Vilnius Church

“Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love” ( I Corinthians 16: 13-14)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I have been appointed to serve in Vilnius church since January 31, 2010. These words of the Apostle precisely describe the current situation in Vilnius congregation.

The congregation of Vilnius is not very large, but they participate in the life of the church actively. There are five adult members and five children in our church. The adults come to Bible Studies every Sunday at 11:00 and the children come to Sunday school. All of them take part in the worship service.

This year we encountered several hardships. Two members – Vaidas and Rūta – renewed their membership, but soon they both left for the USA to study and to live there and we are impatiently waiting for them to come back. Our member Alexander transfered his membership to Baptist church because of his marriage to a member of this congregation.

We have got our joys as well, since Vilnius UMC renewed the ministry of the Children Day Center, where Jurgita is serving now. This center is a real ray of hope for  us, because we expect that the parents of the children, who attend this center, will also come to our church. The children do their homework there, play, do some handcrafts and, thanks to the efforts of the Food Bank, are provided with free meals there. We want to express our gratitude to the Coordinator of Humanitarian/diaconal Ministries Žaneta for the possibility to get food packages for the children trice a week. As the supply of the products is rather abundant, some poor people are sustained as well.

During the course of the year God has been blessing our church with different events. In February we celebrated the Day of Love, which was perfectly arranged by Jurgita. We were also invited to sing in the Šančiai Community Day. The children participated in the UMC children’s camp in Kintai. November 2 we had a wonderful concert of Christian Music to commemorate all the deceased and All the Saints. Alvydas takes part in lay preachers’ training seminars. November 26-27 we took part in the action of the Food Bank. During these days we asked people to donate some food for the poor in IKI grocery store. God has been blessing us and we managed to collect quite a lot of food, which we are going to use for our Day Center and to give out to the poor.

Vilnius UMC feels God’s blessing and guidance, but has got a lot of challenges as well. We do not have any partner church for a while, therefore the administration and playing the music has become totally voluntary and Sunday meals after worship services depend only on our initiative. I want to thank everybody for that. In our prayers we look forward and ask the Lord to renew and to multiply our church.

 With respect,