Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Download

ISSION

: CESIS

Cesis Orphanage Closes Down

In Latvia, most of the or-phanages are the responsi-bility of the local govern-ment council. As such,financial decisions some-times impact the childrengreatly. The Cesis orphan-age that wehave been work-ing with hashad the threatof closing forsome time butnow it is a real-ity. All of thekids will beplaced in an-other home by the 17th of October. ForLaura and methat means thatour work in thischildren’s homeis done. Eventhough we haveonly been goingfor a short period of time, we had already begun todevelop some great rela-tionships. You have to ad-mire these kids (10-18 yearsold) that have had such atough time in life already.They will just pack up what few belongings they haveand move on down the road. This means changingschools, friends, etc. Most of us have faced moves likethis in our life-time but we probably had a family sup-port system. Most of the kids that we have becomefriends with will be close enough that we can possibly visit them. We hope they will keep in contact with usand invite us to visit in their new home. Pleasecontinue to pray for them as they make this moveto their new loca-tion. These youngsters in-clude: Kasparas, Janis, Linda,Guido, Gunars,Sandis, Toms, Janis O., Ugis,and Daniels.

Winter Weather Arrives

From a mild summer, to a beau-tiful fall, we have now movedinto the beginnings of winter. Itis now dropping almost to the32 degree mark on some nights.There has been some snow about 100 miles north of us, so we can expect some soon. Wehave a wood-burning heater for ouronly source of heat but it does agreat job. We have a woodshed inthe backyard of our apartment com-plex and we restock our wood-box each day. It is not quite like walkingover to the thermostat and startingthe central heat but we are adjusting well. We will see who can out-wait theother when it really gets cold and one of us is going to have to get up early in themorning and get the fire going. We havefound some re-sale shops that offerclothes more suited to this climate, so itlooks like we are going to be dressed warmly.

Volume 1, No. 5October 15, 2007



MISSION NEWSLETTER 2007—2008



First Baptist ChurchAthens, TexasCesis Baptist ChurchCesis, Latvia

We have been trying to do more‘total’ church fellowships and oneidea that came up was to have com-bination fall festival, thanksgiving,and in-gathering. This first festival was held on Sunday, Oct. 14. Every-one in Latvia seems to have a gar-den of some size, even the apart-ment dwellers. They obviously have‘green-thumbs’ as they producesome of the best vegetables any- where. Just as in Texas, most of these gardeners have more thanthey can use, so not only was this atime for the church to come to-gether for a meal and fellowship; it was also a time for a gathering of fresh and canned vegetables to betaken to the needy. There is a prob-lem here of not enough food forsome people so this is a great way toget them some much needed nutri-tious food and for the people of thechurch to show their thanks for themany blessings God has provided.During the festival, the people en-joyed games, having their picturestaken and some great food. Wehope they enjoyed it enough to con-tinue doing something similar inthe following months. It is a littlemore difficult here because thechurch building we use has no fel-lowship hall or areas that can beused for meals. We had to borrow another congregation’s hall for thisevent. Here are some of the photosfrom the event:

Page 2

Fall Festival and In-Gathering

Mission: CESIS

brownies,(which they haven’t hadbefore) chips,dips, etc. forthem. They are just likeall teen-agers,always hun-gry. When we finish thefood, one of us will pre-sent a shortdevotional orBible lesson. We have a translator avail-able that helps us with the language when needed. We have talked abouttrying to find a room that we could rentfor the meetings as it gets cramped inour flat at times. The kids seem to likeit however, so we will continue here forawhile. If (when!) we grow larger we willhave to move. The church we meet infor regular services is not an optionbecause it also has wood heat. If the wood heater is not fired up for quite afew hours it will be too cold to meetthere. We have a couple of options we will be exploring.

Youth Meetings — Wednesdays!

The Cesis Youthmeetings con-tinue to grow and we have seensome very posi-tive signs fromour youth. Weare now averagingover 15 studentseach Wednesday night. Mostnights we will begin withsome sort of game orphysical activity. Lauraalways has cookies,

Youth meeting . . .Gaida talking it over

Peteris and Inese Scare-crow Aiga, Pastor Olegs, Pa-tricks and Laura

Volume 1, No. 5

The Ladies’ Bible Study meets eachTuesday at our flat. It is a great groupof women that are becoming closer asthey study God’s word. Most of thestudies so far have been from the book of Philippians. Laura teaches through atranslator, using pictures, written textand Bible verses. Most of the group isfrom Cesis Baptist Church so they arealso able to plan future events that thechurch is to be involved in. From thesemeetings they have begun to be moreopen to the idea of servant-evangelismand helping others. Several of theseladies have overcome such hardship intheir own lives. It is always a blessing forus to host this group in our home.

Ladies Bible Study Some pictures of our work, our friends, our town . . .

employee of the church. He must haveanother job that will provide his finan-cial support. Along with being thechurch leader, Olegs fills the usual rolesthat sometimes are held by other minis-ters in US churches. You can find himleading worship music, directing Sun-day School, organizing events, counsel-ing and any thing else the church andits people need. Cesis is very fortunateto have a man of his ability as its pastor.

Cesis Baptist Church: Pastor Olegs and Iveta

Cesis Baptist Church is led by PastorOlegs Jermolajevs. Officially becomingthe pastor in January of 2006, he leadsthe church while also holding down afull-time job at the Latvian Seminary.There are not enough preachers tocover the churches of Latvia so onmany Sundays Olegs will preach in atleast two different congregations. Thisis very common in Latvia as well as theidea that the pastor is not a full-time

Page 3

Castle Park Lake — inthe fallLadies’ Bible Study Summer campers in 3-on-3 tournament

Olegs, Iveta & Roberts

Ladies Bible Study . . .

CONTACT INFORMATION

ARK

& L

AURA

IMBERLEY

MWimberley2005@yahoo.com

LOG

www.cesislatvia.blogspot.com