Change Is In the Air

I love to read. Many of my Latvian friends are surprised by that statement because they haven’t really seen me read much. They haven’t seen the boxes totaling around 500 lbs of books that I have in America that I desperately want to ship over here! Believe it or not, it’s kinda hard to find books in English here in Latvia, especially good Christian books.

I was at the YWAM base the other day where they do have some English books. I was actually sitting in our staff meeting and a book on the shelf on the opposite wall caught my eye. I was actually surprised it was there since it’s “fairly” new.

“Safely Home” by Randy Alcorn is my favorite book. Next to the Bible, this book has changed my life more than any other book I have ever read. In the words of Ron DiCianni “It is fiction, but not fantasy.” I know I read somewhere that most of the things that happen to the character, Li Quan, have actually happened in China, just maybe not all ot the same person.

That’s right, the book takes place in China and is a powerful testimony not only to the plight and persecution of Chinese Christians, but also to their amazing strength and outlook on life that puts 99% of us western Christians to shame.

I’ve read it before. I rarely read books more than once, one thing I remember my dad saying while I grew up was “There’s 2 things you never get rid of… tools and books, because the moment you do, you’ll need it.” So, while I keep so many of my books, this is one of the few worth reading over and over again.

I’ve still got 110 pages to go, but so much has encouraged me, inspired me and also caused me to examine my life and my priorities.

It’s packed with Chinese proverbs, one of which is repeated often and can cut to the quick… “Real gold fears no fire.”

… Perhaps I told you Father taught me to ask myself, “Is this the day I die?” He would quote the verse, ‘Man is destined to die once, and after to face judgment.’ ”

“That’s a scary message to send to you child.”

“Does not a loving father tell his children the truth? He also taught me, ‘Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life…’ He taught me that our lives ‘quickly pass, and we fly away.’ ”

“Sounds morbid.”

“No, because our life does not end here. We do not cease to exist at death; we relocate to another place. How can we prepare for death if we deny it? One of (Father’s) favorite sayings was ‘Real gold fears no fire.’ I tell Minghua (wife) and Shen (son), we must go through times of testing, but the fire of our trials proves what we are made of.”

“Fire seems a high price to pay.”

“Purity is worth the highest cost, is it not? God is with us in the fire. (The Bible) says our works done on earth can be either wood or hay or straw that will burn in the fire of God’s holiness. Or they can be works of gold and silver and precious stones that will be purified in the fire. The choice is ours. If we are faithful, we will come out purer than when we went into the fire. This is why real gold does not fear the fire.”

There is so much wisdom, challenge, assurance and pondering in that phrase. Are we truly real gold? Can we stand the heat & trials that seek to destroy us and that also purifies us? Are we afraid that the fire will bring out things in our life that we don’t want to see and deal with, that we don’t want others to see? Are we pure? If we are, then we have nothing to be afraid of.
“Real gold fears no fire.”

It always surprises me how things sneak up on me. For some background, I am not, by nature, a person who really gets homesick. I never have been. I never understood the kids at camp that would cry to go home. In all of my travels around the world, I’ve never been the person who was grasped by pangs of anxiety to return to the familiar. Sure, I miss things, miss people, but it’s never been something that consumes me. I actually started thanking God for this, because in my line of work, homesickness could be a really big problem, but I’ve never really had to deal with it.

But boy, did it sneak up on me this weekend. Not only that, but in a situation, a place and at a time when I would LEAST expect it to ever happen.

I went to a new friend’s birthday party this weekend. I met Klavs through Andis. Klavs lives and studies in Riga but his parents live out in the country in a small village about 30-45 minutes away. This weekend Klavs turned 16 and Chris and I were invited to his birthday party at his parents home. Chris was at a worship conference, so he couldn’t go. Instead, I tagged along with Andis. We had some more mutual friends that would be there, so I wasn’t too concerned with it being strange. Ok, that’s not completely true… I was quite nervous as I had no idea what to expect… but that’s another story. ANYWAY… Andis and I drove out there and somehow got there before anyone else… including Klavs or his parents. We called Klavs to ask what to do, and he said “Make yourself at home,” so we did. We actually went on a walk since we had been sitting in the car for 3 hours.

Klavs’ parents’ place was BEAUTIFUL… and I loved it. It really surprised me. They have their own little farm/property type place. Klavs’ grandma lives next door in her own home. They have this little dog called “Maziņš” (which means “Little”) that follows you everywhere and is so cute and likes to fight with grandma’s dog. It’s just outside of the village and they have a bunch of property, woods, ponds (they raise fish… salmon)… it’s so beautiful and peaceful. Their place butts up against the Gaļa river, so we walked back there, Maziņš in tow. It was so pretty. There was a little bench there by the river and I sat down to rest & just take it all in. The birds were singing, there was even a woodpecker on one of the trees. Andis mentioned how they have deer and beaver that live in the woods there near the river. The dog started playing in the river, to which Andis and I both yelled at him, laughingly saying “Get out of there, you’re gonna stink!”… and then it hit me like a mac truck… and out of nowhere, I began to cry. It was that kind of cry that you can’t really control… you just have tears running down your face, and you’re not even completely sure why.

Andis was playing with the dog and checking out the woodpecker, so I was kinda in my own world. All of these memories of my childhood came rushing back to me, and that’s when I realized that Klavs’ parents place totally reminded me of my parent’s place, my childhood home. Grandma living next door, dog following me through the woods and coming back from the river all stinky and wet. Farm machinery sitting in front of the barn and the quiet… I love the quiet. It was one of the first times I could hear the birds without traffic drowning them out for quite some time. Shouts echoing in the woods. I felt so at home and yet I knew it wasn’t home. Memories of things I haven’t thought of in years came rushing back… like when I was about 8 or 9 and my 3 boy cousins and I were walking home from the bus, following the river back to the house. We used to like to find big sticks and let them flow down the river and throw rocks at them to “sink the submarine”… and the one time that there was a perfect stick stuck beside the ice in the river. Since I had boots and a snowsuit on, they convinced me to go down and get the stick moving. By the time I got back up the dike, it was gone, and I was soaked. I had to go in the basement door at home so Mom “wouldn’t find out” that I was wet from the river. I’m sure she figured it out, but just never said anything.

All of these memories, images & thoughts about my family and my childhood, and I just sat there, tears streaming down my face, and I really didn’t know why it was even happening.

Later, during the party, Andis, Klavs and I were talking and Klavs’ dad came around the corner and I stopped mid-sentence. He looked so much like my dad. I couldn’t believe it. Not exactly, and maybe not even very much in reality, but in my minds’ eye, in the emotional state I was in, he was a spitting image. It was very strange.

Later in the evening, or actually in the early morning hours some time, we were all sitting around singing and people playing guitar and such. Klavs’ dad came in and started playing and singing. Klavs told me they were “Latvian war songs”, not folk songs, but songs they sang during war times about being Latvian and getting their independence and such. I sat in the corner and realized that, in this group of 15ish people, I was the only non-Latvian… though as I had that thought, I remembered, “No, wait, I AM Latvian! I’m 1/4 Latvian.” I sat and listened with extremely mixed emotions. I understood words, but I really didn’t understand the songs, nor did I understand the meaning, the depth of the song and what it meant to the Latvian heart & culture. At the same time, I felt a connection, but I couldn’t understand it. (If you’ve seen the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, that’s what it was like…) Like I had this connection to this music and this land, but I didn’t know why & it kinda freaked me out. I eventually left the room, feeling very lost and overwhelmed, but deeply moved, by… by… by something that I couldn’t name.

I have since come to the conclusion that this was all brought on by a myriad of things. The biggest being that the day before, I had talked with my “baby” brother on Skype. Somehow, he’s grown into a man of 23, is getting married, is a US Marine, and is leaving for Iraq, again, on Friday. And that scares me.

Sneaky Emotional Overload – it surprised me, took me off guard and overwhelmed me beyond what I thought was possible.

It’s been an interesting week… fun, good, busy, but interesting.

Jim and Seth have been here for the past week. They came for the purpose of video-taping us to create a documentary/video that we can use to inform our supporters, and others interested in our ministry, about what we’re doing here. It has been an INSANELY busy time, trying to give them a glimpse into our lives and the country in one week. At times it has felt like we’re movie stars… everything from making sure your hair and makeup look good every day to camera’s rolling and clicking at any given time. Yes, deep inside I admit it was fun, but I’ll also admit that it was exhausting. Chris took the guys to the airport at 4am this morning… Seth’s on this way back to his wife, Jamie, in Indiana, and Jim is en-route to Hungary for a week. (If you want to see a creative video we all put together in some of our rare downtime, check it out here.)

On top of filming, we said good-bye to Ieva this week. The school choir is in America for 3 weeks and she is with them. (Strange that she’s in my country and I’m in hers and we’re not together….) It was hard cause it’s the first time the 4 of us have been apart for more than a couple of days since we all became friends a year ago.

All of these pics were taken by Jim… see his website for some of his favorites… these are some additional shots that I like.

Our sincerest thanks to Jim and Seth for their work here this week. It was all on their own dime and we have been truly blessed by them, by their work, by their prayers and genuine interest in our lives. Thank you, guys! (Seth, PLEASE bring Jamie next time! LOL)