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No food is ever wasted, any leftovers are all taken away by the
brothers, sisters and visitors in plastic containers to eat later
The folks who come attend regularly and faith-
fully and many have already been baptized by
us. Hearing one hour of Bible teaching every
day, they have good exposure to the teachings
of the true Gospel. We were pleased this week
to baptize Maris who has been attending for
over a year. He was raised as homus sovieticus,
and was an enthusiastic Communist, going into
the Red Army and still has the tattoo of his
regiment visible. When burying his mother a
few years ago, he says he reflected how the
USSR was taught to be ones’ mother, and how
biological mothers were just a physical chan-
nel through which we entered the world. He
recounts a bit on the video how looking at his
mother’s dead body he saw how wrong this
was, and began searching for God. Like many
ex-professional soldiers, he feels not much
welcome in the new Latvia, and so was glad
to attend our meetings and have the Bible
explained.
There are some wonderful success stories of
people whose lives really changed. Soon after
we began our present soup kitchen about 8
years ago, we encountered Yuri, a hard core,
on the street alcoholic. He was baptized, and
quit drinking. He then met Rita, who is a
German Jewess, born in East Berlin in 1945, a
real survivor, and who had been a regular
attender at the Riga synagogue. After her
Carelinks | Latvia ... continued
husband’s suicide she found the Rabbi’s expla-
nations not satisfying, and heard there was a
group who studied the Bible for an hour every
day. So she attended, for the teaching not the
food, and was baptized - and married Yuri a
few years ago. They are a great example of
the radical transformation of human life in
Sis Jackie congratulating Bro Maris
following his baptism
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