Riga, oh Riga. It’s been one of my favorite cities on the Race, if not my favorite. I was lucky enough to spend my whole month in this beautiful city, that is so rich with culture. From food to architecture, fine coffee to the fine arts, I love this kind of city and It quickly became one of my favorite living locations on the Race. For most of the month, I lived in an apartment with 4 Latvian girls and just one other Racer. It was a beautiful place, that quickly felt like home. The kitchen was awesome, the wifi was fast, but best of all, the girls there made me feel so loved. I called it home, because that is what it felt like. We laughed together, we stayed up late having dance parties, we cooked together, we ate way too much chocolate and shared clothes. It felt like sisters. It was my haven, a place of much needed peace, rest and love.
(I love you Renate, Justine, Liene and Marta!!)
Riga is a beautiful city, especially in the center. But we didn’t do ministry in the center, we did ministry across the tracks, on Maskavas street. I’ve never seen that phrase hold it's meaning to the fullness as here in Riga. About a 5 minute walk from my apartment, you walked under the train tracks that lead you to “that” part of town. Where the homeless live, the drunkards and the drug addicts. When we first came here, it was hard not to laugh at all the warnings on the danger of the area. How this was such a bad neighborhood and all. We had just come from Africa, let’s just be honest. The hood of Africa vs. the hood of Latvia. Africa wins on the sketchy scale.
Even though I felt much safer in Riga than many cities in Africa, there were still more openly drunk people here than any other city I have seen on the Race. Especially on Maskava street, where we did ministry. Any time of the day, you expected to find openly drunk men and women staggering the streets. Most of them are homeless, all of them are broken. Masksavas street was the Jewish quarter during the Nazi occupation. It was where the rich Jews lived, in the fenced area where they could still have jobs, but then had to return back to this neighborhood right after. There are spiritual atmospheres all over the world. Strongholds that are palpable sometimes. Some place, they are quick to identify and some they are not.
For Latvia, and Riga in particular, the spirit of depression, alcoholism and materialism. Sound a lot like America right? It felt a lot like America.
One of our days of ministry, was an ATL. Basically, we go out with translators and ask the Lord what he wants us to do. Lindsey and I felt led to find someone to take to lunch, a homeless person. We found a woman in the tunnels that are used to get around the city. She was in her 70’s and held a simply cup, asking for money. We told her that we were students traveling (true) and we wanted to ask her some questions, and if we could buy her some food to do so. Exchange a meal for an hour of her time. She was pretty skeptical at first and she only spoke Russian. A problem, seeing that our young translator could only speak Latvian. But, it was all ok, because the Russian woman could understand Latvian, and our 16 year old translator could understand Russian. So Russian was translated to English and English to Latvian. I love my life. We took her to McDonalds, a very special treat for anyone out here on the streets. She quickly wiped away tears when we brought her the food. She had asked for fries, but we bought her enough to take something home for later.
We asked her about her life, how she got to where she was today, what her story was. She was born in Russia and was married, but her husband died in a car accident before they had any children. After the fall of the USSR in 1991, when Latvia became free, she moved to Riga to live with her aunt. Sadly, her aunt died soon after arriving in Riga and this woman had no money to go back to Russia, so she stayed. After that, it was a cascade of a hard life. No money, no family, no real friends. She was now old, and full of worry. She had a small apartment and a bit of money monthly from the government, but it was perfectly enough to pay for rent, nothing more. She begs on the street to buy food, but begging is illegal. She can get fined by the police for doing, but she laughs at the fine, because she doesn’t have the money to pay it. Tears filled her eyes when she said she feared the police taking her away someday.
We asked her if there was anyone to help her, governmental or in a church and what her greatest need was right now. The government pays for the rent, the churches give out clothes and her biggest need right now, was food. But then we started talking about faith, and she had some. She was a Christian and her hope in Jesus was the only hope she had. Right before finding this woman, I was praying on where to go and I had felt like Papa God just wanted to love on one of his kids today. Spoil someone a little. We got to do that today. Her biggest need was food. We got to bless her with a meal she would have never bought for herself. She left warm and full, and I think with more hope than when she had walked in.
Latvia was a month of street ministry, church services, passing out food, talking to countless homeless, drunk and hopeless people about Jesus. It was month of praying against the religious spirit the holds deep into the culture of the Baltic states and against the spiritual oppression of depression and alcoholism.
It was also a month of fun. So much fun seeing the Lord provide for us, fun with friends in Latvia, fun running around this beautiful town, drinking coffee, eating cheese and other foods I have missed for 9 months. I’m now two days into month 11, and I’m planning on this month being fun too!
