Arriving in Latvia!
Sveiki! (“hello” in Latvian). Our flight from DFW left Friday at 3 pm and took about 10 hours. The flight itself was uneventful, but I did have a little trouble with my luggage (who knew they weigh carry-on luggage too?). Everything worked out and the rest of the trip went smoothly. We landed in Amsterdam at 7:30 am and had a short layover before flying on to Riga.
We met Buckner’s Latvia staff at the airport and then had a three hour drive to Liepaja (pronounced lee-ah-pie-ya), a port city on the western coast of the country. The country side is beautiful! It’s pretty warm now, so everything is green. Along the road, there were lots of trees and pretty yellow wildflowers blanketing the gently sloping fields. Zanda is our gracious hostess for the next week here in Liepaja. She runs the day center that we will be working at this week. She’s such a wonderful lady! Yesterday, after we arrived in Liepaja and had a chance to freshen up, she took us to a great restaurant in the old town, then on a little walking tour of the city. Liepaja is known for its music and it’s “First Rock Cafe.” One of her relatives has a star on the sidewalk outside of the cafe, which is lined with handprints and stars for famous Latvian singers.
The day center is located in the old naval port section of the town. Zanda invited us over for dinner tonight and told us a little more of the area’s history. Latvia was occupied by Russia in one form or another for a long time—from the late 1800’s by czarist Russia, then later by the USSR. The czar sent the Russian navy here to Liepaja in the 1880’s and built base for them outside of the established city. Up until the fall of the Soviet Union and Latvia’s independence in 1991, the base was closed off from locals. When the navy moved out, they left a lot of empty housing. The Latvian government moved low-income families into the apartments. The area has some problems… drugs, alcoholism. Buckner started coming to Liepaja in 2004 and sponsored VBS day camps for a few years. They were seeing good results in the kids, but realized that they needed more than just one week out of the year, so Buckner partnered with a local church to open a day center that runs from 3-7 pm after every school day.
We went to the church’s service this morning with Zanda. It’s small, but has a very big heart! We were welcomed very warmly by everyone. The church members, like most of the people in this part of the city, are Russian. It was really cool to listen to them worship God in their language, then recognize the tune of some of the songs they sang and join in English. A young woman, Rita, decided to give her life to Christ today. The pastor, Serges, gave an invitation and Rita raised her hand. Serges called her to the front, so she walked forward and, in front of the congregation, prayed out loud to accept Christ. I was impressed by her bravery—I’m used to having people raised their hand when all eyes are closed and praying silently to themselves. It was really neat to see her proclaim her faith and be welcomed in the body of Christ with encouragement from others in the church.
After the service, we joined everyone for refreshments… coffee, tea and cookies. Zanda translated for us so we were able to have a good conversation with the pastor, who speaks some English, and the young women around us. I think we were all humbled by the fact that we came thinking we’re going to serve and every one there was serving us with such hospitality and graciousness. It was a great morning!
