Saturday night at the camp site. At times, Estonia can be breathtakingly beautiful.

I just got back from the youth camp. I've been out in the bush with my youth for the last four days. I will really appreciate sleeping in my own bed tonight, let's just say that.

I really thought I could come home after my mum's funeral and continue working as if nothing major had happened. Well, wrong answer. I had a terrible week last week. And what made it even worse was the fact that I couldn't possibly escape from all my obligations, I couldn't just shut off from the world and hide, I still had a baptism class and I still had my sermons and I still had all the people to meet. To be honest, I wasn't exactly thrilled about traveling down to Southern Estonia and hanging out with all the teenagers I knew would show up. But it was alright. Teens are cool, and they were actually really nice days. I like watching them grow up and I still hope I might be able to play a little part in showing them the beauty of the choice of following God.

On Friday morning I skipped the camp activities and spent some time in the nearby town to get ready for my evening sermon. And I sat in someone's living room with the Bible and sermon manuscript on my lap but all I could do was to watch BBC news with my eyes wide open. There were two major news on BBC that day - Israeli air-raid in Gaza and the plane crash in Ukraine. It was hard to believe what I saw on the tv screen. It actually gave me some sort of apocalyptic feeling while getting ready for my sermon. So I went back to the camp meeting in the evening and preached on "For me, to live is Christ" text and I couldn't help pouring my heart into it. I just wish so bad so bad that these young people would get their lives centred around Christ in this mad and sick world where any of us could be dead in a blink of an eye.

When the camp ended this afternoon the organisers gave me something to remember this camp by - I got a trophy for preaching with "Youth Camp 2014" engraved on it. It sits on my shelf now and when I look at it I get this funny feeling that this trophy is actually for the whole of last week. Because it's not only that I made it through this week. I quite literally came from my mum's funeral and told my youth that for me, to live was Christ.