Home

Some days I really want to be home and I think today is one of them. I'm really tired too so I'm sure that is affecting my feelings. I just had a note about my friend Pam who is going through really tough days, as are her friends as they help care for her. I'd love to be home to help out and support them during this time. And some events here in the last few days have made me wonder if I really belong here. So, the combination makes me just want to go home. But, that's not going to happen (nor should it) so I have to find a way to offer support and love to Pam from here. And I have to figure out what role I'm supposed to fill here, outside of the job I'm assigned to. Maybe later I'll write more about the basis for my 'out of place' feelings. I'm not at all miserable, just wondering...in fact, on the other hand I feel more comfortable and a part of the team than I ever have. We've had a lot of fun this week - it's kind of a strange mixture of emotions. Now I'm going to sleep and maybe tomorrow it will all be clear.

Love quietly

2 quotes from Paul in 1 Thessalonians for today: Love more and more ...and...mind your own business (NLT) I have been wondering how to do both at the same time! It is an interesting opportunity for me because I think I most often express love as I get involved in people's lives. Right now there are some issues which I need to stay out of but I do believe I need to practice loving relationships while keeping my mouth shut. A challenge for me but I know the Lord can make it happen! (Now, I know that I'm taking these two statements out of context but they struck me as very important and connected for my life today.)

Words, words, words

Language is going to be one of the struggles and I'm afraid it will be the one to bring me a lot of discouragement and frustration and helplessness. I had a few of those moments today. It's not about me being able to speak the language. At this point, that's the least important thing. It's about finding the person/people who can accurately translate between Latvian and English, plus Russian. That seems to be eluding me and I confess my great impatience. I don't want to hurt the feelings of those who are helping me now. It's just that I need more. On a lighter note - I'm going to Sweden tomorrow for a few days of vacation. I'm meeting my friend Birgitta and she's going to take me exploring the country. I know I just had some time away but this is the only time available for us to meet, so here I go!

Lessons from the Word

This summer I joined the Riga 2 corps Bible Study in reading the book of Matthew. Yesterday I finished it. I love reading the Bible because I always learn something new or gain a different understanding of even familiar passages. Perspective has something to do with it. So, this time unintentionally, I think I read it from Jesus’ perspective of training His disciples. What better model for me to use to design our training program? Not necessarily the curriculum, but my relationship with the cadets and the whole mentoring plan. I love His teaching method – stories and questions. There is an overwhelming aspect to this, too. What a great responsibility I’ve been given which will have lasting impact on the future of Pestišanas Armija. So, I decided the next thing I need to read is something from Paul, as he provided direction and ‘leadership training’ to the early Church. I started today with Thessalonians and then will move on to Timothy. Here’s what I read today:

1 Thess. 1: [4] For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, [5] because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. [6] You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

So much to think about in that paragraph. My first thought was that my prayer would be that verse 5 would be true of me. I wonder what the people here think about my living here? Verse 6 is frightening in some ways – first that anyone would imitate me but what I was most impressed with was this thought of suffering. I have a sense that we will experience a lot of trouble as we prepare for training and during the program. It’s such a great opportunity for expanding the gospel in Latvia that there will be opposition. I have no idea where it will come from but I believe we (I) have to be prepared. I need my friends to pray for protection for me and those who have so willingly responded to God’s call in this way. Protection from what? I’ve been thinking about that today – attitudes, egos, discouragement, fear, an overwhelming sense of it all. But, mostly, I feel that we need protection from personal sin. Because this whole thing is dependent on a few individuals, we (I) need to be very aware of keeping my own life pure and my relationship with the Lord alive and growing. If you think about us – pray, please!

Saturday in Riga

Today was one of those days that I absolutely love. It's Saturday, I have nothing planned, no urgent work, a semi-clean house, and it isn't raining! So, I slept in a bit and then took off for the center of the city. Have I said before "I love Riga!"? I do - it's architecture and art in general. The great historical significance of the Old city always amazes me. So many layers of history to learn and to use to understand the people and the culture. I headed to Melngalvju Nams (House of Blackheads). In the past I've been so fascinated just walking around that I've hardly stepped inside any of the museums. Today I went in and I'm so glad I did. Again, the history surrounding the building is incredible - everything is older than anything in the US! And the layers of war and occupation are very evident in this great building. I asked one of the guides about a small sculpture in Latvian "Kas tas ir?" or what is that? She fell for it and began a whole history lesson in Latvian. The wonderful thing was that I understand at least half. And when I had to confess ignorance, she thought I must speak Russian. It may not seem like such a big deal, but I love the moments when I am not automatically identified as American. She kept talking in Latvian and we had a lovely time. She urged me to look through the rest of the building where there are sculptures, paintings and lavish banquet rooms, too. And apparently, there is some African significance to the title. I didn't realize it before, but there are pictures and all kinds of artistic works of a black man named Maurice. I have to get that story because that is not like anything else in Latvia. From there I went to Dome Square and wondered around the Dome Cathedral. I couldn't go in because there was a wedding, but they had a cool stained glass exhibition and lots of relics around the inner court. That ended my sightseeing - I went shopping at the Stockman's Department store - very American and there are a couple of things I like to buy there once in a while. It's also a fun place to hear all of the languages spoken there - everyone non-Latvian or Russian eventually ends up there, as do many locals. I bought just enough to fill my backpack then headed home. It's a good walk and it was a nice, cool but not cold day. Perfect for walking. After unloading the backpack, I got my hair cut - always an adventure. This time a man cut my hair "Gunars" - he was great. As far as I could tell the only English word he knew was 'short', but that's what I needed so we were just fine! I returned to welcome home Graeme, Zoe and Sian from their vacation. Now, I'm fixing a nice meal and plan to read or watch a movie for the rest of the evening. I'm a happy girl!

A Day in Latvia

Because I’m creating a new program, there isn’t much routine to my days. I’m most often working from home which is not my best setting – I’m easily distracted and because there aren’t a lot of urgent tasks I don’t feel motivated to work very hard. I’m a project oriented person and much of what I should be doing now is simply studying and organizing to get ready for training to begin. I know that once the training program opens, I’ll be so busy I won’t have the luxury of distractions. But, that’s when I’m at my best, so I look forward to it.

So, here’s what I did today. I’m getting the application forms for training ready, but as with most things that doesn’t involve a lot of work by me. It mainly requires finding people to translate from English to Latvian, Latvian to Russian, Swedish to Latvian to English to Russian, etc. This is the biggest frustration about my work, because I have no control over the quality or even the ability to double check. So, the applications arrived from Sweden and I had first to find a Latvian who can read Swedish and translate it to Latvian. Then, so that I could know what the forms said, it had to be translated from Latvian into English. Getting that done has taken several months. Once I had an idea of what the forms said, I had to do some editing (in English) to make them appropriate for our needs. Today I sat for a couple of hours with Henrik and went over all of the documents. He is Danish and reads some Swedish and has good English skills. He read through the Swedish forms while I attempted to decipher the Latvian and made changes on the English. Then I have to have the Latvian corrected. And by the way, we are having the forms translated from Latvian to Russian, too.

While we were in the middle of today, it seemed like just a normal day. But, when you think about what we were trying to do – it’s pretty funny and in my more cynical moments, I would say it’s ridiculous to think that we could have any kind of acceptable documents from our work. But, we are all we’ve got. I mean there are others who could have replaced one of us at our skill level, but no one who is expert in what we were doing.
This was just a taste of what I’ll be trying to do when I get applications turned in, written in Latvian and Russian. And then I can’t even think about how I’ll handle homework during the training program! This is a miracle of God’s grace and probably, patience! and we have to have those kinds of miracles every day if this is really supposed to happen.

A Year in Latvia

A year ago yesterday I arrived in Latvia. Someone suggested that the year had gone by very quickly, but honestly, it's been one of the longest years of my life! A whole year of every single thing being new and with primarily a computer to help me process all of it. Yes, the computer has helped me use my friends from around the world for adjusting and coping and I can't imagine what I would have done without that access. The newness is starting to slow down, but still there are tasks that come up that I have to get up the courage to do on my own or the humility to ask for help. Both things that I needed to learn and am learning daily. A recent 'new experience' example - I had to get a rental car washed before returning it a couple of weeks ago. In the past, I've either just paid the extra fee not to wash it or asked someone to do it for me. But, I was certain that I could now take the car to the station and drive it through the wash without help. I mean, how many dozens of times have I done that in the States? Well, I know the word for card is 'carte' and the little machine said put your 'carte' here (in Latvian!) So, I put my debit card in the slot but I quickly figured out that's not the kind of card they meant! Now my debit card was stuck, there was a car waiting behind me and I had to go confess that I had broken the machine. Not me - I took a pen or something from my purse and starting pulling on my card and in a one of those grace moments, it came out. Now I still have to go buy the right kind of card in the station. The man behind me spoke English and suggested I should pull out and let him go through, which I did. Well, it all ended happily but was a reminder that I am not self-sufficient yet! When I say longest, I don't mean it's been the hardest year - I've had much harder (stories for another time). It's been a great and amazing year in many ways and certainly a challenge and stretching year, which is what I felt God was calling me to. Just long and often difficult and a bit lonely. Even as I write that I realize I've been very fortunate to have so many people around me who have become friends. I know there are many 'missionaries' who don't have the blessing of fellowship that I have here. Earlier in the year my friend Carolyn wrote and asked me what was as I had expected and what was different. That set me on quite a thought process and I started to make a list. I want to look it over, edit a bit and then I'll post it. All week I had been planning on making yesterday a retreat and renewal day. I wasn't going anywhere, just stay in the house and read through my journal, write, pray and make some goals for my second year. Of course, it didn't happen. Thursday had been a very long and exhausting day. Henrik, Lisbeth and I met from 10a.m. until after 6p.m., including going to lunch together. It was a productive and good day - we talked about some detail work, but mostly talked about the big picture for Pestisanas Armija in Latvia. Our own roles and the future when we will be gone. More than any other time, I felt we were all heading in the same direction and I felt a lot of freedom to really share my impressions and vision. Anyway, I was of course too tired to spend the next day in the same kind of mode. So, I worked in the morning and then crashed most of the rest of the day - another kind of retreat! When I find the right day to try retreating I'll probably have lots to write down here. And what we did on Thursday will help me with my goals. (if someone reading this knows how to make paragraphs in these posts, would you let me know - I'm still learning)

Something new...

Have you ever had the feeling that God was trying to tell you something? Here's what I read last night from Leonard Sweet: "Embrace chaos...Only chaos brings forth new ideas, new experiences, and new energies, because only chaos is open and receiving, ready for change...Order is what already is; it's status quo. chaos is what can be; it's phase transition...Seek the order within the chaos, not the order imposed on the chaos." This is definitely a chaos kind of place for me - mostly because I have no idea what comes next. Combine this with my reflections on new wineskins which has been amazing. As I was preparing for my sermon the Lord really spoke to me about being ready for everything old to be replaced with something new. And an understanding that the new might be uncomfortable and even painful (like new shoes) but the result will be something amazing. Rev. 21:5 - I am making everything new! and Lamentations 3 - God's mercies are new every morning! I need to expect God's newness every day and I need to be ready for it, in case it comes in a difficult package. Usually I would just ignore the sense of impending hardship, but I can't really avoid this idea of 'newness' coming from so many different directions. And I can't wait to see what God has planned. It's all part of the journey and the mystery.