Baltic Church Planting

            I have already written about Vasily in my previous reports. Now I want to tell about his improvements after his falling. Since Vasily has turned to God not so much time has passed, but all of us see changes in his life. He started to work at the same place where he worked before. There were not many chances Vasily himself realized the situation and also prayed and trusted the Lord. After going to his boss for him to start working there again, but we really prayed for him, and now he is again working. and telling the real reasons of his absence, the boss accepted him back. Usually this kind of people are never kept at work, moreover, they are never renewed in their positions, but this case is different, we really saw God's hand in this. The woman that was renting a flat to Vasily, refused to do it again. He did not have a place to live, and during our meeting with church leaders, we decided that Vasily could stay at church till he finds a place to live. And we also decided to support Vasily with products till he is able to feed himself. I spend a lot of time talking with him, and I see the changes that could be done only by God. He shares his thoughts. We pray together, I come to him, and we spend time reading the bible and meditating on God's word.  Vasily is very active in all the services, he does everything he can do to be useful at church. Olesya, Elvita, Vasily and I are getting prepared to open a Christian youth café. Elvita, by the way, is really active in attending our bible lessons on Tuesdays. She hardly reads in Russian, but she speaks Russian and understands everything. We have already planned the program of the café which will be devoted to the Bible, but we will also have different games, funny activities. We have invited the youth form the church "Voice of Gospel", teenagers form the orphanage, and also the youth and teenagers that attend our church.

            We are very much concerned about our summer camps. We will have two camps: one will be for children at the beginning of June, and children will not stay there during the night, but only during the day. And another one for youth camp in July. As concerning the first camp, we need to find an organization that could provide food for the camp; the second thing is that we need leaders to lead the groups. And the third thing is that the program is not yet ready. During this month all of us have been discussing and trying to solve these problems. During one of the meetings of camp preparation we got an idea about this camp, what kind of camp it should be. In other words, what exactly we want to tell to those children and how we want to touch their hearts. We started to develop the program around this idea. This plan should be improved later, but for now, at least, we have an exact plan. With the leaders it is harder, we need to find faithful people, and we do trust that God will help us in this, as He has done always. There are a lot of things to be done for the youth camp. We will carry out this camp with the church "Voice of Gospel". This means that everything concerning the camp and the staff will be common for both of our churches. We have some difficulties because of this. There are different points of view concerning the program, the age and readiness of the leaders, and some other things. And we need to look for unity in this. We have one goal - the teenagers. We serve to God, and that is why we need to work upon it together, of course if we want to have the camp carried out together.

            We have not reached anything special as concerning the youth camp, and there are only some meetings where we discuss some primary concepts. Everybody is very busy and it is very hard to come together for discussing the camp program, so I pray and hope for the best.

            We were getting ready for the Easter for a very long time. We planned to have a small concert at our church. The church "Voice of Gospel" also invited us to show the performance at their church during the celebration with the club "AWANA". The children took a wonderful part in it; they were staying after school, were attending all the practices, and in other words, did everything for the performance to be carried out well. Before the performance at the church "Voice of Gospel" we came together to practice for 40 minutes. We were worried not less than the children. Brother Eric was leading the concert, he divided our performance to three parts, and there were songs and poems. In the middle part there was a drama. During our practices, sister Ljuda was playing the piano, but Eric offered us to use their keyboard. We had only two practices with Eric and we thought that those were enough, but it was not. During the concert, Eric played a bit faster, changed the rhythm, the motive, and everything was very beautiful, but the children could not sing well, because they were used to the piano. So, our singing was not the way we wanted it to be. There were children and adults in the hall, so they were listening to our singing, and were applauding after each song with understanding, and supported us. The children did not feel disappointed. Moreover, every child got a huge gift after the concert. One family on their own made all these gifts, containing the products of primary importance.

The next day, the children took part in our church's Sunday service. This time the performance of the children was awesome; there were no mistakes, either problems. All those who came were very blessed, and the children themselves were very glad. All the teachers of our Sunday school told that it is very important to continue practices, to make other programs, and visit other churches and places with our performances. So we decided to keep this children team, and to develop it. At the end of April, I took part in traditional, annual prayer days that were organized by the Latvian Evangelic Alliance. It was a wonderful time spent with other pastors form Latvia. As last year, there was a guest, a pastor from the USA.  Everything he was talking about was concerning me. I was going to the conference praying to God, telling that I was tired, and did not see hoe my ministry should look and I also had many other questions. At the conference I got answers to so many questions and I am so very grateful to my Lord for His support.

            The plan for May: youth café, carrying out the holiday, dedicating to mother's day, getting ready for the camps.