Tanzania was a very difficult month for no particular reason unless exhaustion can be used as an excuse. Nine months into anything you can imagine how you began to simply exist rather than excel. But the month ended much in the same way it started and we returned to Nairobi, Kenya for our travel to Latvia. There was a lot of nervousness and anxiousness along with excitement. We were leaving country 9, continent 2 and challenge 936284736284957! The day we leave Kenya it is probably around 85-90 degrees. We flew from Nairobi through Istanbul, Turkey and on to Riga, Latvia where it was a beautiful 30 degrees and snowing. It was a shock in many ways for many of us who did not plan for winter weather. We took a few days to live at a hostel in historic old town Riga before our ministry started. For three days we enjoyed western civilization, western food and western humor again. We also had the pleasure of being reintroduced to western prices and things like dairy product which do a number on ones system after not having dairy for 9 months.
While getting to know the city we were introduced to a couple of young Christian folks whom offered us a helping hand in finding our way around town. Luckily this happened on the first night and were then invited to their church for dinner and worship on Easter evening; we were in for a surprise. Not only did these wonderful people feed us and give us fellowship for the evening, they gave us winter clothes. Along with our worship on Easter evening, when most of my readers in America were probably at church for there Easter morning service, several of my squad mates decided it was a time for them to be baptized. It was a beautiful evening of fellowship, hospitality and Christ like love. God is a pretty awesome God; He provides.
Since our ministry began a couple weeks ago we have been living in a beautiful building in a section of Riga called "Little Moscow." The building was built over 70 years ago and was equipped with a bomb shelter because of the war. Our building, at one point in history, was in the middle of a Jewish Ghetto during WWII. The bomb shelter isn't actually significant, it is just cool. There was a 3 square black ghetto built here during the war and this building was housing for Jews who were allowed to leave during the days for work but had to return home before dark. Our building has been in a few movies and some of its previous tenants have been in movies/documentaries.
Our ministries include door to door evangelism, Baltic bread project, youth ministry, church planting, street evangelism, food distributions and many things along those lines. We have been blessed with wonderful Latvians to help us in our ministries and also amazing people with ministries for us to come along aside and be a part of. The city of Riga shares many of the western lifestyles and problems along with the comforts and joys. Materialism is an easy escape here amongst the many other distractions the western world provides. People are far more busy than most cultures we have been in this year which means most people have less time to care about the little things. This month has been a welcomed reminder of what life is likely to be like when we return home and gives us a chance to try and be the difference before we are able to fall back into our comforts. Through our different types of ministry we have also seen the mentalities which make sharing Christ love in the west more difficult than in most other cultures. The western world has this idea of there always being someone worse off, which is not always bad or incorrect but keeps from realizing everyone does need something.
So, thanks for your prayers, I still need them. I am excited to see some of you in 45 days. Like I said earlier, I have a few blogs coming but there are a few editing issues slowing me down.
As He leads me,
Jason
