MISSION: CESIS
Tuesday, March 4, 2008Greetings to all from snowy Cesis,Due to time constraints and mainly procrastination, I will forgo our usualnewsletter format and just send this email attachment. We do appreciatethe good comments we receive from many of you each month. If youhave a suggestion or question, be sure to let us know.As always the positives outweigh the negatives so I will start with the not-so-good first.Our coffee shop (kafia veikals) is moving along at a very s-l-o-w rate. As Ihave mentioned numerous times, the Latvians are just a very deliberatepeople. We have had some good suggestions and I feel that most of thepeople are behind the idea but we can’t seem to get anybody movingas fast as we would like. We have found a couple of potential places butwe just haven’t felt 100% sure that any of those is the place we should be.They each have a drawback of some sort, but again, any of them wouldbe satisfactory. We are to meet with the mayor of Cesis next week todetermine if he can steer us in the right direction. We feel we can openfairly soon (but I use the word ‘soon’ very loosely here!) once we settle ona location. We will try to be patient and continue to work within thesystem.Another negative seems to be the weather. Laura and I actually enjoy thecold and snow, just not the cold and rain. The weather seems to affectthe Latvians more than us. As it is usually cold and cloudy, their attitudeshave seemed to lag. It almost seems like they are just waiting to doanything until spring arrives. Right now, it is about 28 degrees and hassnowed off and on all day. I just walked from the gym and freezing rain,snow and sleet are making the roads and sidewalks pretty nasty. So, I think that we will have a couple more months of winter before spring arrives. Ihope the Latvians can hang on that long!On the positive side, God continues to bless us and keep us safe. We haveboth been remarkably healthy. We have not suffered any illnesses andare going strong. We have adjusted to walking in the snow and ice (withthe occasional slip!) and we are becoming semi-experts at getting a firestarted in the cool morning hours.Another positive note is that we are finally about to begin working in theBoys’ Prison. We have submitted our paperwork, documents and planswith hopes to have approval soon. These items have already passed thefirst step so the rest should be a formality. We are working with a man
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