Dr A. N. waved me goodbye this morning and went back to the UK.

What a week it was!

I had looked forward to her coming for months so I was so glad and relieved when last Tuesday morning we finally met. It was only her second ever visit to Estonia so we got down to business right away - we had so much to talk about, so much to see in the Old Town, so many chocolate cakes to consume, so many books to discuss, so many PowerPoint slides to translate into Estonian. It is a wonderful thing to spend real quality time with one's mentor. A wonderful thing indeed.

So on Wednesday and Thursday she was lecturing in the Baptist Seminary in Tartu. Our pastors were also invited to the lectures so we spent two intense days discussing inner-biblical hermeneutics and allegory and church history and fundamentalism. Then we took a break on Friday and consumed some more cakes in Cafe Werner, then Saturday and Sunday were filled with lectures to our church members in Tartu church. I almost had a heart attack on Saturday morning the moment I walked into our church lobby. Around 40 people had registered for the weekend seminar but as soon as I walked in I realised there were way more than 40 people who had come. My main concern was whether we'd have enough food for everyone but gladly everything worked out well. We had about 70 people attending the hermeneutics seminar on Saturday - as to our church seminars, it was probably the best attendance ever! So it was a success and a success and a success.

And I translated and translated and translated.

But as the Murphy law has it, everything happens at the same time. It so happened that I landed in the middle of a massive personal drama just a day before A. N. came, a drama quite unseen and unforeseen. And it had a serious effect on me - I couldn't sleep. I literally couldn't sleep any more. It was really rather scary. So I spent my days translating difficult theological lectures and my nights staring at the ceiling and trying to figure my life thing out. The outcome is as expected - I'm now sick in bed, totally and utterly exhausted. And still unable to sleep...

Say a prayer for me.

But still, what a week!

Ely Bruna, Take On Me