FRIENDS OF LATVIA
Our mission in Latvia is part of a much wider United Methodist initiative established to help United Methodist churches work together for the benefit of the United Methodist churches in Latvia. This is all done through the work of the Friends of Latvia organization.
If you are interested in being a part of our mission in Latvia please contact Ron & Carol Werker.
You can also call Ron & Carol at 865-414-8912
UPDATE FROM KULDIGA
JULY 2023
It is a great pleasure to receive a letter from you every time and to know how you and your loved ones are doing. We have been praying for your health and glad you are doing well.
We are pleased to say that thanks to your prayers and financial support, our shower, meal and laundry ministry continues successfully. Thank you for your donation for the washer, dryer and roof repair. The washing machine works wonderfully and the roof repair will start soon as the documentation is still being sorted out (it takes a lot of time as we are in the old town and many approvals are needed).
With your support, we were able to organize a trip to an amusement park for children from Ukraine and our Sunday school. The children and their parents thank you very much for this.
From time to time we also enjoy fellowship events, taking advantage of the warm and sunny summer weather, Vivitiņa organized a wonderful camp for elderly parishioners. As you can see from the photos, the program was active and exciting.
Children's camps at Wesley Camp will also start very soon. With your kind support and that of the church, five children of our church will also be able to attend it, as the parents alone cannot pay the participation fee.
Since the majority of visitors to our congregation's shower and meal service are low-income, Roma, ex-prisoners, homeless or single seniors, we have realized that for a large part it is not so important to receive food and wash, but to feel accepted by God and the people around them. heard, not rejected. It is very important to let them feel like one of us - important, accepted without judgment, loved. We ask God for wisdom on how to serve these people. We want to start a project that would help these people to integrate both in the surrounding community and in the whole society. We want to start practical training in the congregation in cooking, washing clothes, tending the garden and other activities that seem self-evident to us, but not to many. Celebrating various holidays together and inviting people to participate in picnics and outings, we have experienced that working together and various joint events help people to increase their self-confidence and understand that God can change their lives too. In this way, being together also becomes the practical evangelization of our church.
At the beginning of a Autumn, we are planning a children's evangelization event in Vārme - 25 kilometers away in the parish of Kuldīga district.
Our personal life is also full of nice events. Both of our grandchildren, with God's blessing, have already grown up. Alice's daughter Kate is already one year and four months old, and Artur's son Ansi will soon be five months old. Edgar and I are very happy to see how God has richly blessed us with children and grandchildren. This is also a special year for my parents. We recently celebrated our father's 80th birthday, and we will celebrate our mother's 80th birthday in October. At the beginning of August, we will all get together to celebrate my parents' 60th wedding anniversary.
Thank you very much for being with us, so that with your prayers and support we can serve and fulfill God's plan in our community.
Zinta, Edgars and the whole Kuldiga Congregation.
UPDATE FROM
KULDIGA, LATVIA
DECEMBER 2022
The following is taken from a letter from the minister of our sister church in Kuldiga, Latvia. It was forwarded to us by Ron & Carol Werker who have both been heavily involved in our mission work in that Eastern European country.
Greetings from Kuldiga!
On behalf of the entire Kuldīga Methodist congregation, I would like to welcome you in this wonderful time of Advent and wish that the Light that we await with great excitement and longing shines in your hearts and fills them with hope, peace, faith, love and joy. We look forward to meeting you face to face again with great hope.
Thank you very much for your prayers, good thoughts and all kinds of support that allow us to be, grow and serve not only in our church, but to the people of the whole neighborhood.
The summer and autumn time has again sped by like the wings of the wind, but looking back we see that it has been filled with God's grace. In the summer, we enjoyed social gatherings in the countryside, enjoying peonies, lilies and dahlias. We created an ensemble with cello, violin, trumpet, guitar, piano players and singers and took part in the LAMB Song Day. At the beginning of September, together with the Pentecostal congregation, we organized a blessed evangelization event for children with lectures, games, physical activities and a delicious meal.
On Sunday, November 20, there was a big celebration in our church - the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Kuldīga Methodist Church and 22 years since its restoration. We were visited by lovely guests from the other congregations to thank God for these years full of grace and to ask for blessings for the future.
Various economic projects are also ongoing in our parish. This summer, we restored two more windows of the parish house on the side of the yard, and we are currently writing a project together with the other residents of the building to receive co-financing from the municipality for the repair of the building's roof. In order to save money in this stressful time, we try to act wisely, heating and lighting the church premises and also doing social service. Our Aina already bought pellets for heating at the beginning of summer, when their price was still three times lower than the current one.
We also continue our service work twice a week by offering people warm food and the opportunity to take a shower and do laundry. In the near future, we plan to buy another washing machine, because one of the two existing ones has served its time and cannot be repaired anymore.
Some refugee families from Ukraine also use the opportunity to bathe and wash clothes. In the church, we try to help these war-affected families in various ways. Igita has taken in a family with five children from the Russian-occupied Luhansk region and a concussed Ukrainian army soldier and his wife. We try to get involved and provide our support also in the aid actions organized by other organizations, because there are a lot of needs.
Also in my family this year, God has honored himself and blessed Edgar and me with a granddaughter, Kate, who is the daughter of Alise and Gvido. God's blessings do not end there, the family of our son Artūrs and his wonderful wife Gita will be richer with a little boy in a few months, and Edgars and I will become grandparents to another baby.
I would like you to support Alise's family with your prayers as her husband Gvido is a soldier and is currently on a NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo as the situation is tense not only in Ukraine but also in Kosovo.
Even though we are separated by many thousands of kilometers, I know that we are close to each other in our thoughts, prayers and God's love. We hope to meet you in January at the Christmas celebration organized by FOL through the possibilities provided by the Internet. We also very much hope that you will have the opportunity to visit us again in Latvia next year, when the FOL meetings will be organized in person. Thank you very much for what you are to us, for your immeasurable love for our church and for us personally! May this season of Advent and the Feast of the Nativity of Christ be full of blessings for you!
With love,
Zinta, Edgars and Kuldīga congregation.
