faithful. He opened a door of opportunity for us to relocate to Estonia. Here we have been blessed to find ourselves surrounded by communities of hope in which we join with others who are also pursuing the life of hope in Jesus.
One of these communities is the Estonian Methodist Theological Seminary. Here God has provided us a place to serve alongside of faculty who are dedicated to the preparation of men and women who have been called to build new communities of hope in which people experience the love of God ad live out the transformation that the gospel brings.
Allar and Piret Saard’s mens’ and womens’ Wednesday home group.
For many years in Ukraine our church was a handful of folks meeting weekly in someone’s flat to pray, encourage, and help one another turn our hearts and minds to God through worship and the study of the scriptures. These kinds of smaller groups, whether home church groups of 10 or discipleship bands of 3 or 4, have helped us to experience hope in community. This has given us a desire to share this experience of smaller, more intimate communities of hope with people in Estonia, a society known for its individualism, yet, as we are discovering, longing for fellowship.
Allar and Piret Saard have worked in partnership with OMS for many years, being coached in a new understanding of the importance of smaller fellowship groups for evangelism, discipleship and pastoral care. Through seminars and weekly training, members of their men’s and women’s groups have started nine other communities of hope. Several of these new communities have been formed in local care homes that provide care for the elderly, disabled or poor who cannot look after themselves. A group of women Christ-followers bring hope to the care homes through offers of prayer, the sharing of scripture and the message of Jesus’ love. This expression of hope-in-action is bringing about what the Saards call a ‘slow motion revival’. In the past six months, fifteen people made decisions to follow Christ including one woman who was 99 years old!
Seeing more and more ordinary believers mobilized to create and multiply new communities of hope as Moltmann writes, “awakens our senses every morning” to the way God’s Kingdom is bringing transformation in Estonia.
