November 05, 2012

November Newsletter

Dear Friends!

Thank you for your continued friendship, prayers and financial giving to StreetCry! We are so thankful for you.

I want to apologize for the huge lapse in writing. It has now been 2 months since we opened "The Living Room student cafe" here in Tallinn. As many of you know, it was 14 months in the planning, and sometimes we felt it would be forever before we got up and running. But by the start of the school year this September, it finally happened. During that 14 months we made many new friends and a number of people who wanted to help with our project. Because many pieces of equipment were donated by local companies and ministries, as well as by Swedish churches, coupled with the donations we had been receiving - everything came together.

Most of the people who are coming to the cafe are University students, which are our target group. They are the most atheistic and agnostic age group in the country and we are expecting to see God change that! We are right across the street from a music school, very near a drama school, business school and English school, as well as Tallinn University. So, it has been very exciting to be open for them.

Our goal of course is to show them the love of God and to see them come to know Him by repentance and acknowledging that He is Lord and Savior. From what we understand, nothing has changed regarding that for the last 2000 years! We also want to see young believers raised up and go into ministry as we saw in Russia.

So far we have had one person come to know Him in the cafe, and we have been able to pray for several people who needed healing and our staff have given some accurate words of knowledge to people who have come by. We also have a room for people to display their artwork or photography and share a bit about their life. Our first display and Christian testimony was by Aaron Overstreet and has been followed by an Estonian photographer. We are also having live bands or solo musicians on the weekend.

To put it mildly, we have been quite busy learning the ropes of a full fledged coffee house that serves meals and has to pass rigorous health department checks. Up until now our cafes have been free food and coffee and ministering to a very different group of young people. But here and now we are convinced that these are the ones He has called us to. We are trying to give them very good food at the cheapest prices in town, and to have a safe and peaceful atmosphere where students can study, relax or sit and talk. Four different people have come up and said, "I feel like I am home when I am here". We want people to truly feel God's love for them, and know that we accept and care about them.
Now that a few of us have learned the ropes, the next step is to find a couple of people to help with some of the cooking and serving, so we can do more evangelism and train some others to do evangelism as well. We also have a tremendous need for young potential missionaries and especially those that have musical giftings, artistic gifts, prophetic giftings or those who plain love people and love to share their faith. If you feel called to join us, please let us know. If you have friends looking for their place in the Kingdom who have a burden for missions or souls - please pass this newsletter on!

Besides running the cafe, we are continuing to have worship night once a week - most of the time on Saturday night. We have experienced a very strong presence of God at the meetings, and our desire is for His presence to remain here and for the unsaved to encounter Him.

As usual, we will continue to have our Christmas feed-ins here in Estonia as well as in Russia.

If you feel led to join us, our prayer needs are:

  • for a worship team who love Him and are dedicated to seeing worship restored to the church in it's fullness.
  • for an evangelism team who love to witness and win souls
  • for a revival and wakening among Estonian youth
  • for favor with the cafe
  • for favor with our visas
  • for finances to take care of ministry expenses

News from Africa



Hello everyone! I haven't been able to write for a while, but I’m doing well and very much enjoying my time here in Mozambique.

The last mission school course here went very well and after that I led a team for outreach to Matola Rio. We traveled there by bus which took 36 hours. It’s was crazy. The bus went almost nonstop and that was without air conditioner, seats are in a fixed position and do not move and we were seated so close to each other, almost without moving for 36 hours. Plus we had people staying between seats which was more uncomfortable for all of us and HOT. So we all  arrived with hugely swollen legs.

We came to a small center for children near Maputo where we spent a wonderful time. I was glad to help the kids with medical care. Three quarters of the kids have HIV there. So I was checking them and treating them. One needed emergency help because he had an abscess that needed to be opened and treated. My team of new missionary girls were pouring the love of God on the kids just playing and spending time with them. We had a very encouraging evening with some teachers, where we talked about the  love of Jesus and that we need to stop and love others. And they can practice it every day with the children, especially special needs kids or babies because they can’t say to us that they want to eat or they need a diaper change. So it’s was very encouraging. And after that we were  praying for them and washing their feet.  The girls taught the kids dancing and the kids taught the missionaries how to dance African dances. And then they did drama for evangelism and it went well!

We also did outreach in the village. We went from house to house and prayed  for the sick  and witnessed to them about Jesus. People were getting healed and giving their lives to Christ.  We also had great personal time with the girls from the center where we talked about purity and holiness. It’s was strongly  touching them and they were very open and asking a lot of questions which had not happened on previous visits. The leader of the center was so thankful for the time that we spent with them, she said she had never seen them so open!  Even one little special needs child started to sing and to be very happy after ours prayers and pouring God's love on him.

After that outreach I went by myself by public transport to the border to get a visa to Mozambique for another month. Remember, I had a problem with my visa before because it was corrected by pen at the embassy which was not very official looking. After that I went to Zimpeto(the center where I was serving year ago) and I was helping there as a nurse and was glad to let other nurses have some rest days. After two wonderful weeks in Zimpeto where I had the opportunity to provide medical help and evangelize, I went to Swaziland.

I was praying that God will give me someone with whom I can travel there, because it’s not very safe to travel alone in Africa, but I didn’t find anyone and because I didn’t have any choice I went alone. I was sitting in the public minibus on the way to Manzinini and was waiting inside almost 6 hours while it was filling up, and amazingly enough, the last person to get on was a woman and child who were speaking Russian. So we talked together all the way to Swaziland and funny thing that she needed to go to the exact same place as me, so we traveled together:)) The woman is half Mozambican & half Russian, but presently living in Swaziland. It’s was a wonderful time  to witness to her about Jesus because she doesn’t know Him yet. Afterward we had a chance to meet in Swaziland and spent more time together. She was with a friend who invited me to her house and did  my hair for free which was a huge blessing for me. I was glad to again witness to both of them about Jesus.

When I came to Swaziland I stayed with Youth With A Mission and had a great opportunity to be part of their ministry and go to the all outreaches that they were doing. We went to the poorest communities, prayed for the sick and preached the gospel. We went as well to the hospital where we cared for sick people. That outreach was the most difficult for me, because in Swaziland they don’t have good care for patients in hospital and people are suffering there without help. So we fed sick people, changed their clothes, helped with other things, as well as talked  with and prayed with them. I even helped with I/V catheters for nurses. There were a lot of patients who needed to be in ICU but they was just in a regular department. One lady whom I was ministering to was suffering so much that  she had to be in ICU but no one cared for her. So after helping her with feeding and changing her clothes I prayed with her and she received Jesus. When she prayed with me there was such strong  presence of God! After two days when I returned there, her neighbor said that she had died that night. But I knew that she is now with God, with no more suffering and pain! So the time there was very very fruitful and interesting and I so much enjoyed it.

After that I got a new visa to Mozambique and returned to Pemba to the Harvest missions school. This time I received added responsibilities. The most exciting thing is that I am the house mom of the  Portuguese speaking house. It means that most of the students there speak only Portuguese. Now I have 10 girls and we communicate only in Portuguese which means I can practice my Portuguese day and night J At this session of missions school I’m part of the outreach preparation team, I’m exited about that too! So I’m helping with organizing teams to the outreach every week. It’s a new area for me and I’m very happy to learn more and I’m asking God for wisdom in this area. I also do outreaches to the hospital once a week. So it’s even more busy than the last missions school semester, but it is all things I really want to do. The school started October 1st, and my team was out that first week to the outreach but it’s was amazing outreach even though the students were just a few days in Africa. We saw many people come to Christ and many healed of serious problems. There was a blind woman who received her sight and a deaf man who can now hear. The whole  village was surprised and we even called the chief of the village to check them, so there was so much glory of God!

The next week I decided myself to go on outreach again just to help with translating for a team which didn't have a translator. On the way there we were stopped  by a crowd in a village. There was one little boy who had been hit by a  car and they were asking us to help him. He was very damaged and definitely needed to go to the hospital for an emergency operation. He was already in a coma but still  breathing. On the way to the hospital we stopped at a small clinic where they gave us catheters and solutions and helped immobilize his broken leg. And we straightway after that went to the hospital. On the way there he was getting worse and worse, he started to have more difficulties with breathing and I was just praying that God will give him  strength and then in one minute I got a song which I  started to sing over him “there is power in the Name of Jesus” and all in the truck started to sing with me and then the boy started to sing it  and it was so powerful, I so strongly experienced the presence of God  and Love of God for that little boy. When we arrived to the hospital we stopped singing but the boy continued to hear someone singing so audibly that he turned around  to see who is singing, but he didn’t see anyone. We felt it was like angels singing with us. We took him to the emergency room. We explained what happened with him and what we had done for him. We blessed the medical staff and left the hospital. When we came back to the village where our team was, we found that they were praying and  worshiping and sharing the gospel with the people of that village. And then they said that they sang the same song (there is power in the Name of Jesus) and they also strongly felt the presence of God on that song. And then we went to to another village for outreach, but arrived quite late.

There we set up the Jesus film and  after that we shared the gospel and prayed for the people. There was so much power, people easily got healed. One boy couldn’t hear and came for pray for his ears, he just pointed to them. He was very serious. I put my hands on his ears, prayed and then looked at him. He was smiling. And he said: “ It’s good! I can hear”. I started to speak and ask him to repeat after me. He started repeating things. And when I did it his friends started to tell me that he is deaf and can’t hear you. But he did hear!. And then I told his friends, “ yes he was deaf, but not any more!”

So these are the things happening in my life here. And I’m so excited to be here and learning how to serve people and just pour on them God's love. It’s very very good. And I feel as well that it’s a new season for me to hunger for Him more!

I want to ask you for to pray for me that God will continue to give me wisdom in all circumstances and all situations that I have. That He will continue to lead and speak to me about my future and His will for my life.

I will be leading another missions school outreach to Zimbabwe for two weeks, so can you please pray for  that trip for me and my team. We will be serving in poor communities and we will be connecting with local churches there, so we need Him very much.

If you get any words it’s will be very encouraging for me!
Praying for you that you will be blessed and fruitful in the places where you are serving now.

Love you!
Lana