estoniaX

Our time in Tartu is nearly at an end; tomorrow we'll head back to the capital and main city of Tallin. Hopefully you've been able to follow along with us well enough via our blog that in a sense you're as sad as we are to have to leave! :)

On this our final full day in Tartu we again experienced a rainy day that wiped out the Pancakes Extravaganza. Peep had to go to Talin (maybe we'll see him there tomorrow; I'm not sure) and so he only came by the hotel briefly to talk with KJ. We spent the day with others from the Risttee team: Katrin, Tarmo, Timo, both Hannas, Josh, Daniel, and others. It was a day of relaxation and mutual encouragement for all of us--we really have grown together over the course of these few days and it was just fun to spend time together.

The rhythm of the 1st half of the day was as usual: run (David, Mark, and I), breakfast, then devotional at 11:00 AM, this time led by David. As always our devotional time was a great opportunity to focus on God and team bonding and unity. Thanks, David!

We headed out at noon and spent the heart of the day at what we've taken to calling "Tartu Phipps"--a shopping mall right next to our hotel that, while not on the same scale as Phipps, reminds us in character of Phipps Plaza, especially given that it's catty-corner across a major intersection from "Tartu Lenox" (which again isn't on the same scale as Lenox Mall but reminds us in character of that mall). We had a wonderful Estonian lunch in the food court--major thanks to Katrin for her recommendation of the pear cake dessert! The rest of the afternoon we enjoyed time together at the mall and at a movie (I know someone will ask if I don't state it explicitly: Shannon H and Tarmo saw "Terminator Salvation" while the rest of us saw "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past").

At about 4:00 PM most of us went for dessert and coffee, but KJ and I were hungry again so we both got a meal. :) We made it back to the hotel somewhere around 5:45 PM for a short break before we headed out at about 7:00 PM to the "Lift" event for the teens of Risttee Church. Lift is normally held in a dance club (good space because the kids can be as loud as they want and it's available early on Friday evenings because the club doesn't open until later) and I believe it has a structure to it but tonight it was a house party that gave the kids time to just have fun being together. While we were in some ways out of place there, it was great to see how much fun and joy the kids have. And it didn't seem that we really affected the event: some kids talked to us a good bit and some didn't, but the event was about them, not about us and that was good. Alex Nifong came to this event too so it was certainly great to seem him again as well.

One of the other globalX trips to Estonia is to help with English Camp for high school kids; this year everyone got zip-up hoodies and we were seeing our Estonian friends in them all week--we began joking that we had missed the memo about the official uniform! At the party, I got several of the kids together for a pic.

We were forced to add a third team member to our Injured Reserve list, however, when Chris slipped on a very tricky spiral staircase. It appears he has come through it in relatively good shape, but he banged up his left shoulder, arm, and hand so please pray that these are in fact fine.

The younger of the Hannas took us back to the hotel in 2 shifts. One of the most special moments of the day was when she told those of us in shift 2 how glad she was we'd come. And that's what this trip is all about: coming to them, helping as they can use it, but most importantly just being with them, bringing to them and being for them as much encouragement as possible.

On our last night here, we all (save KJ who was still full from the late snack) hit our favorite La Dolce Vita one last time and as always, it was stupendous. Alex Nifong and Timo joined us there as well.

It was after 10:30 PM before we got to the restaurant and midnight before we walked back from the hotel so it ended up being a long, yet wonderful, day once again!

As always, thanks so much for keeping up with us and for all your support!