Today on the Evangelism Podcast I interview Janna, a passionate evangelist from Estonia. Janna shares how she has been reaching her country with the gospel, including organizing child evangelism crusades in villages across Estonia. She describes the spiritual darkness she has encountered, including the presence of witchcraft, but remains steadfast in her mission to see her people saved. Janna’s zeal for evangelism is truly inspiring, and I’m excited for you to hear her story.
Connect with https://www.facebook.com/jaana.eskor
Summary:
- Eskor Jaana is an evangelist from Estonia, a country that is considered the most atheistic in Europe according to statistics a few years ago.
- Eskor has been involved in child evangelism, reaching out to villages and towns in Estonia, where they set up “cool happenings” to attract children and their families, and then preach the gospel to them.
- Estonia has a significant problem with witchcraft and occult practices, with statues of pagan deities like “Peco” being placed in front of schools and homes.
- Eskor has found that the younger generation in Estonia, especially students, are very open to spiritual things and are seeking God, though often in the wrong ways through witchcraft and the occult.
- Eskor believes the most effective way to reach Estonians, especially the youth, is to bring the gospel to them where they are, such as at parties and concerts, rather than just inviting them to church events.
- There is a need to encourage and train Estonian evangelists, as they have often worked in isolation without much support or encouragement from the broader church.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me, Janna from Estonia. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Eskor Jaana (00:12):
Thank you for inviting me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:14):
Okay. You are a true evangelist. You are evangelizing in Estonia, and from the very beginning when you got saved, you had a heart for evangelism. So tell me about what God is doing in your life.
Eskor Jaana (00:32):
It has been little by little, but from a very beginning I understood and everybody else understood that yes, I have special gift for evangelizing people, so I have compassion from Jesus, loving people. So yes, everywhere I go, I see unsafe people. I see people going to hell, and God also showed me some visions, many times Hell going people, and that they are slaves of Satan. They need to deliver from the change, and we have a greatest power and earth to let them free from change. And we are ambassadors of Christ after him now we should do this work. And God really clearly showed also what even angels desire as Bible says, that even angels desire to preach gospel, but we can’t do it because God trusted this job to human beings, to us to do so. Christ commanded us to go. It’s not how do I feel or do I want, or is it possible, but it’s command commandment. If I love Christ, it’s normal also to love people and to want them saved. To be saved. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:58):
Well, it’s so wonderful to meet you face to face because you are a member of the Global Evangelist Alliance. You joined a little while ago and you told me that you’ve been participating in the mentoring calls and using some of the resources from the Global Evangelist Alliance. And you saw recently I did one session about how to raise money for your ministry
(02:24):
You took part in that. And so it’s really good to meet you face to face. And I’m so happy to hear about what you are doing in Estonia. And you’ve been involved in several different ways of reaching out to people. Kind of tell me about how you’re telling people about Jesus in Estonia.
Eskor Jaana (02:45):
Yeah, we have done many years special child evangelists. So we organized three mission trips. So Estonia and for example, during two weeks we reached out about 14 different villages and some towns. And we just went in the middle of some village without announcements. Even we saw some guys on bicyclists telling Reto for various is a center of this village. Good place to do happening, cool happening, and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:25):
A cool happening.
Eskor Jaana (03:26):
Yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:27):
That’s a good name for a crusade, a cool happening.
Eskor Jaana (03:31):
We had named for our team, A team. A team as in one famous,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:36):
Yeah, a TV show. A
Eskor Jaana (03:38):
TV show. Yeah, a team. But a team has come to a down, so invite everybody together and the children are best evangelists. If they saw that there is something cool will happening. And in villages in Ofia, nothing happens. There are only stores of alcohol and even not medical help to people now. So always it works so good that local children invited, everybody came, moms, dads, grandmas, everybody came to a place and we had funny costumes and funny games. And then we preached shortly and almost everybody always wanted to give a life to Jesus. And we shared also material for after work. So we worked also with child evangelists, my organization for places where wasn’t any church, those. So yeah, free mission trips. We did like that. It was working really good. And we saw in many places, especially in Soia where it’s lot of witchcraft and the statues of Satan really in front of schools and homes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:56):
Wow, I didn’t know that. I expect witchcraft in Africa, but I didn’t know you have it in Estonia
Eskor Jaana (05:02):
Even I didn’t know it until we went the village. And when I asked, but why do you have a statue of Satan in front of school or in front of home? They said, no, it’s not Satan, it’s Peco, this name. We have certain name for it, like Peco, who bring them happiness and blessing, so to say. And we saw this kind of blessing of devil that till children were fearing so much, it was so much poverty and it was really bad condition with villages. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:37):
Wow. What is the spiritual climate in Estonia? Are people open to the gospel? Are they closed? What are you experiencing?
Eskor Jaana (05:49):
Well, according to statistics made a few years ago, Estonia was most artistic country in Europe.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:55):
The most atheistic country in all of Europe.
Eskor Jaana (05:58):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:58):
Wow.
Eskor Jaana (05:59):
Yes. And it’s funny that one name for Estonia has given is country of Maria, Jesus’ mother. And that’s why we say it’s like Christian country. Our national religion is a libertarian church. And many Estonians can say to you that, yes, I am Christian because in Christmas I go to Arian church and I receive Baptist as a baby. And that’s it. When you need to evangelize those people as well, of course it’s much easier to evangelize non-religious people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:42):
I was baptized as a baby. I never go to church ever since. Yes,
Eskor Jaana (06:46):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:47):
You need Jesus.
Eskor Jaana (06:47):
Yes, yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:49):
He must be with you every day, not just one day when you’re a baby.
Eskor Jaana (06:53):
But now, in Estonia lately, in latest years has been really popular also, any kind of witchcraft, people go to beaches or sensitive in Estonian
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:12):
Sense.
Eskor Jaana (07:14):
Clairvoyance.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:15):
Okay.
Eskor Jaana (07:15):
Yeah, clairvoyance. And any kind of
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:18):
Seance, we would call it a seance. You go and talk to dead people
Eskor Jaana (07:23):
And through crystals, through some stones, through cards, and through just, yes, talking with demons, talking with dead people. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:35):
Wow. And so what message is effective when you’re talking to people like that? I know that there’s a deep hunger inside every human heart to have an experience with the supernatural to know God. And so people look for other ways to replace the God of the Bible with maybe a crystal or a demon power. And so what is effective in talking to them about Jesus?
Eskor Jaana (08:08):
There are different age groups and different approaches to every age group. I think the thing is now in Estonia, youth also is really open to spiritual things. And we have in Estonia many spiritual problems in youth and children. We don’t have even in schools, anything for children that they could hear about Jesus. Also, for youth, I know in Finland until secondary school, we have a religion class, obligatory. We don’t have anything in Estonia. So we have an entire generation going to hell right now and no opportunity to hear about Jesus only through social media. That’s why I think it’s really effective, especially for young people through social media to do with short clips because everybody’s scrolling hours and hours.
(09:04):
Yeah. So short videos, short and sharp, evangelism about God’s love, about really spiritual things through evangelism and the young people we are seeking for God through wrong ways, but we’re seeking God. We need God. And for example, lately it was big happening. Politics states, students were graduating university, they were giving prize for filmmaking. And my sister was invited to sing there some songs, and I was invited a sister’s sister there. And after party was a huge party in T University. And we did after party. And then I saw this big harvest, maybe like 500 students there from Baltic states. And when you see how God sees them through God’s heart, so you want to reach everybody. So I went there by one bus. Bus already in bus. And the waiting bus, we had many conversation with students evangelizing them. I had 200 tech tracks and I get rid of every tracks there. I went to after party.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:32):
You are a good evangelist.
Eskor Jaana (10:34):
Yeah. There was disco, there was alcohol, everything. But I sat with lesbian, I sat with from Portex Day students, every kind of rock stars. And in this cousin, somebody shouted at me, not many, but most of them were so open to kasal, very open and asking questions. Somebody sitting here and everybody’s sitting and listening, and they’re coming hours to listen. And then I was just walking, sharing tracks and sharing gospel. And when Ukrainian young guy gave his life to Jesus in this party. So I think the best, what we can do now in our time, it’s not working in Estonia anymore, just invite nonbelievers to our evangelistic gathering. But what is really working? We need to bring gospel to them and where people are. We need to go to rock concerts. We need to go to this kind of parties. We need to go into villages where people are. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:41):
Talk to me about the church in Estonia. Do you feel like there is a need to motivate the church and train the church to do more evangelism?
Eskor Jaana (11:52):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I think Estonian evangelist has been like orphans,
(12:00):
We haven’t had any days common encouragement days for evangelists. I don’t remember ever. Somebody did this really? And I’m already 49. I’m super brave woman. I told my age. But yes, we need this kind of thing. And for encouraging Estonian evangelists, because many years there are evangelists, but we are hiding. We are doing many times alone. The job even I went many times alone because there wasn’t anybody else. And Estonia called so many times, many, many years, foreign preachers, foreign people to help us. But I’m sure this time is over now because we have our own evangelist and our people need to hear from Estonian people, so we receive it much more.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:57):
Amen. And have you been training up some Estonian evangelists and taking people with you to help evangelize?
Eskor Jaana (13:05):
It’s funny that I teach in Finland in evangelist days for evangelists five times. I’ve been in days of evangelist in Finland, and once I trained there about 30 evangelists in my workshop,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:23):
But
Eskor Jaana (13:23):
Haven’t done it yet. In Estonia, yes, we organized once, one a day for Estonian evangelists a year ago when the voice of a martyrs leader came. But we were also as evangelists, sharing our stories, our experience, and we went together to evangelize. We had whole day worship, praying, encouragement, and then going to streets in difficult, fun, difficult area. After we ate together, shared testimonies and praying for each other.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:04):
Yeah. This summer I was in Finland and we did a crusade in Tamara, which is the second largest city in Finland. And I took a team of 20 people from a church in Houston, Texas who went and helped evangelize. And then in partnership with the finished church, we went out on the streets. We were talking to people. We had so many conversations. And it was the same in Finland, I think many people said, oh, I was baptized as a baby, but I don’t go to church so much anymore. But we had many people that were very open, and I was looking at the map and I saw Estonia is very close to Finland. I was saying, oh, maybe next time we go to Estonia.
Eskor Jaana (14:47):
Yeah, you’re big welcome.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:49):
Yeah, thank you. I pray that God will open up doors.
Eskor Jaana (14:54):
Yes, yes. I’m sure that God is organizing something and I hope to be a part of it. So what depends from me. I will invite you. I will organize something.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:08):
Thank you. Well, let’s finish by praying for Estonia, and I would like to ask you to pray, but don’t pray in English. Pray in Estonian.
Eskor Jaana (15:19):
Oh, thank you. This week’s Thursday.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:31):
Amen. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Eskor Jaana (16:35):
Thank you for inviting me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:38):
We pray for Estonia. Estonia shall be saved. In Jesus name.
Eskor Jaana (16:42):
Amen. Amen.
