Early Sunday morning in Riga the 21st of November

Personal reflections from my view-point. (The picture is taken from our bedroom window)

This week has of course been dominated by the 20 year anniversary of the re-start of the Salvation Army work in Latvia after fifty years of occupation. It has been a race with time. Four o´clock in the afternoon, the day before the celebration, the flag-pole with the three meter long flag was put up (see picture above). The flag totally changes the overview of the Bruninieku Street and it boldly proclaims "Latvia for Christ."

Nine o´clock in the evening the new entrance door was put in and a part of the big board covering the entrance side of the building was taken away, so people could enter for the Celebration the coming day. When the builders left the building late at evening our people could start cleaning the entrance and the stairs up to the Main Hall.

 

Out on our yard they put up tents and benches for the "old fashioned soup ktchen" which would be served outdoors between the meetings.

We had re-arranged our main Hall and put in extra chairs so it could receive 350 people. But we knew it would come much more than 400 people for the celebration. So we borrowed extra chairs in our neighbour Russian School and filled our cafeteria with seventy extra chairs and arranged a wid-screen to make it possible to follow the meeting from the cafeteria. 

And the people came! It was packed with people sitting and standing everywhere. And the people stayed for at least five hours during the two meetings and the soup served between the meetings.

The meetings also included a farewell part for commissioners Vic and Ros Poke who visited Latvia for the last time before their retirement.

Durign the day of celebration there was also an exhibition showing the Salvation Army history in Latvia from 1923 to 2010. The Latvian War Cry, the first issue since World War 2, was sold in Latvian and in English.

The following day there was a "Spiritual Day" at the Training School with Vic and Ros Poke.

Now it is Sunday morning and soon it is time to go down to the next Celebration. Today is the corps, Riga 1, celebrating their twenty years of ministry in Riga. After that it is time to try to come back to a normal life after all celebrations.

I hope it will be a blessed week for you

Peter Baronowsky