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MARCH 24, 2008Greetings from Cesis!

I’

M DREAMING OF A WHITE

ASTER

– Actually, we aren’t dreaming … it’s a reality. The snowstarted falling early Sunday afternoon and by this morning there was a fresh cover of about 6inches. It is a beautiful, bright day with the snow sparkling. A very cold night is expected with alow of about 20 degrees. Today (Monday) is the first day of Spring Break for the students butinstead of heading to the beaches they are heading to the slopes and hills for sledding and skiing.Laura and I took some pictures around our neighborhood as you will see at the end of thenewsletter.

ASTER

ATVIAN

TYLE

– Easter is actually called Lieldiena in Latvia. Translated that means BigDay. As with so many things here, this is a left-over of the Communist regime. Christianity wasseverely restricted and I assume the government did not want to have a day associated with Christ.For the most part, Christians here celebrate with the same traditions as the rest of the world. A fewchurches had Friday activities but for most, Sunday services were the main event. In our church,Cesis Baptist, we had a very unique 5:30am service. It is not uncommon to have sunrise services butsince we are not the owners of our church building, we had to defer to the Lutherans. They wantedthe 7:00am service, so we backed up to the pre-dawn hours of 5:30. Yes, it was cold! Yes, it wassnowy! No, we didn’t have very good attendance but it was still a very nice service. We had ourregular service at 2:30pm with a little larger than normal crowd … about 25.We were invited to our friends Inese and Peteris’ house for the Lieldiena meal. We knew we weregoing to miss our Easter ham, hot rolls, fried chicken and coconut pies ( see blog at:http://cesislatvia.blogspot.com

). Inese is a great cook and we always enjoy her great meals. We hadboiled potatoes with meat gravy, pupina salad, tossed salad, black bread, a maple tree sap drink andlots of pickles. We finished that off with a choice of honey or bienzina cake (kind of like sweetcottage cheese). I couldn’t make my mind up so I decided to have both. It was an excellent meal andwe always have a good time there. (They have a satellite dish TV so I even was able to watch asmall part of the NCAA basketball tournament.)One of the strange things is that the day after Easter is a holiday. Most of the stores are closed and itseems most people are off of work. We didn’t know this was going to happen so we will have towait until we can find someone that can explain it to us.

OUP

ITCHEN

– The opportunity to serve at the Soup Kitchen continues to be one of ourhighlights. Most of these people are regulars so we have developed beginning friendships with someof them. The language is a barrier, of course. They continue to speak Latvian, Russian, Polish andGerman at us but we are still stuck with our English.One of the best things that has happened is that Laura decided to start taking coffee and tea to serve.When we aren’t there, they are offered only soup…no drinks, no dessert…just soup. We alreadyhad been providing oranges, bananas and Laura would bake cookies. She decided they would enjoysomething with a little more dignity so the tea and coffee idea was born. The people just loved it.On the first day, several the ladies were sitting and sipping their tea and one of them commented

that

Now, this is my style! Drinking tea and eating cookies...this is living!” I think theirappreciation is a lot more than just being grateful for a hot bowl of soup. I believe the idea of beingable to have some dignity and being treated as a person is so important for these people. The poorand elderly here suffer greatly. We are glad to help but again, we get as much from helping them asthey do from us.

OYS

’

RISON

– We have been officially approved to work in the prison. It has been a long processbut we went for the first time last Wednesday. For the time being, we will be there from 2:00-4:00each Wednesday. We are presently working with Misha, one of the chaplains. He speaks Latvianand Russian (and very little English). We are fortunate that we were able to buy a projector withdonated funds and we can use it in conjunction with a laptop. This week we will begin to teachsome simple English lessons, sing a few songs they can follow along with while watching a musicvideo and a short film. Over the years, I have been inside of this prison several times and the boyshave always been well behaved but we are still aware that this is a prison and they did somethingpretty serious to be here.I hope to get a Sports Ministry going soon but I don’t know what type of help I will have. There areabout 150 boys and I can’t teach them all basketball at one time. So, I will observe from the sportsend for a couple of weeks and devise a plan to start some sport training. They do have an insidegym but it is in bad shape (you don’t want to try to dunk … the whole goal will come down!). Theyhave about one soccer ball and maybe two basketballs for all of those kids so we will start trying topurchase some equipment soon.

OFFEE

OUSE

AFIA

AIJA

)

– We have been trying to be patient concerning our plans for thecoffee house. I wish I could say we are not frustrated but I don’t think that would be the truth. Wefully expected to be open by now and getting ready for a good summer of activities based there.We cannot find a place that meets our needs … or if it meets our needs we can’t meet the price! Weenvision this shop to be a place for us to host the youth activities, ladies and men’s groups, etc. Ourchurch is excited about us opening this up but the Latvian way is to be very deliberate in everything.We have found a place in the last week that may be the spot we’ve been looking for but someoneelse has an option on it. If they turn it back, the owner has said we can rent it.It is very hard to go and do something on our own. If we are trying to negotiate something byourselves, the price always escalates quickly once they learn we are Americans. (Because everyoneknows all Americans are rich!)We continue to believe the coffee shop is a great idea that will allow us to meet many people thathave no church affiliation and probably will never go to a church. We will continue to have faiththat the right place is out there and we will find it. (And we hope to work in our attitudes of: “Weare Americans, and we want it right now!!)

UMMER

CTIVITIES

– A busy summer is normal here. A few of the highlights scheduled so farinclude:

•

June 1-7 - Chase Bowers and family arrive for a week of meetings with the Cesis youth,Riga University students and Cesis Baptist Church

•

July 5 – 13 – Team from FBC-Athens arrives for Sports Days, Youth Celebrations, VacationBible School, Prison Visitation and Concert

•

July 17-26 – Mark and Laura with a combined group from FBC-Athens and Cesis BaptistChurch will travel to Archangel, Russia for a week of mission work

•

August 19-24 – Mark will be teaching and coaching basketball at St. Matejs BasketballCamp (Riga)Thank you so much for being a part of our lives as we try to minister in Latvia. We know so manyof you have donated money, said prayers, or encouraged us and our sons with your kind words andactions. We will never know all that each of you have done for us but we want you to realize thatwe appreciate everything and wish we could tell each one of your personally how much yourcontribution has meant to us. God has richly blessed us in so many ways and we are so thankful thatHe has provided us with so many wonderful friends.May God bless you,Mark & Laura WimberleyOur blog is located at:



http://cesislatvia.blogspot.com More pictures are online at:

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http://picasaweb.google.com/MBerley Inese and her best friend, LauraPastor Olegs and Patricks