Lisa Marcum/Special to the News Sentinel
Members of French Broad United Methodist and Bethel United Methodist churches in East Knox County lay hands on and pray for the Rev. Taavi Hollman, for his mission and for his family living in Estonia. As superintendent of the Methodist Church in Estonia, Hollman was on his way to a Friends of Estonia conference in Memphis when the Riverdale-area churches invited him to a potluck dinner at Huckleberry Springs Chapel on Jan. 11. Clockwise from left are Elaine and Chris Boyens, Hollman, Betty Newman (behind him), the Rev. Jimmy Sherrod of the French Broad Circuit and Matthew Key.
Huckleberry Springs Chapel was the smallest church the Rev. Taavi Hollman visited in the United States on his way to a Friends of Estonia conference in Memphis Jan. 18-19, but the congregation of the French Broad Circuit of the United Methodist Church gave him a grand welcome, complete with a potluck banquet with fried chicken, green beans, deviled eggs and a whole table full of cakes, pies and other eats.
"We wanted our church to have an opportunity to experience the global church," said the Rev. Jimmy Sherrod, pastor of the French Broad Circuit. "I want them to hear Taavi, I want them to meet Taavi, I want them to know that the church isn't just here in our little corner of the world, it's around the world, and there are great things happening, and we have a chance to be a part of that."
The French Broad Circuit comprises French Broad United Methodist Church and Bethel United Methodist Church. The churches meet separately on Sundays, but both use the Huckleberry Springs Chapel, on Huckleberry Springs Road, for Wednesday services, youth group and special events.
Hollman, superintendent of the Methodist Church in Estonia, spent the evening of Jan. 11 eating and mingling with about 50 church members, then joined them in the sanctuary to take part in a special worship service and talk about Methodism in Estonia.
The visit came about because Sherrod is a member of the Estonian Action Team formed last year to help support United Methodist Church efforts in Estonia.
Estonia may be thousands of miles from East Tennessee, but the national Friends of Estonia organization has its roots here, formed at Kodak United Methodist Church in 1997. Among the guests at the Jan. 11 event were John and Laura Trundle, who were hosting Hollman during his stay in East Tennessee. John Trundle, a retired United Methodist minister, helped organize Friends of Estonia and was chairman of the group for its first three years.
"I've done some fundraising, and I've taken teams to Estonia," Trundle said. "I've been there 12 times."
He also helped organize the new Estonian Action Team of the Holston Conference, which also met with Hollman last week.
As Hollman outlined it, the Methodist Church has a unique relationship with Estonia. Of all the Eastern European nations that were satellite states under the former Soviet Union, Estonia managed to keep its Methodist churches open.
On the coast of the Baltic Sea south of Finland, Estonia is a country of about 1.4 million people and about the size of New Hampshire and Massachusetts combined. Methodism in Estonia got its start in 1907 with one congregation and grew over the years until now there are 24 Methodist churches in the country, Hollman said.
In the early years, Methodism spread across Estonia, but growth was disrupted by World War II, when Estonia was a battleground between the Germans and the Soviet Union. In the end, the Soviet Union liberated Estonia from Nazi rule, but brought new strife, Hollman said.
"We say the Soviets freed us from the Germans, but they forgot to go home," he said.
Many Methodist leaders went underground or left the country during the war, and others found themselves persecuted or martyred under Soviet rule.
"During the communist time, if you were in the church, having the services, preaching the gospel, it was considered a crime, a political crime against the government," Hollman said.
Hollman has written a book about four Methodist leaders who gave up their lives resisting the Soviets. Maybe it was the refusal of Methodists to cave in to Soviet demands or for some other reason, but the church survived, Hollman said.
"Somehow, God kept the Methodist church open," he said.
In the late 1980s, Hollman faced his own crisis under the Soviets. He had felt a calling from God since he was 10 and was working toward entering the ministry when he was drafted into the Soviet military.
"This was a personal struggle within me," he said. "If I do it, I had to be loyal to them. I had to kill people if they command me."
Hollman prayed to God, saying he did not want to serve the Soviets, but would if it was meant to be.
"When I got in the military, I ended up in the tank driver's school, and I said, 'Lord, something must have gone wrong here,'" he said.
But Hollman was there only a few days before he was transferred to a cook's school. He was released from the military one year early and resumed his efforts to become a minister.
Since the communist era ended in Estonia in 1991, the church practices openly and even has chaplains in the military and the police, Hollman said. The centerpiece of the Methodist movement in Estonia is its Camp Gideon. Formerly a camp for young communists, the church now runs it as a place for people to meet for sports, recreation, Christian speakers and events, plus outreach programs for the poor.
A campsite also played a prominent role in Methodism in the Riverdale area. Methodist camp meetings were held in Riverdale during the 1800s, and Huckleberry Springs Chapel was built there in 1883 as a result. At one time, there were three United Methodist churches in the Riverdale area. Bethel United Methodist was established in 1888, and Riverdale United Methodist in 1898.
In April 2007, Huckleberry Springs and Riverdale merged to become French Broad United Methodist, which meets at the Riverdale church building but still owns the Huckleberry Springs Chapel.
Ed Marcum may be reached at 865-342-6267.
