The FBC team from Athens will be arriving on Saturday and we are anxious for them to be here. We will put them to work from morning to night on several projects. We have 2 basketball camps (4-days); Vacation Bible School (4-days); nightly Youth Celebrations (with music, games and Latvian pastors); at least one Boys' Prison visit and a big Youth Music concert featuring one of the better bands in Latvia. Here are a few of the posters publicizing the events:
I'm not really sure if I have one favorite place in Latvia. There are so many unique and beautiful spots. However, in the top three would surely be the 'country' place of the Liepins family.
It was Laura's and my good fortune to be invited here for the centuries old tradition of celebrating Jani Day. This is celebrates the Summer Solstice, a mid-summer holiday and the opportunity to get into the country all rolled into one. The men wear crowns made of oak leaves while the women's are made flowers. Everything from cows to cars are decorated with greenery of some sort. Many people leave the larger cities and return to the country side. It started out as a pagan, fertility holiday then evolved into a celebration for St. John after Christianity arrived. Now, it is celebrated in various ways. There is a real concern with too much drinking and partying but for our friends, it is more of a time to spend with family and enjoy good food.
The place that we were invited is located off of a dirt road about 15 kilometers from Cesis. Very quiet, very remote and you can just see and feel the history. There is a small house made out of hand-cut logs and topped with handmade bark shingles from the birch tree. The huge stone and timber barn is a reminder of the winter weather as you need a building large enough to house all of the animals when it really gets cold.
While this is not a true operating farm now, the Liepins do have several large gardens and some livestock. One section of the barn is filled with rabbits and a couple of bottle-fed calves. We have become used to eating rabbit here and it is quite tasty.
The weather cleared just in time for us to get the food set out and the cooking fire giving off some good heat. Everyone grills his own meat selection {desa (sausage); sausliks (similar to ka-bobs); vista (chicken)} over the bon-fire or using a small hibachi type grill. Vegetables are gurkis (pickles) of all kinds, salads made of greens that were literally in the ground 10-minutes before eating and kartepalis (potatoes that are boiled first and then re-heated on fires). No Jani Day would be complete without Jani Day cheese (siers) which has a special caraway seed addition. Finally, you've got to wrap all of that meat in something. Homemade black and brown bread that is so thick it is almost a meal in itself loads down your plate but it makes a good complement to the meats.
This family is very special to us because they have accepted us as part of their every day activities as well as the holidays. There are 6 brothers and sisters (4 were there yesterday) that have all married and 5 of them still live in the Cesis area. Add in their kids, grandmothers and assorted other members and it is a large group. We will be forever thankful that they help us in so many ways.
It finally got dark about 11:45pm and the plan was to stay until the sun rose again at 3:00am. After a few soccer games, too much great food and actually getting a little chilly (low temp about 50), everyone decided to go home a little early.
Thanks again for a great day and night. Even though Laura and I broke the tradition and did not jump the bonfire, swim at midnight or go looking for the mythical flowering fern, we had a great time and truly enjoyed being with our friends.
Labi cau!
The biggest farm dog around (with Emjia)
Tree branches are often located near doors and windows (ward off spirits??)
The stone and timber barn built into the side of a hill.
Calves are kept inside for a few months then allowed outside to fatten up.
Laura trying out her 'new' broom.
Still lots of the traditional farm ways in evidence.
One of Inese's several gardens.
Futbol zale...
Aivars' masina getting into the Jani Day spirit of decorating everything with flowers and oak leaves.
Always getting ready for the winter. Very common sight.
A nice fire and good conversation. Notice the jackets...on June 23!
Today was Boys' Prison day for us. Recently, this has become the highlight of our week here. For the past few weeks we have been going in without a translator which slows things down some. Between a mixture of Latvian, Russian and English the messages seem to be getting through.
Two events sharply defined the day. First, one of the boys [name withheld] that always has questions for us and seems so interested asked for special prayer today. We really do not know if he is a Christian or not but for him to ask for a special prayer was a huge step; not only for him but for the others that were there also. His prayer request was for help to stop smoking. Underage or not, the boys are allowed to smoke. For some reason, he has seen an opportunity to stop and realizes that it is going to take more strength than he has. We were so surprised and excited when he asked for God's help.
We are beginning to form friendships with some of these guys and it is so very easy to forget that they are inmates in a high-security prison. For the most part, they look and act like other teenagers and we must constantly remind ourselves of the common-sense rules that have been given to us.
For some reason, we were allowed to return to the main check-in building by ourselves. Normally we are escorted by someone but not today. As we approached the locked walkway that takes us to the building where we leave our phones, passports, etc. we saw that a large police truck had pulled into a holding pen just inside the gates. There were four SWAT uniformed guards and one BIG dog around the truck. The truck was blocking the guard in the building from seeing that we were waiting to be buzzed through the electromagnetic lock. We were able to watch as several boys were off-loaded from the truck. Carrying all of their possessions in a plastic shopping bag, they came down the truck steps and were lined up against the wall. It was almost like on a movie when the new prisoners arrive. The looks on those boys' faces were not humorous at all; in fact a couple looked really scared. I cannot even imagine what must have been going through their minds.
As these guys were unloaded, four of the current inmates were being readied to be put into the truck. The looks were the same...very serious, nobody joking around, nobody talking. I do not know for sure but they were probably being transferred to the men's prison to finish out their sentences.
That is the way it is most of the time that we come to the prison. There will be situations that make us so happy that we came and that maybe we brought a little encouragement. Then you will be shocked back to reality that this really is a prison, these really are young men that have committed serious crimes and they really, really need to make changes in their life if they don't want to return to a even worse fate.
Please pray that these young men will come to the same understanding as the young man that needs prayer to break his smoking habit. Pray that they will come to know the One that has the strength to help them overcome their struggles and battles. May God bless you and may God bless the boys at Cesis Boys' Prison.
To shake up our youth group meetings, we decided to take the whole group to the movies tonight. That's right ... the newest Indiana Jones adventure thriller is in town at the local movie, cinema or kino, take your pick.
The kino in Cesis is just a little different from our local cinemas in the US. First, you go into a very small lobby and buy your ticket through a very small window (which makes for me yelling how many tickets I want in a mixture of English and Latvian) from a guy you can't hardly see. After you buy your tickets you proceed to the next door but it is locked. You wait a couple of minutes and the guy who sold you the ticket now comes around and unlocks the door, examines your ticket and then lets you pass. (Some ticket forger could have done something to the tickets in the 6 steps from where he sold it to you.)
I forgot to mention that this kino is just a little on the small side. While we were waiting outside for a few of the other kids to show up, a man came out and said something to me. I pretended I knew what he said and just nodded and told him I was waiting for one more. He smiled and walked away. Once I got inside the main theater I realized he was happy because we had enough people show up to actually have the movie shown.
You pay a few santimi extra to sit in the balcony but they actually have pretty nice seats. They are similar to a two-person love seat. The 9 total paying patrons settled back for a good shoot-em up adventure film in which the good guys win.
There are three languages being processed at the same time. The movie dialogue is actually in English (hooray!) but it is sub-titled in Latvian and Russian. I do ok until I start trying to read the Latvian and work on my vocabulary. The strangest thing is listening to the laughter at the funny parts. The English listeners laugh first because they hear it as it is spoken, then the Russian or Latvian readers laugh next as they catch-up to the punch line by reading.
This movie theater has no concession stand. NO popcorn! I've tried to talk to them about popcorn marketing and the economics of smell-a-vision but it hasn't helped; we still have no popcorn, or cokes, or nachos, or anything. We stop off at the Mini-Top (small grocery store around the corner) and stock up on a kind of sour, gummy worms and soft drinks. It is still not the same...you can't watch a good movie without popcorn.
Our kids had a good time and seemed to enjoy the movie. We didn't know until we got there that Indiana Jones main adversaries are the Russian Communists (time frame was supposed to be 1957). Most of our kids are Latvian but a few have Russian parents or grandparents on one or both sides. We may have to do some discussions at the next meeting.
Indiana Jones vs. the Russians and I'm sitting in a movie theater in Latvia watching it all happen! Who would have ever thought it???
It has been our privilege to have Chase and his family visiting with us for the past 10 days (see previous posts). We have had a great time discussing the ministry effort here, his perspective on Cesis and renewing old friendships.
He had the opportunity to preach twice at the Cesis Baptist Church along with advising future missionaries in Riga, visiting with the boys in prison and meeting many of our Latvian friends. His wife Laura is a neonatal nurse and she was able to tour the local slimnica (hospital) with one of our friends who is a midwife.
We hope that he, Laura, Maddie and Nate enjoyed last week as much as we did. Chase is a great speaker and seems to know just what to say at the right time. He obviously married way over his head and his children are a treat to be around. Paldies again Chase...we are already missing you and your wonderful family. May God continue to bless you in your new endeavors.
We love having visitors here. We like to show-off our little city and help people to become more familiar with Latvian culture. It is always interesting to get their views on things here.
The hardest part of visitors is that they are always visitors. They have their life that they have to return to and leave us to continue the work here. Laura and I really do not get homesick very often but when our visitors return to the States, it is very, very hard. We get along with each other beautifully and we have been each other's best friends for over 30 years, but sometimes we really miss not having others with a similar background (American!) to discuss things with. We both have Latvian friends and we are treated great by the people but we miss just being able to sit, talk, joke and enjoy other people.
We have a little less that a month to prepare for the Sports Camps, Youth Celebrations and Concert. We are anxious to see two of our boys (Jacob and Jordan) as they will be arriving with the Americans to help work in the activities as they have done the last three years.
Here are a few pictures from some activities this past week:
Speaking in Riga to university students...
Klaus, a good friend...
Nate and Maddie
Laura and Nate
In love in Latvia, Laura and Chase
University students now ... future Latvian missionaries?
As we mentioned in an earlier post, Chase Bowers, wife Laura and children Nate and Maddie are visiting with us this week. We have had a great (but busy) time.
On Sunday, Chase preached at Cesis Baptist and then spoke again at the Youth Concert later that night. Monday, just the two of us went to Riga to speak at the Latvian Inter-Varsity Fellowship group meeting. Tuesday was Cesis Boys' Prison day followed by our regular Youth Meeting on Wednesday night. Chase has done a great job in reaching out to the students and adults of Cesis. He has been here before at a few of the summer sports camps so he knows some of the kids and a little bit of the culture.
Today (Thursday) was sight seeing day so we headed over to Sigulda. Our town of Cesis in now 802 years old and Sigulda is 801. Both are very similar but we enjoy a day visit to Sigulda whenever possible. Cesis is about 30 minutes from Sigulda by the train.
We had a great time and it was good to relax for a while. Tomorrow we are back to Riga to meet with Pastor Olegs.
Here are a few random shots from today's visit:
One of the things I enjoy in life is a long hot shower. As with too many things in my life I just take it for granted that other people are able to enjoy these same comforts.
In the Boys' Prison where we work they recently changed the schedule to have 'wash' day moved from Saturday to Wednesday. Being the naive Texan that I am, I thought 'wash' day was when the boys did their clothes washing. I found out today that it is when the boys wash. They have showers available every day but only on 'wash' day do they have HOT water. Can you imagine taking cold showers (and I mean really cold) several times a week? There is no hot water at all in their dorm (prison) bathrooms. On 'wash' day they go to the bath house for the hot shower.
To be honest, I have sometimes felt that the boys inside here need to be a little more concerned with their personal hygiene. But, having coached boys for over thirty years and raising four of my own, I know they will sometimes let cleanliness slide. I now have a new found respect for the boys in this prison because I don't think I could face taking a cold shower every morning just so I could smell a little bit better to others.
God has a way of making me realize how small and sheltered I have made the world I live in. Thankfully, he helps me to understand that not everyone has had the many opportunities and the good life that I have enjoyed. He also helps me to realize just how much these kids here need a friend that will continue to visit them, continue to pray for them, continue to love on them, no matter what may happen.
So, the next time you take a hot shower please remember my boys in Cesis Boys Prison. Don't pray for them to get hot water, pray that they might receive the Living Water that Jesus promises.
Paldies,
-Mark-
PS: Ludzu, ludzu to those of you who have sent money to pay for balls, sports equipments and games for the boys. I took 8 balls in today and they were so happy to get them. Last week they were down to 4 balls for 150 boys and there were way too many boys having to wait their turn to play. It will be much better after today's contribution.
