1 night on the street

riga, latvia - some random thoughts from a wonderful week:

why is it that we americans think everyone else is speaking a foreign language?  i mean, since we’re over here, aren’t we speaking the foreign language?

so many of the team fell ill at various points of the week…still they battled on.  it’s a privilege to serve with such selfless people.

i’ve using a great card trick all week to engage the kids…it has worked like a charm every time!  with that, credit must go to where credit is due: many thanks to long-time christian magician jim church from parma heights baptist.  long ago, i worked with jim at wuab-tv.  in 2005, jim and his wife came on our shoes for orphan souls trip to guatemala.  jim did the trick all week and wowed the kids.  this year, at our shoes for orphan souls collection day at wcrf, i asked jim if he could show me the trick…he did me one better…he gave me the deck he used in guatemala!  a little practice, a little patter development…and the tradition continues.  many thanks, jim!

today in valmiera, we visited a crisis home - boys and girls who have been removed from homes with crisis situations involving themselves, or all their siblings.  i could have stayed there all day.  such respectful, engaging, talkative young boys…i wish i could have found out why they were there, and how i could pray…but those were questions that were not for us to ask.

playing the card game “uno” is a great conversation starter.  let’s just say that ‘boys will be boys’, that the concept of ‘trash-talk’ among young men is universal, and that the games were rather ‘lively.’  i’d say the games were fun, but i always seemed to be sitting next to one of our interpreters, an 11th-grader named elina.  this young lady collected every +4 and +2 card in the deck and pounded me with them…except for the times she played the ’skip’ or ‘reverse’ cards.  i’m coming back to latvia, elina…and i’m bringing my ’special’ uno deck. (modified by jim church…see above;)

aija is elina’s friend.  she’s in the 9th grade, and i helped her with her english homework tonight.  (those of you who have heard me on the air…stop snickering)  aija, if your english teacher doesn’t like some of my vocabulary answers, give the teacher my email address…we’ll work it out.

by the way, elina and aija were kristine lukstina’s youth group (see monday posting) …and the tradition continues…

o.k….so maybe i’m an ‘ugly american’, but i can’t wait to get back home to something other than soccer, team handball, swimming, and auto rallies on the euro sports channels.  (by the way, when i talked hoops with the boys, they knew lebron from the olympics…good thing…they weren’t going to learn about him watching the euro sports networks)

now for the ‘euro plus’ portion of my rant: gas prices here are between $4.50-5.00 a gallon.  a lot less cars, a lot smaller cars, buses running on electric from the wires above the street, trams and trains everywhere…bravo, europe!

i love latvia.  the history, the perseverance, the pride they take in the simplest things.  it reminds me that if i do the simple things right, the rest will take care of itself.

how can a city with over 500,000 with a river and a large body of water nearby stay so clean?  (wait…who is he complimenting…a city in latvia, or a city in ohio?)

many thanks to all who gave 10-12,000 pairs of shoes this summer.  many thanks to the families of those who are waiting for their loved ones to come home…thank you for sharing us with these children.  many thanks to the staff and volunteers from buckner - in dallas and latvia - who made this week so easy for us.  and many thanks to you, dear reader…

so…when are you coming on a mission trip with us?

mz in lv packing up, getting ready to shop…and signing off