Latvia Mission

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I had an opportunity to write. The Norwegian team came and we had a wonderful visit. Our church choir has been invited to visit Oslo the end of October to deepen, expand and nurture our Christian bonds. We are in the process of buying the red brick building that is pictured in an earlier post. The Cesis home is nolonger available to us, so we had no other choice then to follow God's leading and purchase this property. We have found a construction crew which promises to have the renovation work done in 2 months. The big challenge now is finding enough money for the renovation of the upstairs. We are not going to try to finish off the whole upstairs. We are planning for 5 bedrooms, 2 toilet rooms, showers, kitchen, dining room and a small common room. The biggest expense of course will be the heating system. Once the girls are in residence. We can slowly finish off the 2nd floor and then figure out how to best utilize the first floor.

The Liepa project is also moving ahead. We are waiting for the power of attorney to arrive from NYC so that we can finish purchasing the building. This too is a huge leap of faith because there is no money available to renovate the building for the two congregations or the Hope Center which will be upstairs. God is truly teaching me how to walk in faith. This week has been really rough because we have had to sign a contract with the construction company. The final estimate came in much higher than the original figures quoted. Higher than the Hope Center has been able to raise up to now.

Yesterday, I walked into our Sanctuary with such a heavy heart, tired of worrying about money, tired of pleading for help, tired of always asking for money and not being better at fund raising, panicked that I had to sign the contract which was for more money than we had. While sitting and absorbing the beauty of our Sanctuary, God bade me to go to the pulpit and read from the Bible. I went up, opened the Bible, (by chance I thought) to Psalm 138 and read those wonderful words of promise - translating from the Latvian version -- I called upon you, You answered me, you strengthened my soul and nourished it. Immediately, I realized this was my hug from God, my reassurance. So today I am ready again to smile and to continue that mysterious faith journey that God has set me upon.

Latest news of our girls. We now have 5 young girls. Today, Lolita(15 yr) had her baby. A little girl! Another girl will have her baby in a couple of weeks.

Sad news, Sasha's, the 17 year old mother of baby Denis, mother died of complications from her leg amputation operation. Sasha loved her mother and her mother loved her. Sasha's mother was an alcoholic. Sasha was taken from her mother and put into an orphanage when she was 10 yrs. old. Sasha was hoping to move in with her mother and take care of her once she reached 18 and the government could nolonger control her. This has been such a nightmare for her. Rigunda brought her to Riga to the hospital. The hospital had sent the body to a funeral home. The funeral home tried to make Sasha pay for the funeral. They told her that if she does not pay for the funeral, they would not allow her to see her mom or attend her funeral!!! It is incredible how money hungry some can be. They told her that since Sasha had just had a baby, she must have the baby money that the state pays. It is good that Rigunda was with her. I plan to get in touch with the Social Services and have them file an offical complaint.

Well, I see this has gotten quite long. Grace and blessings to all of you. Gita