December 2024 Latvia, Winter Welfare, UK
LATVIA WINTER WELFARE We have been busy this week distributing Winter welfare in various forms in Eastern Europe- payment for operations, for heating bills, and purchase and delivery of clothes and firewood. We've been on this work all week including over Christmas Day, when it clearly meant a lot to our brethren in very hard situations to have a visit and some warmth. We didn't have many hours of daylight in the Baltic Winter. Although the temperature gets down very low, down to -30 C, whilst we were there the temperature was hovering around freezing with not much snow. Really, we did provide so much help and as Paul says about supporting the Jerusalem poor, much praise ascended to the glory of our Father and His Son. And our work and provision is ongoing. Here are a few highlights:
Knocking on the door of a sister who lives in little more than a wooden shed, unexpected because she has no form of communication. She couldn't believe we could just appear on Christmas Day with firewood for her. After her shock subsided, we had a prayer, and she burst into tears of gratitude. She has tried to insulate her door as best she can, but her house has large gaps around the windows and is literally falling down:
Delivering firewood by night to a sister who lives at the side of a railway track:
The joy of brothers and sisters to get a visit from other believers, as well as Winter support:
Nothing quite like seeing the firewood put immediately into the burner to generate heat:
Taking firewood up very steep dangerous stairs to where some of our folks live:
Despite many of our visits being in hours of darkness as it's the northern Winter, hopefully you can see the smiles of joy brought to the Lord's people- and the joy of serving them:
We're thinking of doing another distribution trip in February, Lord willing. Just for a few days. It'd be a great opportunity for folks to come over and get involved, let us know if you're interested.
There's a video of some of the firewood distribution
at https://youtu.be/z5m0V00WsVE
We enjoyed a great Christmas Eve. We drove to eastern Latvia to take firewood to sister Svetlana and sister Sandra. We found ERIK, Sandra's neighbour, eager for baptism. We spent a wonderful evening together, but there was nowhere to baptize Erik- apart from in the lake, which was covered with ice. Erik was so determined for baptism that he asked if we could baptize him there- which we did, in the light of the car headlights as it was already getting dark. You can see in the photos how we broke some ice and then immersed him, making a coffin shaped hole in the ice. It was of course... cold. A somewhat painful death and resurrection with the Lord Jesus. But he looked so warm and joyful afterwards. May God bless our brother's desire to follow his Lord whatever it costs. And may He continue to bless Sandra's amazing witness to everybody around her. Roads were icy and full of drunk drivers between the villages of Eastern Latvia, so we got a hotel for the night, driving back to Riga at first light on the 25th. What a great way to "do" Christmas.
Video at https://youtu.be/4Yeg4Cu9YM0
UK
We were super delighted to baptize ALEX in the UK just before leaving for Latvia. Alex is a roofer. We had a coffee with Alex and Nicola in a coffee shop about 7 years ago, and gave them NEV Bibles. And became friends on social media. It's been a long journey, but since then we've kept in touch on and off. And now indeed, it's a case of "Cast your bread upon the waters, and you will find it after many days". We did the baptism in Alex's bath tub with Nicola holding the camera. What a joy it was to see the seed of God's word grow like this. And that seed has been sown in so many hearts through NEV Bibles and the Bible Companion app.
Video at https://youtu.be/CsQ5YeMfWD4
PRAYER POINTS
- For those recently baptized
- For the Lord's return this year
- For those struggling to keep warm and safe this Winter in Eastern Europe
- Thanksgiving that we have been able to meaningfully assist so many with Winter welfare this year
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks