With Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s long term plan to give us eternal life and fellowship with him was fulfilled in it. We can see God’s heart and his commitment to his creation in this act. It gives us security and peace because we do not need to doubt about our relationship with the Lord.

In the current western society, with a long history of celebrating Christmas, we need to express the simple truth about Christmas again that we do it because of the birth of our Lord. We all receive multitudes of messages about Christmas gifts, concerts, greetings, etc. It is easy to forget about the real content of Christmas in the middle of the communication noise. The truth about Christmas is the most important reason for celebrating and I hope that you will all be in the situation that you can celebrate this with the people who are dearest to you.

Our goal as Christians in politics in Europe is to bring God back to our society. Although we as individuals need God in our personal lives, we are also social beings and we need God as the Lord over our society. Neither our own life, the church nor the state can thrive without His blessing.

In spite of the high development of the science and extraordinary knowledge about economy and finances we have experienced deep economic problems lately. Most of the problems have their roots in our moral behavior and distancing from God. This was also one of the conclusions that we made on our last member congress in Bern; the crisis did not start as an economic one, but as a moral one.

Speaking about the ECPM, I am most grateful that our movement continues to grow and I see this as a blessing from the Lord. We grew in members and more and more people recognize the unique status of our organization. In September there was the 2^nd meeting of the Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic parties, it is wonderful to see how these parties, who are also ECPM members, continue in supporting each other on various issues.

I am confident that we, as members and associates of the ECPM, can make a new step in 2010 in advancing Christian values in European politics.

Of course, not everything is going as we would like. The pressure put on our friends of the Belarusian Christian Democrats is an issue that concerns us all. Not only do they not have the freedom to officially register their own party, there is also a lack of freedom of religion for many churches in Belarus. I hope that 2010 will be the year that we can remember as the year of their official registration as a party.

Yet, if we look at the coming days, I wish that we may have the wisdom to turn our eyes more often to the Lord this Christmas time. If we seek first the Kingdom of God then he will bless us and give us wisdom to make right decisions in our highly responsible activities. Christmas is a good time to celebrate, to focus on the Lord and to be thankful for all that He did.

I wish you, on behalf of the ECPM board and staff, a peaceful Christmas and blessed New Year!

Peeter Vosu
Chairman ECPM