Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990 TAG: 9006140573
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sewn by Betty Aliff, the flag is in honor of a visit by Ulo Niinemagi, a pastor from the Baltic republic who is completing a six-week visit to the United States.
Niinemagi, 36, is a deacon working as an evangelist at St. Olaf Christian Baptist Church in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. That was not always so, he said.
From the time of his Christian conversion at age 20 "from hippie drug life" until last year, he was a construction worker and later a leader in the underground church of Estonia.
The greater freedom of religious practice that has resulted from the loosening of communist ties to the Soviet Union "came at the right time for me," Niinemagi said in English which failed him only when he became excited over the changes limited freedom has brought to his nation.
"People have lost their fear" about assembling for worship, he said. "Before peristroika everyone had to work at something the state considered useful. Now the government sees that being a pastor is useful."
At the congregation of about 1,300 in Talinn, baptisms have been frequent in recent months. Niinemagi displayed snapshots of a group of white-robed young adults being immersed in a baptistry similar to those in Baptist buildings in the United States.
Just before he left in May, he assisted the senior minister with the baptism of 60 people. Last Christmas more than 150 celebrated the holiday by joining the church, Niinemagi said.
Christmas always has been an important holiday in Estonia, he said, even in his childhood when the official state atheism of Joseph Stalin ruled out all religious observance. He said some people would go even then to the abandoned churches to worship in the style of pre-World War II when Estonia was a free nation.
Niinemagi remembers keeping the old custom of going into the woods to cut his own fir tree. But of the Gospel, he said, he knew nothing until he wandered into a church after a number of suicide attempts and was welcomed by an old woman who asked him if he knew Christ.
After that, he said, he settled down, licked his drug habit, married and is now the father of three small children. Church members now pay lower taxes to the state and he has received a considerable raise in salary, he said.
He is visiting the Aliffs after a three-week stay in Oregon with an American Baptist congregation and to a church agency in Texas. The Oregon church made his first trip to America possible.
The Aliffs became acquainted with St. Olaf Church in 1988 while on a Hollins College study seminar. Last year they were hosts to a young Estonian teacher, Birgit Saulep, a member of the evangelical Protestant congregation where Niinemagi preaches.
by CNB