The Brewdy Bawler

The Blue/Violet Phenomenon

Ever hear of Blue Microphones? If you’re seriously into audio recording, then you should have. If you haven’t heard of Blue mics, then you should know that they are probably in the top 5 highest quality mics on the market, & the msrp’s reflect that. Blue mics retail anywhere from $500 to $5000 each.

That said, here’s a little history. 10 years ago 4 Latvians who had the opportunity to go to America & start living the “American Dream” created a company called Blue, which stands for Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics. However, somewhere along the way, 2 of the four split from Blue & started their own mic company called Violet (not too original I know… they might as well have used Azure as their name).

Violet decided to initiate a lawsuit against Blue & you can now read the final result in this article.

I’m not too happy with Blue either because one of the original 4 lives here in Latvia. He’s the chief design engineer of all the Blue mics, as well he tests all Blue mic parts made here in Latvia before shipping to the US for assembly. His salary is $1000 a month. Now as an American, knowing that someone like that should maybe be getting 5-10x that amount, I feel like his salary is a paltry sum. However, when you compare it to Latvian wages, he’s getting around 4-5x minimum wage here.

This is one of those instances that just burns me up. Why couldn’t these folks have started that company here in Latvia & employed intelligent Latvian folk?

~t

Reality Revisited

OK, now that I’ve had a couple of off-topic play-time posts, let’s get back to business.

In my previous “Reality Check” post, I asked the question, “Who is left here to develop Latvia?” And in the last week or so, I got my answer: I work with them. My wife & I are full-time staff with a Christian missions organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). It’s a world-wide organization with around 17,000 full-time workers & volunteers in over 150 nations. This “version” of YWAM here in Latvia has been around since 1993 officially. It was started & still is directed by Maris & Judite Dzelzs. My answer to my above question came on a television show that was nationally broadcast in the end of December called “Latvijas Lepnums” which in Latvian means Latvian Pride. The banquet was attended by the Latvian president, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, the prime minister & many nationally-prominent businessmen & celebrities. The Latvijas Lepnums is an award that is given to 10 people each year who have been nominated, through a personal letter, by someone who knows them & thinks that they should be considered for this award because of their work in the community. Judite was nominated & won!

TV-3, one of the national TV networks here in Latvia, came out to the main YWAM base where we currently work & interviewed many different staff about Judite. She was nominated for this award because of the work that she has been doing with drug & alcohol addicts for the past many years.

Here’s a little anecdote of Judite’s influence (which, by the way, she will always attribute to God & I heartily agree with her): There was a young lady named Naira who was an addict that came to one of Judite’s addict camps. Naira found out about Jesus & was transformed. She then came back & attended the Discipleship Training School for 3 months. When she completed that school, she moved back to her town of Kuldiga, Latvia. Then she was hired by the city government to work in a center for addicts that helps in ways like a needle exchange program to lessen the spread of disease. Now, the city government has seen the proven track record of Judite’s programs with YWAM time & time again & actually sponsors addicts to come to her camps, meet Jesus & get cleaned up & turned around!

That’s my answer. People like Judite (who also is well-known in the prison system for her ministry to prisoners) are making a difference in this country. Oh that there were 2 million more Judites!

~t