Early Sunday morning in Riga - December 5

Impressions from this week from my personal view-point

Dreams coming through. More than one year ago our open outreach worker, Aldona, started to talk about the need for a center in Riga for the vulnerable people she meets in her visiting ministry. Last Wednesday we had the official opening of "The Salvation Army Social Center in Riga".

The staff at the Regional Headquarters and the cadets gathered for the opening of the center. We were invited to coffee and we shared a word from the Bible and we prayed together for the work at the center. We prayed for the guests who will come to the center and for Aldona and Anita who will work at the center. The center will be open two days every week. The other days the visiting ministry among the poorest families in Riga will continue.

We also got the opportunity to inspect how the center had been equipped to meet the different needs among the guests. There is a well equipped kitchen for preparing food for the guests. The center also has a shower and a laundry machine, two things many people in Riga live without. In the basement there are storage rooms for clothes to be handed out to the guests. We will also buy some sewing machines for the center to help the guests to fix their clothes and to sew children clothes and other things.

Now it is Sunday morning and soon it is time to go to the morning service at Riga 1 corps. Today Ruth and I are responsible for the meeting. During this semester we have been visiting all corps and outposts for a meeting and Riga 1 will be the last one to visit.

After the meeting there will be lunch and after that we have a youth gathering "Open Microphone". That is an opportunity for Ruth and myself to listen to the young people of the Salvation Army in Latvia about their thoughts for the present and for the future. There will also be possibility for the young people to have questions to the Salvation Army leadership in Latvia. This will be the second gathering of this kind and this time the theme will be about impressions and thoughts from the International Youth Convent in Stockholm last summer.

Then it will soon be time for a new week. The coming week Ruth and myself will end our teaching at the Training Schol for this period. The regular teachers at the Taining school will return from Australia on Tuesday evening. Tuesday we have our last gathering for all leaders in Latvia and on Wednesday we will meet our "Strategy Board" to review what has happened during 2010 and ask God how He wants to direct us in the coming year. It seems to be an exciting week.

I pray that you will have a blessed week!
Peter Baronowsky