Second Post from Latvia

Saturday Night March 2

Shelly, Beth and Tracy--toes pointed
to the site of the first decorated Christmas tree 

We had a lovely day!  Our hostess Lienite came and got us around 10:30 this morning.  It was about 25 degrees but the sun was shining.  We walked around the old city, stopping to take pictures at the spot where supposedly the very first ever decorated Christmas tree was.  We took pictures for Michael Saunders (Carl’s old youth pastor from Florida, who is a Christmas buff) he had seen Beth’s Facebook and wanted a picture of that spot.  We then stopped in a coffee shop and spent the next two hours talking with Lienite, hearing her story, her dreams for Latvia etc…  Beth, Tracy and I were moved to tears as she shared how she came to Christ.  She had asthma as a child and sent quite a bit of her younger years in medical institutions with no warmth or affection.  The doctors couldn’t do anything so her parents took her to witch doctors who mixed religion and witchcraft.  One key turning point for her was, at the age of 11, when she walked into one of the witch doctor’s home and saw a painting of Jesus praying at Gethsemane in a prominent place and said in her heart, “I want to know that man!” She went on to tell us how “God caught me!”

When I looked at next weekend’s schedule for the seminar, I was stunned to see that besides the four main sessions on Saturday, they had also scheduled me to do two seminars!  At the same time, I had been praying that Tracy would have an opportunity to give her material on the OT Tabernacle and the worship.  When I had suggested it to Lienite on Skype, it didn’t catch in her heart, but today over coffee, it DID, so in the goodness of God, Tracy will take those two slots!!!  Two prayers answered!

Tracy, Lienite and Shelly in front of an entrance through
the old city wall

We did some more walking around the old city.  We saw buildings that were built in the 1200’s, the first Lutheran church in Latvia where Luther actually came to visit.  The Lutheran church and the Catholic church actually shared and still share a wall!  Interesting.  Probably the most meaningful thing to me were the parts of the old city wall built also in the 1200’s.  On top of one of the renovated parts, there is a meeting room that can be rented.  Lienite’s last boss is a former Latvian beauty queen, an ex-member of Parliament and a deep, godly woman.  Her name is Inese.  Lienite and Inese started a national prayer breakfast and at one point of crisis in the Parliament, they rented the building on the wall, had a 24 hour prayer meeting and at different times during the day and night literally marched around the ancient walls, claiming Riga for Jesus. 

After our sightseeing, Tracy and I walked to the grocery and got more food, bottled water, etc… Yesterday Lienite remarked that we didn’t shop like Americans.  Today, when it was just Tracy and me, we shopped like Americans (Lots of stuff)!!  It was a long, heavy walk back to the apartment, then carrying the goodies up 4 flights of stairs.  We all napped and had a quick snack and then walked in fluffy, blowing snow the 3-5 minutes across the cobblestone street and city square to the Dom cathedral for our concert.  What a glorious experience!  The ceiling of the church is between 6 and 8 stories tall.  It’s the classic style of a long narrow main auditorium with a cross piece with pews.  We sat in the cross piece, sideways to the grand piano.  Tracy was only about 3 feet away from the piano. 



A view of the Chorale from our vantage point

The chorale was 10-13 men and occasionally a woman sang with them-all acapella!  Gorgeous Latin worship music.  Tracy had sung some of the songs in her Chorale at Colorado Christian College.  There were several excellent piano and organ duets—the organ was an old pump organ.  It was fascinating to watch the guy’s feet pumping as hard as can be—like running a marathon!  Then at one point we heard huge pipe organ music and turned around to a balcony at the back of the church with enormous pipes leading to the ceiling.  At one time that was the largest pipe organ in Europe.  What an experience!  The three of us worshipped and wallowed in the beauty.  We were huddled under our coats, with hand warmers, hats and scarves on.  I even sat on my hand warmers part of the time!  We went back toward the apartment and stopped at a little restaurant only 4 doors down from our apartment building.  It was decorated in silver, black and red velvet.  We sat in a rounded window on the street corner and watched the snow coming down.  It was curious to see a taxi driver taking refuge in his taxi watching a DVD on his IPad.  

Beth peeking out of the
old Elevator

We slid our way home and were grateful to have such a short distance to walk.  About an inch-and-a-half of snow had fallen and the wind was blowing in our faces.  We looked very white and bedraggled by the time we got in the door of the apartment building.  Beth took the ancient, dusty, wooden elevator and Tracy and I hoofed it.  I had been concerned about getting enough exercise while here, but that concern has been laid to rest!

Must close.  We go to church in the morning and my first “counselee” comes at 3 pm.  Then at 5 pm the entire 11 ladies of the conference committee are bringing food for a pot luck here at the apartment. We discovered that they use Chinese cabbage for salads here and didn’t know that it could be cooked.  So our contribution will be a pot of stir-fried Chinese Cabbage.  That will be fun.  Beth’s sister and my dear friend Becky Sims sent lots of gifts and we have copies of KTC for each of the committee members so I believe they will be able to sense our love for them.  The plan is to have lots of gifts as door prizes at the conference.  We DON’T want to take anything home.

Go to the Next Latvia Post.