Where To Now?

We're home! We arrived back at DFW safely around 2:15 yesterday afternoon. There's nothing greatly exciting to report about yesterday... except that Wayne McNinch and Trudy Hughes graciously met us at the airport to haul people and luggage back to the church and to our homes. I'm sure they'll tell you that we talked a mile-a-minute all the way. We'll be taking a few days to settle back in, and then we'll meet to discuss what our recommendation will be regarding ministries in Eastern Europe. John will be preaching about our trip this Sunday at the Downtown Campus (all English services). We also have lots of pictures you haven't seen (lots I haven't seen!) and some video too. We hope to be sharing more and more with you as time goes by. There's no way to adequately describe everything to you... but we'll do our best! I, personally, want to thank you all for entrusting this mission to us. We were greatly blessed, and our eyes were opened to a new wo...

We are up at 3 AM this morning to get ready to go to the airport for our early flight. I'm not sure how well I think at 3 AM, but I'll attempt to give you a recap of yesterday's activities. We attended worship at First Riga at 11 AM. In a word... powerful. Gita is so intentional about her design of worship. She chose songs that we would know the tune to and had an interpreter there so that we would understand what was going on. For me, the most touching parts were the prayer time and Holy Communion.  During prayer time, Gita lights four candles to remember various areas/people (their Conference, the Baltic States, etc.). Then everyone has the opportunity to come to the front and light a candle and say a prayer. The candelabra was filled with light by the end. What a beautiful sight! During communion, everyone receives an individual anointing and blessing. After you receive, one of the pastors (Gita or Astra) lays hands on you and says a prayer over you. All I can tell you i...

Today we'll be headed to church at First Riga. But fist, here's what happened on Saturday... Yesterday was the Apple Festival! We went out to the Wesley Camp, where about 50 children, youth and adults from the Latvian churches gathered for the apple harvest. We picked apples by the bucket, while the older ladies sat in the dining hall peeling and coring them. Some people were tasked with pulling weeds in the flower beds, some with picking up the apples that had already fallen and couldn't be eaten to put in the compost pile. Some of the older men were gathered around a campfire cooking apples in a big pot (presumably for apple preserves). Others helped prepare the camp for winter by covering wooden platforms with tarp… and, sadly, the sign at the entrance to the camp was stored in the hay barn before we could get a picture of it. Some of our team gathered near the kitchen to make batches of apple crisp from the recipe that Rachel Bell donated to the UMW cookbook. Th...

We spent today in and around Liepaja on the Baltic Sea. We started the day at the churches at Liepaja, Matras and Tasi. Edgars pastors the churches at Liepaja and Matras, and the Associate Pastor at Liepaja, Gunta, pastors Tasi as well. The Liepaja church seems to be the largest and most active congregation. Edgars shared the history of the church and explained some of the ministries that go on there. They do many ecumenical activities with other churches in the city. They are also getting ready to start an after-school program in October. There is a space in the church that they hope to renovate for this use, but for now they will use the Sunday School rooms. They talked about how much it costs to heat the building (think wood-burning stoves that heat boilers... no insulation... tall ceilings... old windows). Part of their building is used by renters, so they have to make sure that those spaces are heated (Previously those businesses had reduced rent, and in exchange they provided ...

Today was mostly a travel day. We packed up everything from the hotel in Riga and headed west toward Liepaja and the Baltic Sea. We made a stop along the way at Rundale Palace, an 18th century Russian ducal palace. We enjoyed a tour of the palace and beautiful gardens, and learned a little more about the history of the country. We got to see the opulence of the palace, but also many works of art and period costumes. The palace itself was in poor repair after the occupation, so the Latvian people have done an amazing job of restoring it. I don't have the interior pictures from Richard's camera yet, but here's a look outside... After we left the palace, we headed to Kuldiga. We stopped on the way for a very cultural experience... convenience store hot dogs. They were great! Tasty mustard, with an interesting tube-like bread. We had quite a debate about how they get the bread to be like that. Anyway, I digress... Kuldiga was a quaint-looking town with many old buildings and...

We spent all day Wednesday with Kristine, the Associate Pastor of Second Riga. Her family has a rich history with the Methodist Church in Latvia... her grandmother and father are both Methodist pastors, and both were here through the Occupation period. Her father was pastor at Riga First, and is now the head pastor at Riga Second. This church is one of only two in the country that actually look like churches. It was taken over by the Lutheran Church during the occupation. Kristine shared with us some of the challenges of their church. Right now they are having a generation gap in that older members want to maintain the traditions, while younger members want to adjust to be able to attract more young people. It's an age-old problem. I have to keep reminding myself that only about 20 years ago this country was, for all practical purposes, still in the 1940's. They've come a long way in a short period of time. I don't recall if I mentioned this, but Gita was telling us ...

Wednesday morning (Tuesday update) Tuesday was a full day! I’ll apologize up-front for the length of this post. It will be simply impossible to truly tell you everything… but I took a lot of video. We started out first thing in the morning headed to Cesis. Gita served as guide and we stopped to visit two castles on our way to the churches. The first was Sigulda, and the second Turaida. I’ll let you google them to read more so that I can get right on to the ministries. You can also google the restaurant “Glendeloka” – we stopped there for a late lunch, and let me tell you…. YUM!!! So, to the good stuff… we started out at Liepa. This is a poor community, where most of the people are either unemployed or work at the local brick factory. There is about a 90% addiction rate. This is the location of the After-School program, the Liepa church with two congregations (one Latvia and the other Russian), and the Hope Center. Near-by (a minute or two down rocky roads, or a 15 minute walk fo...

I tried to get the day's blog out to you last night, but my wifi cut out and I lost what I was doing. In hindsight, it was probably God telling me that I was too tired to be writing. So now I have to try to remember what I wanted to tell you all! We had a nice day on Monday... a warm welcome with lots of hugs from pastors, members, youth. Their tradition is to bring flowers to people at the airport, so we were all gifted with a beautiful flower to welcome us to Latvia! After checking in at the hotel, we went immediately to First Riga for refreshments and introductions. District Superintendent and Pastor of First Riga, Gita Medne (Mednis in the US), gave us a history of the church and explained how they got to where they are today. We'll be sharing all about this in more detail when we get home. For now, here's a brief rundown... The Methodist Church was established here in the early 1900's, then had to go underground during the Soviet era. They have been rebuilding s...

Sunday was a wonderful day of worship. We started the morning at the Czech church. It is housed within the same building as the District Offices. Pastor Ivana welcomed us and invited us in. We filled the back two rows of chairs, set up behind rows of pews. Also behind the pews were tables for children, who were playing and coloring while waiting for worship to start. (John has the photos from this service, so I'll have to post those later when we have time to exchange photos.) On our way to church that morning, Gary Young had explained to us that many of their hymns would be familiar to us… only the Czech language generally has many more syllables than English. Sure enough, the first hymn was “Revive Us Again” in Czech, but we were able to sing along because “Hallelujah, Amen” is universal. :) The service had several elements that were familiar, and others that were not. They opened with a reading from Exodus and a reading from Philippians. There was a time in when an older ...

Another late night last night, so a morning post is in order again! Saturday was an amazing walking tour of Prague. It's difficult to explain the experience of walking this city, and the kind of effect it has on you. As with any European city, the history is long and complicated. Mark Croft describes it in two words as: "beautiful and charming." I believe we have two take-aways from today... and they're brought to you by John and Judy. The first is from our visit to the Prague Castle, and more specifically  St. Vitus Cathedral . When I asked John what his thoughts were about today, he was struck by the perseverance that the people who built this cathedral had in order to see it to completion. It took about 400 years to complete this monument to God... can you imagine? It's not a number we easily grasp, when talking about years. Because it took so long to complete, you see evidence of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture... spanning generations. As a family...

I intended to update last night, but by the time we got back to the hotel after our whirlwind walking... I'm not sure anything I said would have been coherent.  Our first visit was to the English Speaking United Methodist Church headquarters. It is located on the site of the very first Methodist church in Czechoslovakia. They are under the leadership of Michelle McKinnon-Young and her husband Gary Young.  At the site we visited, there are lots of things going on! There is a cafe where they hold English classes for mothers and children in their neighborhood. It is very important to them that they impart a knowledge of English to their children so that they have the ability to live and work in an international culture. We have already helped this church by helping to fund electronic equipment for use in the cafe area (keyboard, projector, sound equipment). Sidenote: We were made aware of this ministry because our church member, Mike Ozymy, has a brother, Dennie, who is an a...

It's about 3:45 PM in Prague. We landed a couple of hours ago and were met at the airport by Rev. Michelle McKinnon-Young and her husband Gary Young. They are the missionaries to the English Speaking United Methodist Church here. We're getting settled into our hotel, napping for a little while and have plans now to meet for dinner and to see the city at night. We thank you for your prayers for our safe travel... everything went great! More news soon... and pics too. :)

There are two distinct parts of the upcoming trip to explore a possible new Village. The first is in Prague, Czech Republic. About 14% of the population of the Czech Republic identify as Christian. The vast majority of the country either doesn't identify with a religion at all, or is undeclared. Our faith, shown through words and actions, has great potential here! We will be visiting the  English Speaking United Methodist Church in Prague  and seeing first-hand the ministries there. The second part of our trip will be spent in the 11 churches in Latvia. Methodism in Latvia is struggling to reemerge after the 51 years of occupation by Soviets and Nazis. The Latvian culture itself is being re-expressed after this time of oppression.  Latvia is a more religious country than the Czech Republic, reporting the majority of the population is either Lutheran, Catholic or Russian Orthodox. I've asked myself, "What do we have to offer that the Latvian people might not get f...