March Forth! Marssige Edasi!

Last night we had a Christmas party for the kids in our corps youth programs. We had a fun time together, with most of our kids from Kavastu, and Andrei even brought a new friend.

Before we even began, we gave the kids a chance to go through 20 boxes of clothes we had been given from Sweden. We will be giving them to the orphanages here in town, but thought it was only right to give our corps kids a chance to have some new clothes as well. It was fun to watch them hold the clothes up and smile when they found something they liked, or give an item to another in the room who they thought would fit the clothes.

Once the party started, we had a Yankee Swap (a fun tradition from Evelyn's family), Christopher led the devotional time (and did a great job!), and we played some games. We ended with some soda and piparkogid (gingerbread cookies). They each went home with two of the gifts we had received from Sweden, one for themselves and one to give to a friend.

As it ended, a light snow began falling as I was driving everyone home. The snow has continued off and on for the past 24 hours, coating everything in a beautiful white and leaving a couple of inches of sticky, perfect-for-snowman-making snow on the ground. It is a glorious scene. The picture here shows how it looks in our Raekoja Plats (Town Hall Square) as I was typing this. For a live view from the web cam posted there, click here. (You may be asked to install an Axis controller; it's okay.) Despite some of the questions and uncertainty surrounding things here lately, the snow is putting me in a Christmas mood. And spending time with the teens reminded me that God is working no matter what!
--Tim