accepted the Gospel with a thankful
and appreciative heart, but wasn't
baptized. She returned to Latvia
penniless and made her way back
to her old grandmothers place, far
in the middle of nowhere. Eastern
Latvia is now largely depopulated
with most younger people working
in Riga or in Western Europe. There
are virtually no job prospects in
such remote locations.
She is really absolutely sincere. I
baptized her in a lake and broke
bread with her, gave her some
money, and some nappies for her toddler. She
is far from anywhere and with no money, let
alone a car, transport is a real problem. She
would like to move to a larger town and work,
but finding childcare, a job and a suitable
living arrangement is very hard. Please pray
for this really sincere new sister. The house
she lives in with her grandmother is not much
more than a shack, with just a hole in the
ground outside for a toilet, no running water,
just a well. Living there through the Winter is
going to be really difficult, especially since
their potato harvest wasn’t very good this
year.”
36
From there we set off to try to find Santa,
who lives in a similarly isolated farmstead. My
experience of getting lost in that area the
night before now paid off, because Santa lived
just the next bus stop along from where we
had been. Santa lives with her elderly grand-
mother, effectively as a subsistence farmer,
in a farmstead far from anywhere much. She
had contact with our Latvian sister Ilva, who
helped her practically and introduced the
Gospel to her when she was in the UK. She
Cindy, Santa and Ieva, and Evia and David at the well, from which
Santa has to get all water for her, her toddler and grandmother
Carelinks | Summer Camp - Northern Latvia
T
hanks to all who enabled
Cindy’s mums and kids
camp to happen at the housing
project in northern Latvia. And
thank you to all those who
worked so hard to renovate
that property some years ago
now.
It was wonderful to see the
conference room full with
visitors, and to hear the noise
of little feet scampering
along the corridors. Even more
wonderful was to see secular
women coming alive for the
truths of the Lord Jesus.
Women Cindy met over the
years taking the children to
the park, or who came from friends of friends,
now baptized and with something so much
more to live for than the usual Latvian middle
class life, lived as is all secular life, in the mire
of mediocrity.
Carelinks | Latvia ... continued ~
~ continued ...