First Heavy Snow - Cesis

Winter arrived on Monday! With temperatures falling the last few weeks and a few flurries of snow on Saturday, we knew that the real stuff wouldn't be too long in making an appearance. It started snowing Monday morning and was still snowing into the night. These are some pictures from a nearby park and the area right around our flat. The people look at me a little funny when I am out in the snow taking pictures ... for them it is just a way of life.

Stay warm!

First Heavy Snow - Cesis

"What do they live on?"

Laura and I have been volunteering at the local soup-kitchen. Cesis Baptist Church and St. John's Lutheran Church share the opportunity of providing a noon meal for those that would otherwise go without.

This is truly a soup-kitchen as that is all that is served. Most of the diners are elderly but a few are just down on their luck. None on them can speak any English but they always want us to sit down, eat and talk with them. We try to hold a conversation but with our Latvian skills it is mainly just nodding our heads in agreement with whatever they are saying. They seem so appreciative and we wish we could communicate with them better.

The first day we were there the soup-of-the-day was 'sour' cabbage. It seems that they take cabbage, leave it outside for a few days to ferment and then bring it inside. Inside, you cover it up and let it ferment a while longer. I can pretty much eat anything (and I usually do!) but I just couldn't go with the sour cabbage soup.

The other people working there started laughing and they told us one of the very old ladies saw we weren't eating the soup or the bread. She turned around and asked one of our Latvian friends "They don't eat sour cabbage soup or black bread -- what in the world do they live on?". It seems this is a national soup and everyone but picky Americans love it.

It is starting to get much colder here and some snow flurries. Maybe tomorrow we will have some pictures of a fresh snow-fall.

Keep safe!

Day of the Dead

In Latvia, one of the most beautiful places you will see are the cemeteries. They are usually on the edge of town in a pine forest. The Latvians show great reverence for the grave sites. They plant small bushes and flowers as borders of the plots. The headstones can range from a simple stone marker to elaborate black granite. Most families visit the graves quite often, polishing the markers, weeding and of course, adding fresh flowers. They use small wooden rakes to draw designs into the sand and surrounding dirt.

We were invited to go with our friend Inese to visit her father's and grandparent's graves last night. We really didn't know what was meant by the 'Day of the Dead' but it was quite interesting. As we got to the cemetery and started to enter we could see maybe 20-30 acres of white, blue, green and red flickering candles. Most are in special containers so they can continue to be burn even when it is windy. This cemetery is actually kind of hilly so as we got to the top it was almost like looking down onto a city with Christmas decorations. There were many people walking to their loved ones graves and placing the candles, flowers and other items onto the graves. It was a beautiful sight unlike anything we have seen before.

It was also interesting to hear Inese speak about her relatives. Her father was a taxi driver and a nationalist (didn't want the Soviets to control them). One night he was singing the Latvian national anthem in public. Evidently, he had been warned before about doing this (it was illegal) and he has not been heard of or seen since. Several days later his taxi was found in the Gauja River (burned). A body was found down-river several months later and the authorities asked Inese's mother to come identify the body. She wouldn't go but his sister did. The sister was positive it was not her brother as she said the teeth were not his. However, the Soviets said yes, it is him and he will be taken back to Cesis and buried. They looked at it as someone that drove into the Gauja, was a missing person for a while, a body was found so the case was closed. Someone is buried at that grave that has Inese's father's name on the marker but she is positive her father's body is not there.

It is amazing what some of these people lived through. Maybe next time I'll share her grandparent's stories.

Have a good week!

Youth Night -- Servant Evangelism

This week's youth meeting was designed around the concept of 'servant-evangelism'. This is the second time we have done this activity and the students really seem to like it.

Basically, we ask each student to take a long-stemmed flower, attach a note that contains a scripture and anything else they want to write on it. They then go through-out the town and find someone they want to give the flower to. The only rule we have is that it cannot be given to someone that they already know. Of course, the first question the students get is "Why do you want to give this to me?" followed by "What's the catch?". We have tried to prepare them for the occasional rude response or belligerence but it has really gone great. After establishing a dialogue with the person they then ask if it would be ok if they (the student) prayed for them in the coming week? If they get a 'yes', then they ask if there is anything specific they can pray for them about. Our kids have been surprised how open some of the people have been in their requests.

Our purpose in this is two-fold: to get the students used to doing something without the promise of a tangible reward and secondly, to get them to become bolder as they approach people they don't know. If they are ever going to present their own testimony they are going to have to become a lot more open to other people. This culture is one that can be sometimes intimidating if you don't know the person and strangers are not always welcome to just begin a conversation.

We hope this type of servant-evangelism will help these students in the future as they go out into the world to witness and live a Christian life.

For some reason I only have pictures of the girls but we had about 15 boys and girls participating on Wednesday night.

Things You Won't See in Latvia . . .

1. A carton with a dozen eggs . . . they only sell 10 in a carton.
2. Free water at a cafe or restaurant
3. Air conditioned buses
4. Dr. Pepper
5. Basketball games on any nights except Friday, Saturday or Sunday
6. A free second cup of coffee
7. A change of plans because it is raining or snowing
8. Water fountains ... you just will not see a public water fountain (even in a gym)
9. Regulations on fireworks ... they are bought and sold in stores year-round
10. Yellow school buses (school's don't own buses or have student routes)

Fall Festival & Thanksgiving

Cesis Baptist Church celebrated their Fall Festive and Thanksgiving this past Sunday. Laura and her Ladies' Bible Study group did a good job of planning and decorating for it. We held the festivities at another church because we do not have adequate facilities for something like this.
We hope the people had a good time because we have been stressing the idea of more church fellowships and enjoying just being with each other. A lot of our members do not see each other except for the time they are together on Sundays.

We had singing, games and of course, food. It was quite different from what a church fellowship would be in the USA but everyone seemed to have a good time. One of the neat things was that two of the games that were enjoyed the most were 'musical chairs' and 'charades'. I could get right with them on the musical chairs but trying to compete at charades with a foreign language you don't really know . . . well, let's just say I didn't win.

I hope you enjoy the pictures:

Some fall pictures . . .

The best time of the year in Latvia is fall! Here are a few shots. The first is some of the great vegetables that our friends keep us supplied with from their gardens. The next one is of the castle grounds, close to our flat. The third is Rigas Iela, one of the old, beautiful streets that lead down to the original gate when Cesis was a walled city. The last is a shot of an oak tree with St. John's Church (Lutheran) in the background.

Trash truck tie-up

If you remember from one of my previous posts, 'Trash Etiquette', the simple act of taking out the trash is really not too simple in Cesis. Yesterday was another example of that humorous difficulty.

About 4:55 we (all the people with trash) start gathering at our spot on the corner. You have to get in line early or you will have to stand and smell the trash truck as everybody else pitches their garbage in before you. So, we're all waiting for the truck and we can see him down the hill a little ways ... but he's kind of halfway turning across the street and isn't moving. We keep looking and finally somebody says that they think the truck has been in a wreck. We keep peering down the street and sure enough, that's what has happened.

Now, this is an busy street but it's just big enough for 2-lanes. Traffic is beginning to pile up because he has both lanes blocked. We're just standing and looking until one elderly lady says something (I don't know the language but I picked up the nuance!) and everybody grabs their trash and starts walking down the hill. So what do I do? I grab my trash and I follow along ... there we go like a bunch ants, marching single file down the sidewalk with loads of trash. I'm fifty-two and I am the youngest person there by about 20 years.

By the time we get to the crashed trash truck site, traffic is tied completely up. Latvian drivers are very impatient and they evidently dislike the trash trucks anyway. Drivers are jumping the curb, going up on the grass, honking...making new roads. There we are, the ant line, throwing our trash in the back of the truck while complete chaos is going around us. The trash truck driver is on his cell phone, yelling at his boss or somebody. A bunch of kids that had been on a field trip to the castle are now coming over to see what the mess is about and they are all in the way. In the midst of all that, people are coming from all of the other trash stops up ahead on the route and throwing their garbage in. I couldn't do anything but just find a safe spot to stand and laugh. It was one of those times I truly wished I had my camera.

I can't wait until Monday .... it's trash day again!

Scenes from Cesis

We had the pleasure of a visit from a group of Americans from Washington State today. They are here for some mission work in another region of Latvia but wanted to see some of the sights in Cesis. Laura and I played tour guide to some really nice people. As you can see from the next to last picture, we have become friends with the Sean Connery of Latvia! Here a few other random pics.

Central Market

All good Latvians go to the outdoor market on Friday ... so here are a few pictures from our trip today. Flowers, honey, smoked fish, clothes, fishing supplies, shoes, boots, antiques ... you name it and you can find it here. Lots of good vegetables . . .

How about some rabbit stew?

There is always good food in Latvia and they are usually very big on it being fresh, no preservatives, no chemicals...which we are glad to be a part of.

Sunday we had the most-preservative free meal of our lives. Inese was kind enough to ask us over after church. The entire meal came directly from her garden in the country even down to the rabbit. Yes, that is right...the main course was stewed rabbit.

The potatoes, tomatoes and cucumber salad, carrots and onions in the stew .... everything came straight from the garden to the kitchen. Even the dessert, which was a whipped apple concoction topped by fresh milk was made solely from the products Inese had brought in from the country.

Now, about the rabbit. They raise a few of these rabbits in the old stone barn there on the country place. They are fun to play with and all the cousins take turns feeding and playing with them. But, on a farm everything has a purpose. This rabbit's purpose was to make a mighty fine meal for a bunch of hungry Baptists.

Reasons Why We Like Latvian Septembers

--Wimberley's Top Ten Countdown--

--10- No more sweating on buses that don't have a/c

--9-- Big carrots!

--8-- Cool strolls in the evening (better take your jacket!)

--7-- No more sunrise at 3:00am and sunsets at 11:00pm

--6-- Basketball games start in September! **

--5-- The apples are ready to be picked

--4-- Splitting firewood (and actually using your wood stove)

--3-- Trees already beginning to show reds, oranges and yellows

--2-- School is back in session and the kids are in school but we aren't!

--1-- Basketball games start in September! **

** Yes I know it is on my list twice ... but it deserves to be!! **

Scenes from the weekend!

Here are just some pictures from some events around Cesis this past weekend.

Roller-skiing, 3-on-3 basketball (all of these boys were in our camps), Maija Parks rainbow, some huge carrots from our friend's garden, the shoes of our Youth Meeting kids (you don't wear your street shoes inside of a Latvian house!), Laura and Anete.

Thanks for viewing!