BNG - 4

Today we returned as a family to one of the places I went to yesterday, so that we could start the process for residency. On the way we dropped into the bank and organised Rachel to get her own card for the account, as well as Internet banking (90% of Tallinn resident's do all banking online). Registering our address was amazingly straight-forward, and though the form was in Estonian, the lady was very helpful. It means that from the 8th March, we can go and start the residency application, which will give us our Estonian ID card, which opens up lots of things for us.

When leaving, we spotted John (I met him yesterday as mentioned in the previous entry) and we went in to talk with him some more. Him and his wife want us over for dinner next week.

But one call that we were expecting today was a little different.

A few weeks before moving here, our agent contacted us having also been contacted by an American television show (House Hunters International, which we are told is on the Home & Garden Channel) about the shows desire to film in Tallinn, and did she know of any people moving there that she could recommend. At the time we thought it an unusual and interesting offer - well today, the Producer called me from New York to discuss the primaries. It seems like it's 4 days of filming, for which we are compensated financially, but one of these days is filming the 'back story' about life before....and for this, they seem to want this to be England, and not Russia (they have to apply months before for the right to film in Russia). So we are really undecided, because clearly for us the move to Tallinn from St Petersburg is very different to if we had we moved from England directly.

I said that we would send them their questionnaire and the 2 minute video of us as requested and after that we can see where it stands. Maybe they, or us, will decide to not proceed.

Had this fallen a few months before in St Petersburg, when time was so limited, we couldn't have done anything. But when we first arrived in Russia, we said yes to lots (most) offers because we just didn't know where it would lead. So please pray that we have wisdom with this offer - we don't just want to appear on an American TV show, but if God wants to bless us through it (it does offer some money after all) AND it can raise a profile to church planting, and what we are doing here in Tallinn, then that might be worth the effort. We'll let you know.

The new contact today was the man responsible for the Estonia side of our move - he came to scan my passport for customs and asked what we were here for. That opened up some questions and I was able to ask him about church and what he knew of others in Tallinn, which he didn't seem to know much of. We'll be in more contact with him so please pray that more opens up.