FIVE NEW soldiers are enrolled in Kopli Corps, Estonia. |
The Salvation Army in Estonia has experienced growth in its senior corps with the recent enrollment of five new soldiers by Major Wes Sundin, regional officer for Estonia.
Majors Wes and Ruth Sundin are also the corps officers of the Kopli Corps and, as such, conducted the 14 senior soldiers’ preparation classes for these five new soldiers who came from the junior soldier ranks.
The corps has an active junior soldier program, led by Candidate Ave Kalme and Maire Luige, and a children’s club led by Christy Tiks and Carolina Kalme. The corps also has an ambitious teen program which meets each Friday evening. Recently, the group met at the local shopping mall for a scavenger hunt. When the hunt ended, the teens were treated to pizza at the local pizza shop.
The corps was also blessed to have four cadets from the IFOT in Helsinki with them: Gennady and Olga Chistakov, Larisa Pascal from Moldova, and Ekaterina Miromanova from Petroza-vodsk, Russia. The cadets were involved in Christmas collections at the Christmas pot, visits to orphanages to distribute gifts to the poor children, and a party for 350 poor children. They also held major responsibilities for the program for a party for 175 homeless people.
All of this was in addition to the regularly scheduled corps activities in which they were actively involved.
The Estonia region also held a winter camp for some of its youth, at the regional camp at Loksa, Estonia. Special guest for the three-day event was Captain Fredrik Ahlbin, territorial youth secretary. In addition to a football game, and a super snowball fight, the youth listened attentively as Ahlbin shared with them on making appropriate value choices in today’s society.
In addition to the corps program responsibilities, the corps officers/regional officers have been busy with the purchase of two properties, one a new regional office at Kopli #8–14, and the other a derelict building to be renovated and prepared as a homeless Harbor Light Corps.