Jurmala, LatviaMonday, June 22, 2009
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Trip Across Eastern Europe DAY #8
Hung out with Cheryl today and geared up for the upcoming all night worship event. The kids went down to the park and spent a few hours there, playing, while I continued the work on my next CD, cutting tracks and sending them to Jackson back in Vancouver, Washington. This evening a really neat couple came over to Cheryl’s place. Their names are Maris and Linda. They have a really popular Latvian band called “Jurspeis.” We got a chance to listen to each other’s music and fellowship together for a couple of hours. Then Viktor came over so I could give him the pictures and video from Saturday night. It has been so nice staying with Cheryl here in Jurmala. She is such an awesome woman of God who has been here in Latvia as a missionary since the early ‘90’s when this country first opened up for missionaries to come in after communism fell. She is now one of the national leaders of YWAM, and has become very precious to us. We are so glad that God has called here to serve in Latvia. She is a tremendous asset to this nation and has seen a lot of things happen in Latvia over the past 20 years.
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One cool thing that we invested in before we left the U.S. was a good mobile phone. We needed something that would work all around that world that we could simply get different pre-paid SMS cards for, wherever we are at in the world. So we purchased the newest Blackberry Bold World Phone and had it unlocked so that it can be used anywhere in the world. We have a prepaid SMS card in Poland, but since I was using it so much to SMS people in Latvia, our money was running low on it. So while we were at the beach in Jurmala yesterday, we stopped into a little shop and bought a Latvian SMS card with about 5 Lats (U.S. $10) on it so that while we are here, we can communicate with people in Latvia and back in Poland. Man, I tell you. These days technology has made it much more easy to be missionaries. I think back to what I have read about missions in the early 20th century, where communication was nil, travel was horrendous, and missionaries to the interior of Africa packed their belongings in a coffin as most died within the first two years of service because of the lack of vaccinations and the presence of rampant disease. I don’t think we even know what it really means to suffer for the sake of Christ in missions.
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One cool thing that we invested in before we left the U.S. was a good mobile phone. We needed something that would work all around that world that we could simply get different pre-paid SMS cards for, wherever we are at in the world. So we purchased the newest Blackberry Bold World Phone and had it unlocked so that it can be used anywhere in the world. We have a prepaid SMS card in Poland, but since I was using it so much to SMS people in Latvia, our money was running low on it. So while we were at the beach in Jurmala yesterday, we stopped into a little shop and bought a Latvian SMS card with about 5 Lats (U.S. $10) on it so that while we are here, we can communicate with people in Latvia and back in Poland. Man, I tell you. These days technology has made it much more easy to be missionaries. I think back to what I have read about missions in the early 20th century, where communication was nil, travel was horrendous, and missionaries to the interior of Africa packed their belongings in a coffin as most died within the first two years of service because of the lack of vaccinations and the presence of rampant disease. I don’t think we even know what it really means to suffer for the sake of Christ in missions.
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Christian Young
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