Week 2

Mondays apparently are the days when we are a little bit lighter on the activities. I guess this is normally when we will have some personal time.
Tuesdays are when we meet with the Ergli team to plan combined events for youth and long-range ideas.
Wednesdays we spend most of the day preparing for the evening meeting. This includes cleaning the Yellow House and preparing for dinner, getting stuff for games and activities, as well as preparing the lesson/Bible Study
Thursdays – Aija & Liene teach simple English to a kindergarten in Tilza and one in Vectilza. Katie is having a bookkeeping class at the Yellow House. The women meet in the evening for prayer. David has English classes on Thursdays and Fridays.
Fridays – Kaspars leads a Bible Study in Balvi

Important events this week:
Our septic tank needed to be pumped – Inita mentioned it on Saturday and we could all tell that it was full – water coming out the top. So, I called Katie (Dan had told me yesterday that she would know who to talk with) and we made the arrangement that I would go stay with Jonathan who has a temperature while she went over to school and talked with the boy whose father does the pumping. On the way, I met up with Kaspars who told me he has already asked the guy this morning about doing theirs. The man was still at Tik Tak and so Kaspars made arrangements for him to also come by our place later in the day. So, all is well. It cost us 6 Lats.

Aija’s mother (right) and sister (left) visit us

Aija’s mother, Natasha, and sister, Kristine, came (on the bus) Monday morning for a visit. They brought Aija a pretty gift (candle) and delicious cake. We all ate lunch together then they went back to Balvi on the 1:00 bus. While in town Aija picked up a video and we watched it in the evening on my computer. First time I had really tried to do that and I didn’t know how to make the movie go the full-screen. So, with only a 14” computer anyway, this was tiny. But we had fun. We ran it in English and had Russian sub-titles.

First meeting in Ergli Left early Tuesday morning for Eagles’ Wings Camp. The camp is new and still being built but it’s used regularly already. It was a beautiful day with sun shining on the snow and ice. We had our combined meeting of the two teams (Ergli/Madona and Tilza). Besides the 6 of us (Katie and Liene were in Tilza), Dustin and Kristine were the only ones from their team who could come this time. After a time of devotion (which Kaspars led) we mostly discussed the previous activities of the combined group.

The Christmas Valley guys joined us for lunch. Sounds like they are getting quite a bit done on one of the other buildings – sheet rocking, etc.
After the meeting we drove home with a stop in Madona at the Rimi store. I ended up buying a new cell phone. The other one I had was just borrowed from the partners office.

Upcoming outreach event We had a meeting about Saturday’s outreach event for Vectilza people. I need to go to Riga on Friday so will be back just in time for this event on Saturday afternoon


Our house is the red brick one on the right

On my way home I fell because it was so icy. Didn’t really get hurt. But I am a bit hesitant about going out now. Later in the afternoon, Dan and David came in and looked at our stove, which has a cracked glass, and said it was not immediately dangerous but we do need to order a new piece of glass. So, Liga took the measurements and now we can see how to order it from Riga.

At 4:00 I got a ride back to the Yellow House for the Youth meeting. Some of the kids were already there.

Just over 30 kids came. Most are between 8th and 12 grade. Many came because David Baker was there to visit. Two things were a bit different than last week. It didn’t go quite as smoothly but this time the kids weren’t nearly as rowdy and noisy. Several of us talked with one of the boys about his decision last Sunday, to follow Christ. After asking if he had told anyone about his decision he told me that he had talked with one of his teachers who was happy about it. Katie talked with another boy tonight who said he wasn’t ready to make that decision.