food for thought from another Clark (no relation though!)

http://armyrenewal.blogspot.com/2008/04/church.html

continue to pray for the General!

Update on the General

The General has been released from the hospital and is now at home for a recovery period. Continue your prayers for full recovery and return to service.

Naturally, very thorough after care will continue in the days ahead, but I know you will be encouraged to have a sense of the excellent progress that the General is making in these early days following his major surgery.

Pope Benedict XVI

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080418_incontro-ecumenico_en.html

ECUMENICAL PRAYER SERVICE
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St. Joseph's Parish, New YorkFriday, 18 April 2008

http://www.uspapalvisit.org/video_audio.htm

Commissioner Moretz wrote: "I have the unique privilege of representing the Army at the Ecumenical Prayer Meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in New York City. Along with the National Commander and National President for Women’s Ministries, we will join other denominational leaders in welcoming the Pope to New York."

kus ma olen olnud

http://www.allianss.ee/?p=83#respond

Youth Night photos

We have a few different blogs going (Tartu Corps blog is now inactive, Chris has his personal blog, we have this corps blog, and also our family blog). We usually try to keep things fairly separate, but there are some pictures here that should be on this blog too:
http://www.clarkid.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Evelyn

at the corps tonight

Sirje
Michael
Kristi
Keit
Pia
Anneli
Evelin
Eero
Vesse
Evelyn
Tim
Chris
Elizabeth
Peter
Priit
Tanel
Jennifer
Bryan

Declaration Letter

They Need Christ

The song from the musical, Man Mark 2, “They Need Christ” will be like a theme for the Army throughout 2008.... People need Christ. People need to discover the gift of salvation. If we do not go out there, in the community, who will tell them? “If we close our eyes perhaps they will go away, without you, without me, without Christ” as the song says....

Declaration through the whole Territory

this declaration will also travel through the whole Territory, from corps to corps during the year where every Officer, Soldier, Recruit, Adherent and friends will have the possibility to sign it. At the Territorial Congress in September 2008, the document containing all the signatures will be handed over to the General....


Everything is possible for God
God will use our humble efforts for his Glory and ... the vision will be shared throughout the Territory. The declaration travelling from corps to corps in Finland and in Estonia is also a picture of our belief that God is able to touch each Corps by the renewal power of His love.

May God bless you


Silvia Cox, Colonel

Declaration

While women weep, as they do now,
I'll fight
While children go hungry, as they do now
I'll fight
While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now,
I'll fight
While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God,
I'll fight - I'll fight to the very end!
- William Booth

Voice 1
We have been fighting more than 100 years

Voice 2
Women are still weeping. Children go hungry. Men are going to prison, in and out. There are poor lost girls upon the streets and many dark souls are living without the light of God.

Forgive us, Father! We didn’t always know what we should have done!
(Luke 23:34)

Forget what is behind and reach what is ahead.
(Phil. 3:13)

God looked down to the world. As He saw the crowds, his heart was filled with pity for them.

He created the movement known as The Salvation Army. God gave to it a special task: to proclaim the gospel and relieve human suffering.

We want to be The SALVATION Army again. We want to be God’s army.

Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already – you can see it now! I will make a road through the wilderness and give you streams of water there. (Isaiah 43:19)

We want to fight.
Let the whole world hear about Blood and Fire!

We want to fight until the very end!

Pray for Peace

excerpted from the poem "Pray for Peace" by Ellen Bass, shared with me by my dear friend Betsy Parsons

On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.
And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboardwith yellow chalk, twirling pizzas --

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path.

glad you asked

Where could your questions take you?

Interested in finding out?

You are invited to join a Glad You Asked group running near you!

17 April - 29 May
every Thursday
19:00-21:00
Narva mnt. 51 youth room

Glad You Asked is a place to ask spiritual questions, discuss what you believe, and come to your own conclusions about some of life's most important issues.

Glad You Asked
a place to explore spiritual questions

"be a good person"

it is extremely easy to crumble and succumb to a mentality of minimalism, just trying to "be a good person" instead of trying to live a heroic life, rooted in virtue and faith as we are called to do. How easy it is to be led astray from the truth of Christ....
from http://www.huntingforgod.com/pdf/mpc_intro.pdf

Fred Brown again (Secular Evangelism)

"There can be no doubt that true worship of God consciously offered in love and faith expresses itself in caring for our neighbour. Our worship, let it be noted, is not motivated by such a concern; as though, wanting to be more sensitive, more lovingly involved, we engage in worship as preparation for service, our real business. We worship God for his own loving sake; we escape our habitual self-centeredness in self-forgetful adoration and thanksgiving. Our aim is to give, not get; and to avoid the insidious danger of using worship as a pious means to a selfish end. Any subsequent caring is the spontaneous by-product of soul vitality, vitality not directly sought but made inevitable by true worship of God. In other words, the reality and depth of our worship is the degree and spirit of our caring; of our self-giving, our personal relationships, our sensitivity. We love God only to the extent that we love people. We pray for people only to the limit of our commitment to them. If ... the test of our worship is the nature of our subsequent service to Christ in the hungry, the naked, the homeless and the prisoner, surely such service is simply another expression of the same authentic spirit of worship. It works both ways. Worship is real when men learn to care; and men learn to care when worship is real."

one of the Mission Team members makes videos!

http://youtube.com/user/mindfuljenn

Integrated Mission?

hat tip Urban Army blog

"Helping people is our business, the natural result of our acceptance of Christian obligation. But to be kind in terms of, for instance, giving money -- whether to alcoholic, vagrant or some other inadequate personality -- is a poor substitute for real caring; taking time to sit down to listen, to become possibly deeply involved in an attempt to find basic causes for the inadequacy and the means of finding lasting solutions. There is, of course, no doubt that material help is often urgently needed -- but to give things as distinct from giving ourselves is to encourage irresponsible living and to make it more difficult for the individual concerned to grow up."
Secular Evangelism by Fred Brown

There is so much good stuff here, but I'll limit myself to that quote for the time being! I could be here typing from this book all day!

How much easier to give a hat or a pair of socks or some noodles than to give ME! Please pray that we would continue to do the former without neglecting the latter!

Evelyn

"the most significant proof of the Holy Spirit"

"The most outrageous thing about the Azusa Street Revival, which occurred in Los Angeles in 1906, wasn't the speaking in tongues or claims of miracles. It was the fact that people of different races had come together to worship. Early Pentecostals claimed this multiracial unity as the most significant proof of the Holy Spirit among them."
p. 14
April 2008
Sojourners
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0804&article=080410

Oh, how my heart yearns when I read these words!

We are struggling with how to incorporate our Russian-speaking friends (mostly, but not all, homeless men) into our corps. Should we have a separate Russian-language meeting (this is what all the other churches seem to do)? Should we continue with whisper translation, which has a lot of problems? Should we do Russian translation from the microphone, which would mean no English at all (only Estonian and Russian)?

I am sensitive to the fact that there is still a lot of pain associated with hearing Russian language, for some people. But if we are truly to be Christians, we must reach across those barriers, and let Jesus heal those deep-seated hurts.

Will you please pray that we will follow God's leading in this matter?

Evelyn

Youth Night with the Cadets

Friday night, we had a good youth night. We started off with food (always a good start!).

Next it was on to some games. This was "Drop it, catch it" which Anton didn't do so well at!

Later cadets from the training school in Helsinki joined us. They were on their way to do a campaign in Southern Estonia on Saturday and Sunday, but we convinced them to stop by the corps.

In this game, we had to see who was the quickest in passing a hand squeeze down the line so that their team would win. I won't say who cheated!

It was a good chance for the cadets and the young people to get to know one another (there's a cheater in this picture; can you guess which one?)

After that, we shared together in a time of praise and worship and scripture.

We finished with our young people praying for the cadets and, in turn, the cadets praying for the youth.

By the end of the evening, we had all come to know each other better.

Mother Teresa

http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=295

Language and Translation

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Columns/?article=SecondLanguageMain

holiness

from http://www.armybarmy.com/blog.html

The Kingdom of God is at hand.----Meanwhile, holiness remains the solution to every problem. Let's keep that in mind. So, individually, test it. Get sanctified. And then see if the dictum doesn't prove itself in your experience. And then get other people sanctified, and see if it doesn't also work in their lives. And so on.----When we're talking holiness here, it might be necessary to clarify (for those who aren't regulars). We're not talking about being 'filled with the Spirit' and yet still 'sinning every day'. We're not talking about so regimenting and regulating our lives such that we are somehow, by discipline and concentration, able to avoid sinning for a time. We're not talking about legalistic obedience to the law. We're not talking about being relatively good Christians.----We're talking about repentance/consecration/faith that allows Holy Spirit to remove all that hinders - including habitual sins, demons, strongholds, footholds, strangleholds, and any other holds... but most importatntly, our natural inclination to act selfishly - and replace it all and us all with Himself, spilling love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control in and through us, and depositing in us a supernatural inclination to please God.----Remember the poor.----Commissioner Brengle used to say that he preached holiness and some people got saved and some people got sanctified.

The Singing Revolution

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0804&article=080458
A Song in Your Heart
Oppressed for decades by Nazi Germany and then by the former Soviet Union, the people of Estonia resisted—and then began a revolution—by singing. In the film The Singing Revolution, producers Maur­een Castle Tusty and Jim Tusty use historical footage and personal interviews with key players to illustrate Estonia’s long tradition of singing and how a timely song festival provided not just the lyrics but the passion to free themselves—peacefully. www.singingrevolution.com

Helge

The funeral is tomorrow, Fri. 11 April, at 12 noon at the Tallinn Crematorium.
http://www.krematoorium.ee/tlnindex.htm

A Lutheran pastor will conduct the service, with SA support.
http://www.eelk.ee/tallinna.jaani/

The memorial service is Sun. 13 April, at 16.00 (4 p.m.) at the Tallinn Kopli Corps, Kopli 8.
Lt.-Col. Arja Laukkanen will conduct the service.

William Booth b. 10 April 1829

from http://www.armybarmy.com/blog.html

This is William Booth's Birthday. On the memorial stone at the Training College in Melbourne it reads, "His works do follow him." And it is true. In his lifetime preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to more people face-to-face than any person who had ever lived, and started an army that transformed the culture of England and sparked national revivals in several countries, and set a social strategy that challenged the foundations of western society. But his works do follow him. That amazing legacy has been extrapolated such that we are missionally fighting in 113 countries (with 25 more in the works); we are the largest social service provider barring the UN in the world; and we've been overwhelmingly blessed over the years to see many millions of people come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord through repentance and faith. Glory to God!

That plaque concludes by asking, "Will you consecrate all your life as he did for God and souls?" This is a question for each of us to ask ourselves on this day.

In Loving Memory of Helge Altmaa, Promoted to Glory 7.4.2008

Ülendati kirkusesse
Päästearmee sõdur
ja kallis sõber
HELGE ALTMAA
7.4.2008

Promoted to Glory

Salvation Army soldier

and dear friend

Helge Altmaa

7 April 2008

Roots UK, Going Public

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g2dI4S7kGU

Articles of War series

http://www.armyrenewal.com/5032/

http://armyrenewal.com/5026/

http://armyrenewal.com/6826/

Articles of War (with "till I die" ending)

http://jdcard.com/artclwar.htm

http://www.armybarmy.com/blog_archive/2004_06_01_captblog.html

Therefore, I do here and now, and forever, renounce the world with all its sinful pleasures, companionships, treasures, and objects, and declare my full determination boldly to show myself a soldier of Jesus Christ in all places and companies, no matter what I may have to suffer, do or lose by so doing.I do here and now declare that I will abstain from the use of all intoxicating liquor, and from the use of all baneful drugs, except when such drugs shall be ordered for me by a doctor.I do here and now declare that I will abstain from the use of all low or profane language and from all impurity, including unclean conversation, the reading of any obscene book or paper at any time, in any company, or in any place.I do here declare that I will not allow myself in any deceit or dishonesty; nor will I practice any fraudulent conduct in my business, my home or in any other relation in which I may stand to my fellow men; but that I will deal truthfully, honorably and kindly with all those who employ me or whom I may myself employ.I do here declare that I will never treat any woman, child or other person, whose life, comfort or happiness may be placed within my power, in an oppressive, cruel or cowardly manner; but that I will protect such from evil and danger so far as I can, and promote, to the utmost of my ability, their present welfare and eternal Salvation.I do here declare that I will spend all the time, strength, money and influence I can in supporting and carrying on the Salvation war, and that I will endeavor to lead my family, friends, neighbors and all others whom I can influence to do the same, believing that the sure and only way to remedy all the evils in the world is by bringing men to submit themselves to the government of the Lord Jesus Christ.I do here declare that I will always obey the lawful orders of my officers, and that I will carry out to the utmost of my power all the orders and regulations of the Army; and, further, that I will be an example of faithfulness to its principles, advance to the utmost of my ability its operations, and never allow, where I can prevent it, any injury to its interest, or hindrance to its success.And I do here and now call upon all present to witness that I have entered into this undertaking and sign these Articles of War of my own free will, feeling that the love of Christ, who died to save me, requires from me this devotion of my life to His service for the Salvation of the whole world, and therefore do here declare my full determination, by God's help, to be a true soldier of The Salvation Army till I die.

http://www.armybarmy.com/blog_archive/2006_10_01_captblog.html

Tallinn

http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/scan/tallinn.htm

Children

http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_ihq_general.nsf/vw-dynamic-index/741AED935B1B52718025741E0052A05F?Opendocument

http://www.sendthefire.ca/soulcrymanifesto

Please pray for our corps as we strategize about how to reach out to the children in our community. Please pray especially for one soldier who has volunteered to take on this responsibility personally. Please pray for others to join her in this task! Please pray for the Hands-On Mission Team who will be instrumental in launching these initiatives.

Our youngest "child" has recently turned 13, so we are really a youth corps (well, we have plenty of pensioners too!) with basically no children except my own.

Evelyn

pray for the General

http://rob-reardon.blogspot.com/2008/04/call-to-prayer.html

Camp Sebago 1982 & 1983

Camp Sebago 1982 & 1983

good advice on dating and marriage

from ArmyBarmy:
"Don't get unequally yoked. It is not worth it. It takes some warriors right out of the race. It is awkward, ugly, and awful. Like 'missionary dating', usually the keener one slides back in to some level of balance or comfort or compromise. This goes for spiritual fervour and also belief. For example, you'll likely have a difficult time if you both don't agree on the doctrines. I recognise that it is not the top priority fo discussion with some people but it ought to be up there. For example, a Salvo marrying a Plymouth Brethren - difficult; or a Calvinist marrying a Wesleyan Arminian - impractical. You do not make decisions on your principles in the heat of battle. You prayerfully come to your principles in the theoretical so that you don't get messed up in the emotional. So, just don't do it. We're not unaware of the devil's schemes."

Some supporting scripture:

2CO 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
2CO 6:17 "Therefore come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you."
2CO 6:18 "I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty."
2CO 7:1 Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

AC 20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

HEB 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

2CO 2:7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven--if there was anything to forgive--I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

EPH 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Isaac

http://denisemabilog.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-plus.html

http://denisemabilog.blogspot.com/2008/03/i.html

This family was only in Tartu for one school year, but they're the friends I miss the most.

We visited them in Philadelphia last year.

Enjoy these wonderful photos!