Greetings from Hiiumaa, Estonia!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
It has been year when we moved from city of Riga, Latvia to small community at island Hiiumaa. September 1. 2022 we moved in to the house we live in today. This day we had no idea will we have possibility to actually purchase this house. We were able to live in with pre-purchase contract what was supposed to give us time to root in. In the beginning it was great. I already had distant work in Tallinn what I continued and 1st of November 2022 also Kaspar got part-time job as physiotherapist. Now we just needed 4-6 month to start to negotiation with a bank. In the end of December nerves of previous owner started to crackle and he pressured to buy now or move out. It was extremely stressful time and we were able to go through it only because we had amazing intercessors who interceded day and night. God did miracle and February 9, 2023 we signed the contract. We do have home!
Due to traumatic home buying process and international moving with the family (take my advice – do not move ;-)), my (Evelyn) re-entry process was even harder as expected. I somehow crash landed here and have been really hardly struggling since then. It is really hard for people to understand it, because it was me who moved back to my home (from where I left 27 years earlier as 18 years old). I do not say that for others it was really easy, but somehow I felt in the deepest. Now year after move I can say that there are visible light in the end of dark tunnel. God is carrying us through.
In our family Rebeka (5) is a person who can handle life changes the easiest. For her took only 2 weeks to get to use new kindergarten. Now she is happy wherever we are – at Hiiumaa or visiting Riga. She only complains why she needs to wait her school so long. Her teeth are moving and she can read the level Rasmus read in first class – why to wait! 🙂 Actually she has two more years to school.
Karola (7) seems to be more similar for me of accepting life changes. It took her long time to get to use kindergarten and when she did it, was time to graduate it. Now she is in Grade 1 in school and going through a lot of school stress. Academically she does well, but it takes time to learn the school rules and accept independence. I think for her the best what happened with the move is that she can now train in football (soccer). As a girl she is minor in the group, but she really loves training. Sport is one of her strength definitely.
Talking of sport, Rasmus (14) seems to represent his school of almoust every sport competition. After school he also plays tennis and dance in folk group. Academically he does normally. His Estonian is good in everyday level, but as his school language was before Latvian, he struggles to understand some terms and words he hears only in school. For example if he needs to study new words and expressions in English, he might know all the new words what he needs to study, but never heard the Estonian translation of these. So he has to learn new Estonian words instead.
As said before, Kaspar is working part-time as physiotherapist. He can speak Estonian in conversational level okey, but often struggles to write medical text to describe the procedures he completed. Estonian language is definitely the biggest struggle for him.
He also continues leading Wings for Wheels ministry in Latvia. W4W has regular online small group meetings and Kaspar is in Riga monthly. This summer W4W had day gathering called “Treasure Island” where we were able to meet face-to-face and share with each other. More of this event can be read here.
I, (Evelyn) are still working is same workplace as a copywriter and enjoying my monthly visits to Tallinn. I also continue mission work and am steering group member in European Disability Network. This network belongs to European Evangelical Alliance (EEA). As a network we are organizing online discussion meetings of different disability issues. As a steering group, we are representing people with disabilities in European Christian conferences. I had possibility to share in EEA conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia last October and in State of Forum conference in Stockholm, Sweden this May.
Please pray:
– that Evelyn would at last feel at home and get out of re-entry crash landing
– that Kaspar would improve in Estonian language miraculously
– that Karola would get to use school and her stress level lowers
– that Rasmus would get to the same level with his classmates in Estonian language
– that Rebeka, Karola and Rasmus would not lose their Latvian
– that W4W work continues and people with disabilities in Latvia can hear the Gospel and get discipled.
Thank you so much for your prayers and support you have sent. We maybe have not been giving great feedback lately, but we are really thankful for God and for all our friends who have been there for us!
May God bless you richly!
Evelyn, Kaspars, Rasmus, Karola, Rebeka