17
Here then are Jim and Anne’s
reports:
This year’s mission began as my
wife Anne and I arrived in Riga in
mid-November and is winding up
now in early January. Once again it's
been a very rich experience as we
provided a hot meal to the poor, the
homeless and indigent of Riga,
through the? Carelinks Winter Wel-
fare Program. While these people
are in dire need of respite from the
cold (-21 today) and some physical
nourishment for their souls, they are
also provided with a daily Bible Study to
nourish their Spirit. Best of all there’s been
several baptisms while we’ve been here,
praise God. Our responsibilities have mainly
been to provide the meals each day from
Sunday to Thursday. A typical day starts with
a trip to the local market to acquire the
ingredients of that day’s menu, most of the
afternoon to prepare it,
serve it at 6pm and then
clean up. We are tired at
the end of the day but it’s
a good kind of “tired” that
comes from feeling your
time and energy have been
well spent. How often while
serving the food we hear
appreciative comments that
truly lifts up our hearts. So
often I can only think that
“there by the grace of God,
go I”. It's hard to receive
the abundant blessings
we’ve enjoyed in our pros-
perous lives without feeling
a need to give back in
a meaningful way, that re-
flects positively upon the
Lord.
It’s not all work either. While here we’ve been
able to enjoy the rich Latvian culture. It’s a
uniquely European experience that has
further enriched out lives and enhanced our
stay. If you’re able to free up some time,
please do consider participating in this
wonderful project. The program could be
extended further into the year with addi-
tional manpower. We are so pleased to be
a part of this mission and would recommend
it to anyone. You will never forget the time
spent here, we know we never will.
To learn more contact ‘Carelinks’ at
Bro Jim Barton
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
This is our second trip to
Riga to support the? Bible
Centre? and we stayed for 8
weeks this time rather than
the 4 weeks on our first
trip. We serve soup on
Sunday for lunch after the
Memorial Service and on
Monday through Thursday
for supper, after an hour of
social time with coffee and
an hour of Bible talks. We
try to offer both spiritual
and physical food as well as
a warm place to be for a
couple of hours each day. A
longer stay gives us the
benefit of getting to know
many of our guests a little
better.
One of my most memorable
experiences was when we were trying to find
a way to better serve the soup, bread and
dessert item to streamline the process. Jim
and I figured out that we could use a longer
table to serve and a smaller table a short
distance away to collect dirty dishes and
spoons. We then had to convey this idea to
the Russians that help set up for us. We found
There have been baptisms most weeks
Bro Jim presents Bro Igor with a stick and
explains how to alter the height of it
~ continued ...