Traveling Back to Riga

After a long day of ministry yesterday, we boarded the motor coach late in the morning for the trip back to Riga. The motor coach is now a little fuller. We finally had an couple of hours to shop and the local stores were attacked with a vengeance! The most popular items were chocolate and coffee mugs with the name of the city of Liepaja on them.
We were running out of certain sizes of shoes and stopped at a local church on the way that graciously has acted as a warehouse. The Buckner Orphan team in Latvia headed by Dace ( I now have it spelled right), pronounced "dotsay" and Kristina are so organized. Shoes are shipped ahead to the orphanages, the restaurants are ready for us, the meals are all preordered, the hotel keys are waiting for us and most importantly the orphans are always ready to hear us. God has truly blessed this ministry with Spirit-filled, intelligent and hard working people.

On the way to Riga, we stopped in the town of Jelgava, Dace's home town. Her mother and 8 year old adopted daughter had lunch with us and Dace's daughter helped us minister to the children at Jelgava City orphanage.

We are so fortunate to have two young people with us, Jessica Hariharan who is 15 and Erika Zimmerman who is a junior in highschool. Erika has given insight to her fellow missionaries on how to effectively witness to young women and the young girls just flock to Jessica.

Today's vbs and shoe distribution was a challenging one. The Jelgava orphanage was different than the other orphanages we visited. It didn't seem to have as much staff, the floors were well worn and the public areas were not as nice as the orphanages we had been to before.We served children from age 2 to age 18 here.

We all now have much more respect for shoe sales people. The little kids were easy at this orphanage, find the right size shoe, put it on , they smile and love it. The older girls and young men add the element of style into mix. It is really neat to watch them wrestle with their individuality as you try to find the right size and style for them. Coming from the US we've had choice and individual expression for a long time but the Soviet built cookie cutter drab apartment buildings that line the streets in Jelgava represent the lack of choice and individuality that Latvians suffered with for a long time. It's great to see these young people want express themselves, and dress is an important part of that.
The unchanging nature of God's word was brought to mind as we proclaimed the Good News to these kids. Daily as we witness to these children, young men and women, with the same message that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life and that message remains unchanged from orphanage to orphanage or from continent to continent.

Part of Andrea's message last night during devotions, was that God had planned in advance for each of us on this trip to be here. He planned well as the group reflects their leader, Jesus Christ. There are no evident egos, there is a lot of mutual respect and genuine love for each other. The spiritual talents of each of the missionaries seem to mesh together to get the Gospel out. The ladies with their handicrafts for vbs, the men with their muscles for hauling the heavy suit cases of medicine and supplies as well as the additional boxes of shoes, the people with public speaking abilities that use there voices to proclaim God's word, have come together in harmony every day to be God's instruments in fulfilling a small part of The Great Commission.

As we came back to our home away from home at the Radisson in Riga we were tired but smiling, looking out for each other, helping carry each others bags and looking forward to hugging some more orphans, tomorrow!



Thank you for being part of this mission trip by reading this blog,

Mark and Jackie