A Great First Day

We started our mission ! After a quick breakfast we left our hotel for the baby home. These babies, age 1 thru 4 are at the baby home for different reasons,some are without parents,some are there for a short time because their parents can't afford to keep them at home, these are two of the reasons I understood while the administator spoke to us in Latvian through an interpreter. The pictures tell the whole story, the kids were very well taken care of and our group just loved the heck out of them. We were told it would be appropriate to say a prayer to ourselves a we hugged the kids, for God's grace on them as they grow up. You could see a lot of prayers being said as the kids are hugged. It was a great experience, very moving. The kids were very accepting of us and many of them hugged us back. They loved their shoes. One little boy, Rickard, received some tennis shoes that lit up when he stomped the floor. He just stomped and stomped and stomped.

We took a guided tour of "Old Riga" in the afternoon after eating at the largest buffet ever seen by our guide Susan. She is from Texas so that really says something about this buffet. Riga is gorgeous even in the snow, yes fellow snow belt residents, we have snow here also. We also toured the occupation museum. These proud independent freedom loving people have been under the thumb of Russia, Germany and then Russia again from the early 1900s until the late 1900s. The young man who was our guide through the museum wants to be a Lutheran minister.
After a hearty pork chop dinner at a local restaurant, we had devotions and game planned for tomorrow when we do a Vacation Bible Study and pass out shoes at another orpanage that has kids from pre-school though high school. Jackie's group has the 7 to 9 year olds and my group has high schoolers.

We also will attend church at Matthews Church in Riga tomorrow morning. Someone tell Pastor Zehnder there are roosters on the spires of the Lutheran Churches here. Maybe Jack Shaw can put one on St. Mark .

Blessings to you all,

Mark and Jackie