Winter Heating and Welfare February 2009
Firstly we'd like to ask for your prayers for a number of people who are coming up to baptism in various parts of the world, and those travelling to them; we hope over the next 2 weeks to have quite a lot to report, God willing.
Carelink readers have probably noticed on the news various reports of how the financial crisis is biting in Eastern Europe. The Latvian Government has recently resigned due to the street protests, and indeed people are in a desperate situation- wages decreased by up to 20%, many companies simply not paying workers, tax hikes, higher prices for medical care, hospitals closing, soaring unemployment, and corruption everywhere. Street crime has more than doubled in Latvia over the last six months, and there are old people begging on the streets as their pension is literally only enough to pay their utilities bills.
So we've had to distribute quite a lot of Winter Welfare recently and we so appreciate your enabling of us to do this. Here are just a few of the cases:
Sister L (far right in the photo, pictured at Riga ecclesia a few weeks ago) was mugged two days ago and had her pension taken from her along with her ID documents and purse.
Brother B has a wife and three children to support. His company didn't pay his wages for 3 months, each month end promising they'd pay next month... and then bankrupted.
Sister Tatyana has an unemployed husband and newborn baby, and gets only the equivalent of US$20 / month in benefits. They have to all try and live off this, with the cost of living at Western levels.
The sisters living in the women's shelter get occasional work but things are hard for them.
We've given them various forms of assistance, including women's vitamin packs sent over from sisters in America, and blankets knitted by sisters in Australia and England:
Brother Slavik has a wife and three children to support, but has lost his job as the company bankrupted. We were able to send him $100 and he sent us a most appreciative text:
We've also received a long letter from our brother Ivan and family in far northern Siberia. He reports that the temperature has been -40 degrees C for some time, and he is no longer able to fish through the ice on the river because the ice is so thick this year and the fishing gear literally froze into the ice so strongly he can't get it out again. The children are sick and they haven'y had meat or fish for some time now. He says he and his sister wife read the Bible with the children all the time and are longing for the Spring to come. He asks us to pray for him, his wife sister sis Anna and their six children.
Here's a picture of brother Ivan which we took when we visited him a few Winters ago:
Elsewhere, the Gospel is spreading. Our American brethren are in touch with a couple in the USA who are so zealous for the Truth. They recently emailed:
"We just cannot tell you how thrilled we would be for someone to come all that way just to Baptise Curtis and I ,we are so greatfull words cannot explain,We don't have much but we have a room if he would like to stay here but we have 3 cats.They are our baby's since there are no children here.I could write a book on all the theing that have happened to me since I was a small child you'd proberly would think i was looney but I'm not God has walked with me every step and has had his hand upon me all the way. I still can't beleive this,This is what Jesus ment for people to do, He never said be catholic, baptist etc. May God Bless you and all your works and all your holy people of God His true deciples,his remnant.Love of Christ Nancy and Curtis ".
With love from your brothers and sisters at Carelinks