Feeding Scheme In Riga, Latvia
The progress of the Truth at Riga Bible Center continues. We've had some record attendances lately, both at our main meetings and at Cindy's women's and kids' church on Wednesdays. There are baptisms most weeks. Typically a few members of the ecclesia press into the kitchen area for the immersion, and each gives a testimony as to God's work in their lives and a word of encouragement to the new brother or sister. At Aleksandr's baptism, sister Valya picked up on a discussion we had just been having about Job and the minor prophets in our Bible class, which looks at the Bible Companion readings.
Valya spoke of how, as a small child, on December 8, 1941 she stood holding her mothers' hand on the Moscow Prospect in Riga, watching the columns of Jews with their children being marched from the railway station to the extermination camp at Rumbula, where on that day 26,000 Jews were exterminated. She told of how she watched the mothers holding the hands of their children, and how her mother called out `Let your child run away, I will look after it, the guards won't chase after a child'; and how one Jewish woman replied, `No. This is God's will'. Duncan mentioned that Sister Sue Woodin of the Erith ecclesia had visited us in Riga, and her mother had been one of those women slain at Rumbula. Sue had been sent to safety in England. We marvelled at God's providence; who would have known on that dark day that the daughter of one of those Jewish women would later be baptized into Christ in England, and how the little Russian girl whom she would have walked past would be baptized 71 years later. And almost 71 years to the day later, would sit in Riga and testify to these things at the baptism of another brother. Truly there is a God in the earth.
You can see our sister Valya in the photos as she spoke, being watched carefully by sister Judite [who has just lost a second child), and others.
As Winter closes in, the Riga Bible Center continues to provide around 200 meals / week and countless coffees and snacks to the many people living on a very low level of existence, often through no fault of their own. All our meetings feature Bible studies and extended discussion of the Gospel and various doctrinal and practical issues.
