Road trip

2 of our cadets are non-residential, living and working at the corps in Daugavpils which is about a 3 ½ hour drive east of Riga.  Yesterday Solveiga and I headed there to observe their ministry.  It was a beautiful spring day, the baby storks were poking their heads out of their nests and some even trying to fly.  I have to confess I’d never thought much about where storks live, but I guess I assumed they were tropical and lived near the water like pelicans (admittedly I’m not very zoologically minded).  But, really they live in Latvia at least during nesting time.  They make huge nests on top of utility poles all over the country.  It’s fascinating.  So, the drive to Daugavpils was great.  The meeting we went to was mostly geared to street people and many of them have serious drinking problems.  It was something to see them singing and praying together.  I am really burdened for this population, which is prevalent in every part of Latvia and pray that someday we will be able to open a rehabilitation center or recovery corps in Latvia.  I have a reputation of being loved by the old Latvian women, especially the Russian ones and it proved true again last night.  As soon as we got in the chapel an old woman (drunk, I suspect) started staring and talking.  I headed over to her and Solveiga said, ‘she says you are lovely!’  She grabbed my hand and kissed me and continued to watch us and smile through out the service.  All seemed to be going great as we headed back home until we got about 45 minutes out of Daugavpils and I was pulled over for speeding.  This is the second time I’ve been stopped by the Latvian police.  (25 years of driving in the US and I never got stopped.)  The young policeman came over and asked me (in Latvian) why I was speeding.  Here’s the rest of the conversation as I remember it. (apologies for mistranslation and perhaps exaggeration for effect)

“I don’t understand Latvian – only a little” (in Latvian)  
You speak Russian?
No, English.  (So he continues in Latvian which means Solveiga has to translate from this point.)
Here’s my registration.
Why is your insurance expired?
I didn’t know it was. (the truth and I did feel panicked but remained calm.)
Your license?...it’s American…you live in Latvia?
Yes, here’s my passport with residence permit. (another panic – I should have a Latvian license by now)
Why were you speeding?
I don’t know.
You’ll have to come to the police car. (Solveiga goes with me – there is another policeman in the car)
2nd man – here’s how fast you were going (shows speed gun).  Why were you speeding?
I didn’t know I was (actually I believe they added 10 klm, but how do you prove that?)
You will have to go to the police station in Riga – you know where that is?
No, but I’ll find it.
(disappointed look)You’ll have to pay 30-50 lats. They will decide.
OK
(disappointed look)Why don’t you have insurance?
Innocently – I have an insurance card in the car, can I get it?  
Smiling – Yes!
On my return with only an insurance card – frustrated they say, This is only for service. What are you going to do about this?
It’s a company car and I didn’t realize but I’ll take care of it tomorrow.
How will you get to Riga without insurance?
(pause…and I think, I’m calling Henrik!)
What are we going to do with you? IN ENGLISH!
(insert – this is the exact phrase used by the police who stopped me before – do they teach that at  the police academy?  In that case I thought I was paying for a ticket until he handed me back my documents and walked away with my 20 lats and I had no paper from him.)
All I can say is I will take care of it tomorrow.
Flip through my documents again – who do you work for?
Pestisanas armija
Flip through documents again and whispering to each other.  Where do you live?
It’s the same address as the company.
Hands me the wad of documents and says get it taken care of tomorrow.
When we got in the car Solveiga said, “I wanted to laugh because they were two country police trying to be tough!”  And we looked all through the documents – no ticket.  In fact, they didn’t write one thing down!  So, I came out of that without a ticket and having paid no extra amount to the local police!