The 1998 Fall Festival in Tartu, Estonia 
- Teamwork in Doing the Work in the Baltics
- Tartu 1998 Festival Photo Album
- Preparing for 1998 UCG Festival to be held in Tartu, Estonia
October 14, 1998
What a wonderful Feast of Tabernacles in Estonia! So many commented that this was truly a most meaningful time for us spiritually as we tied in our messages to a theme of "To Know and to Do the Will of God -- Preparing for the Kingdom of God." Our attendance was double of what we had last year....both in the number of visitors AND in the number of local Estonians. We had over 40 people come to services. Our high attendance was 39.
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Also, all the Estonians were able to hear the sermons in their native language skillfully translated by member Margit Kaljas who did the first part of the service and Mariina Viia whom we hired to translate the sermons. We also had translation into German by Carl Rothenbacher and Grace Hopkins who did a fantastic job translating for the German visitors and for Henrikas Klovas from Lithuania.
This was not a Festival to primarily entertain ourselves and the Estonians. Our purpose was to strengthen them with solid basic sermons and for all the visitors to take part into helping to be lights for the Kingdom of God.
We printed copies of the five articles that Ylo Maaring translated from Russian to Estonian that have been edited and keyed into Microsoft Word by Juta Kulbin. New attendees quickly snapped up the articles and the booklet Sunset to Sunset, God's Sabbath Rest which is available in Russian. We are totally out of all literature. Ylo Maaring will translate seven more articles into Estonian.
We left a computer with member Margit Kaljas who is connected to Internet and will help edit further articles and will start translating the UCG Correspondence Course into Estonian.
We also started a Bible Fund with $120 to help purchase Bibles for new attendees.
Towards the end of the Feast the new attendees were beginning to ask questions and wanted to know more our beliefs. One, Eha Toim, invited me to her home for dinner Saturday evening. She, her family and I appreciated getting to know one another better.
After services and a farewell lunch on the Last Great Day we held a special meeting with the Estonians to discuss the future of the Church in Estonia. Henrikas Klovas, John Lambert and I all spoke about our desires to see growth and progress. We know that's it's difficult because of the remoteness, the differences in language and the cost of coming of visits to them in order to maintian continuity, but we all expressed our commitment to support one another. Henrikas Klovas will travel to Tartu once a month to conduct services. We anticipate that services will be held in a hospitality employee room at the heating plant where one of the new attendees works. We committed ourselves to communicating more regularly and continue to strengthen and encourage one another. We talked about the Feast of Tabernacles 1999 in Tartu again. About half the visitors this year indicated they wanted to return to Tartu for the Feast again.
The special music was superb and plentiful. We thank all who helped make this Feast a truly memorable event and platform from which to preach the Gospel! If you're interested in the Feast of Tabernacles NEXT year, please drop me a note by clicking here.
Victor Kubik
October 9, 1998
Tuesday's sermon by John Lambert was about the "Love of God" and was well-received. Afterwards we drove to southern Estonia and had dinner at Sangaste Castle in the evening. We visited the hightest point in the Baltics and were able to easily look into Russia and Latvia which were both about 12 miles away. We have been blessed with sunny weather throughout this Feast. No rain!
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Festival greetings have been coming through from Festival sites around the world and have made us feel very much a part of a the church around the world.
On Wednesday the sermon was "The Law of God" by Victor Kubik. In the afternoon we took a walking tour of Tartu which everyone enjoyed. Again, we are so happy to have excellent weather.
Thursday we took an all day bus tour to the capital Tallinn and yet again the weather is marvelous. On the tour we played the Festival video "A Church on the Move." There was acclaim from a number of the brethren about how well this year's Festival video reported on so many aspects of how God's Work is being done through the TV Commercials, local television, the waiting room program. It worked out well to show the video on the bus as we took the two and a half hour drive to Tallinn. After touring Tallinn we started back to Tartu. Half-way back to the hotel we stopped by a bus that had been disabled. It was filled with handicapped people who had been in Tallinn on an outing to a concert. The handicapped had been sitting on the side of the highway for three hours. We let them on our bus and some of us had to stand the last 60 or so miles back to Tartu.
This Festival has been wonderful in terms of fellowship, new Estonian people and forging of a plan with Henrikas Klovas to continue translating literature into his his native Lithuanian. On the bus ride we talked about a monthly visit to Estonia plan that he has already maintained for some time. This has done much to maintain momentum with the brethren in the Baltics. We are buying a computer for him along with an Internet connection to keep up contact.
We have set up a fund with the donation of a member to buy Bibles for some of the new Estonian attendees. Henrikas and a few others went to a bookstore and purchased a few Bibles for the new people. We have has as many as fourteen Estonians come to our meetings and some have expressed a great amount of interest in the Word of God, but cannot afford a Bible. One of the new Estonians invited us over to her home on the Sabbath to discuss what she's been learning in services.
October 5, 1998
Sunday night the Feast of Tabernacles began here in Tartu. Thirty-eight people, including 14 Estonians came for the service. The subject of the sermon was the Feast's theme: "To Know and to Do the Will of God -- preparing for the Kingdom of God." Margit Kaljas translated into Estonian and Carl Rothenbacher into German. Afterwards everyone socialized with snacks and champagne being provided by the Lafayette, Indiana United Church of God.
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On Monday, October 5th services began at 10:30 am with John Lambert giving the offertory message. Our offering was very generous indicating a desire on everyone's part to do God's Work. Aimee Zahora from Indianpolis played offertory and Monica Peters from Hamburg Germany the special music. Then Victor Kubik gave a sermon explaining what the Kingdom of God is and what it is we are celebrating at the Feast. Translation was done by Mariina Viia.
In the service, Henrikas Klovas of Lithuania was ordained a deacon. He has been taking a grueling 16 hour journey by train, bus, a walk across a border town and another bus while crossing two countries to conduct a Bible Study in Tartu, Estonia once a month. He also has been translating Good News articles from Russian into Lithuanian.
In the afternoon Henrikas and I talked at length about how the Gospel can be preached in Lithuania. Henrikas has translated four articles into the Lithuanian language and typed on his computer in Word 6.0. We discussed how best to reproduce them. He was suggesting a small booklet style with a pleasing graphic on the front as the best way to go. He was very enthusiastic about reproducing our literature this way including addresses for the United Church of God in different places along with a Lithuanian post office box...possibly including a United Church of God Internet address. Henrikas was very happy with the our published booklet Sunset to Sunset in the Russian language and thought we could venture in this direction in the Lithuanian language as well. It was so exciting to talk to someone who was so enthusiastic about making things happen.
Henrikas also mentioned that he met with four other interested people in
Kaunas, his home town, for the Feast of Trumpets. They were from a group who was
discovering the Holy Days. We may have more growth coming in Lithuania and need to
have some literature produced as quickly as possible.
In the evening we went to the Püssirohukelder
(Gun powder cellar) restaurant in Tartu where we had an enjoyable dinner and dance.
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October 4, 1998
Most people have settled into their housing here in Tartu, Estonia. Most are staying at the Taru Hotel, others in a rented apartment while others in their own homes. We still have festival goers arriving from Johve in northern Estonia and four from Germany who are coming by ship on the Baltic from Hamburg, Germany. Our attendance should be average about 32 or so for each service which is about a dozen more than last year. This is the second year in a row that a United Church of God Festival has been held here in Tartu.
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We held an 1:30 pm service at the Taru Hotel with 29 present on the Sabbath. The sermonette was given by Jerry Reece from Illinois who spoke about "Why God Calls His Major Fall Festival the Feast of Tabernacles" followed by elder John Lambert's message about "Rejoice at the Feast." Both did an exceptional job preparing us for coming Festival.
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We tried out our simultaneous translation equipment for the first time. It worked beautifully. Margit Kaljas, UCG member in Tartu, translated the sermonette and announcments while Tartu University student who also works for the foreign language school "Dialoog" Mariina Viia translated the sermon. Starting Sunday evening, October 4th we will also have simultanous German translation by Carl Rothenbacher and Grace Hopkins.
Our theme for the Festival in Estonia is "To Know and to Do the Will of God -- Preparing for the Kingdom of God." All messages will make reference to this theme. Our focus will be on not only understanding what God is doing in the affairs of mankind, but to apply God's way of life.
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Beverly and I arrived in Tartu on Tuesday about noon. We left Indianapolis Sunday afternoon for Detroit, Amsterdam and Helsinki where we spent the night. From Helsinki we flew over the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn and then a two and a half express bus ride to Tartu. Wednesday was the Day of Atonement. We held a service at Luule Lepik's apartment with seven present. Margit Kaljas who was going to translate into Estonian was not able to come, so I had to go through my entire subject about the meaning of Leviticus 16 in Russian. One new lady present did not understand Russian had translation done from Russian into Estonian. One of our biggest challenges here is the assortment of languages.
The next two days after the Day of Atonement Bev and I did all the preliminary work with translators, activities, tours and flowers--and preparing for all the Festival guests coming in.