You decide…
The time you really don’t know what came over you… but you get really excited, so exciting that your teammates made you re-show them what you just did. I just thought it was because I just got a brilliant idea. Maybe it was so brilliant because God gave it to me, or maybe just because I really, really, really wanted a caramel cappuccino and have quite time at the coffee shop.
It was morning and time to go get groceries for lunch, dinner, and the next day. Katie and I were going to go to the store after we had quite time. I had just said the other day to Cori that I could spend every morning at the coffee shop doing my quite time with a caramel cappuccino. I know you’re probably thinking was it really that good? Well… let me just show you a picture of this drink and then you can decide for yourself.
So yes it was that good. so I thought my excitement was over idea coming to me that we should go to the coffee shop just down the block (where the best caramel cappuccino is) and have quite time before going to the store. Which now looking back I realized i might have been a little loud, and there might have been jumping involved. So we head out to the coffee shop and spent between one and two hours there. It was beautiful and relaxing. Oh, and it was snowing, so every time you looked up you saw the snow coming down. Ah, I was in a warm coffee shop, with a caramel cappuccino, my bible and journal. It was pretty much prefect. Like, I couldn’t have really imagined that moment getting any better
It is getting closer and closer to time for lunch, so we decide we should probably go to the store so we could eat lunch. So I get my stuff all packed up, and Katie, all of a sudden starts talking to someone, I couldn’t really tell who or what… until I looked around the corner and there were two little girls and a dog. Of course Katie was freaking out about the dog. I was like aw a dog… lets go. If I was to get a dog I would probably want it to be something like it. It is a Husky German shepherd mix. but I don’t get easily attached to dogs… or any animal really.
What happened next surprised me. The two girls started speaking English and not broken English, but English like someone from America would speak. Turns out these two little girls were born in America they spent the first few years of their life in America. The lived in Washington D.C, their parents own/owned a bar in D.C. Their dad is Latvian American which is why they’re now living in Latvia. They moved back here to open a bar here in Riga. We probably spent another hour just talking to them. They are 8 and 11, they also speak Latvian, one does a very good British accent, and the other a very good Russian accent.
We made a coffee date with them the next morning to get to talk to and know them better. Needless I was excited, we get to hang out with them again, they reminded me of my nieces and plus I would get another Caramel cappuccino. They were just so excited to meet Americans and girls who knew they were 8 and 11 and still wanted to talk to them.
The next day we went back and ended up walking around the park with the dog, ended up climbing under a fence, getting my feet soaking wet from snow. Made plans to go sledding with them later that afternoon parted ways for lunch excited to go sledding.
Here are some pictures from the sledding and Crime Secens from the sledding. We got to meet their mother after we got done sledding. This made us feel a little more comfortable. Their mother had called them multiple times making sure they had made it and everything was okay. So we knew she was keeping in contact with them. But we felt like we should really meet her. We exchanged numbers and said we should get together again.
On Friday we got invited over for a homemade meal, which of course we were excited. We just got to spend the evening getting to know the Mom more, hearing more of their story, and she got to know us better. She asked us question more about what we were doing, how it worked… there were a few times I could see her just thinking through what we just told, like she was just trying to understand what would lead us to leave home for 11 months, not really knowing the people, living out of backpacks.
I don’t know what will come out of this meeting, the talking, sharing, but I believe God has a plan for it. It was and is definitely one of my favorite moments from Latvia for sure. Remember, kids are the way to the parents, don’t be scared to invest in them. Go sledding, have a snowball fight, crawl under a fence even though you will get wet from it and you’re not really sure if you should. (Don’t worry, there was a way to walk in you just had to walk around the building.) Build a snow wall, crawl through bushes (or try to) play games where you totally know they’re setting you up to lose. Just have fun let them know they’re important too. Show Jesus’ love to them.
So, are the from God? maybe, maybe not.. but if they lead to things like this happening I’d like to think they’re a very useful tool.
