It's after midnight so my birthday is over. I'm officially closer to one big birthday than the lesser one - EEK...I might be having a little trauma about that. I don't usually like to make much of my birthday. But, I'm in Latvia and you can't ignore any special anniversary here. I got an early greeting from a friend in the US who sent these words from Henri Nouwen:

Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you.” Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: “Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished.” No, we say, “Thank you for being born and being among us.” On birthdays we celebrate the present. We do not complain about what happened or speculate about what will happen, but we lift someone up and let everyone way, “We love you.”Celebrating a birthday reminds us of the goodness of life, and in this spirit we really need to celebrate people’s birthday every day, by showing gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness, and affection. These are the ways of saying: “It’s good that you are alive; it’s good that you are walking with me on this earth. Let’s be glad and rejoice.”

I decided to let people celebrate my birthday and to enjoy it myself. In Latvia the birthday person brings the cake so we had a nice chocolate one this morning at the training school. The cadets sang and gave me the traditional flowers. One of the things I love about Latvia - flowers! Sergejs also gave me two of his painitings. One of flowers (in place of the real ones) and another he painted after our last field training Sunday. It's of the road we traveled on to Liepaja. I love it and I love the sentiment, too. We had a great Homiletics class this morning, too. It had nothing to do with my birthday but was an affirming and encouraging time for the teacher, who just happened to have a her birthday today! I came home hoping to go out for a nice walk this afternoon but the weather was against me. I talked with Veronika for a bit (more flowers!) and Dace also brought me a nice bunch. My flat smells very nice. One of my favorite Latvians is Nina, a lovely woman who lives in our building and goes to the Riga 1 corps. We carry on crazy half Latvian/half English conversations and love each other. She stopped by with a little gift, too.

This evening was our last small group for the season. I offered to bring dessert. We met at Henrik and Lisbeth's and had no idea that they had planned to make a little party for me. I brought my Bible - no one else did! Lisbeth made a chocolate cake and I brought a fruit pizza (auglu pica). We ate a lot and they also had gifts. Wow...this was turning into one of my most celebrated birthdays! It wasn't over. 4 of the girls from the small group I used to lead showed up at the door with flowers and a gift. It was so cool. They made a game for me. I'll try to put up a picture of it. They stayed and we played their game. It was really fun and I'm going to sleep feeling very celebrated and very blessed.