The heroes in Seda

Report from Sven and Glad´s visit to Latvia:
It was early Sunday morning when Igor, our Russian-speaking guide and translator, greeted us in the hotel lobby. We had a 2-½ hour drive ahead of us and wanted to be on time for the Holiness Meeting in Seda, a village located on a snowy rural road a small distance from a major thoroughfare in northeast Latvia. As we took our seats in our Toyota Corolla van Igor remarked how strange it felt to have the driver seated on the right and appeared a bit apprehensive as we set off. (Traffic in Latvia drives on the right and which I handle well, Glad however doesn’t and therefore does little driving outside the UK) To make certain we didn’t get lost in the wintry wilderness Lt. Peter Baronowsky had loaned us his satnav which included every SA destination in Latvia and more, a unofficial road map of Latvia (vintage unknown) and his own hand written cartography detailing where in the village the unmarked SA was located including the color of the houses and the make and model of the Corps Officers automobile. Peter shared ‘it will probably be the only car in the village’. The satnav was programmed in Sweden and consequently gave directions in Swedish, Igor seated behind me gave directions in Russian and English and Glad prayed! We all took credit for arriving some ten minutes before the meeting began.

As we stepped out of the car both Captain Sergei and his wife, 2nd year Cadet, Aizan Konovs came bounding out of the side door of the building through the deep snow and bid us welcome. The Captain’s wife Aizan can only be described as the epitome of the joy filled Salvationist Officer. No interpreter was needed to translate the joy and exuberance of spirit expressed by the Cadet. We were brought into the small hall were every seat was taken and then led into a smaller part of the building where the Sunday School was meeting. We were treated to coffee, tea and cookies and introduced the children and Senior Soldiers. Among the children were the twins Signe and Sogne, wheelchair bound due a series of back operations her mother told us that they wont know if the latest operation was successful until rehab has begun; there is no assurance that the government can provide such assistance any time soon.

We heard the strumming of a guitar and soon the strains of ‘As the Deer’ being played expertly by Captain Sergei, and so we were led back to the main meeting room where a bench had been carried in for us to sit on. As I looked around I noted that many people were sharing a chair seat or stool with others, some 28 or so in total. Throughout the service more adults and children squeezed in. It was an interesting mix of people consisting of some quite elderly, many in their mid years and also young families; a few of the men seemed a bit worse for wear. All followed the progress of the meeting with great interest, some perhaps because they knew it would be followed by a delicious hot meal.

Musings …

Two years ago no one in this remote part of Latvia had ever heard of The Salvation Army. And, had they taken the time to Google TSA in Russian they would have learned that The Salvation Army was a branch of the USA; Central Intelligence Agency, or, a western (cult) created to infiltrate the former Soviet Union during the confused era following perestroika. This area of the former SU, however, had learned the truth about the army’s mission.

The Salvation Army pays no rent for the meeting rooms provided them by the local government, their only cost is in paying for the heat in the space provided them. In two months the health clinic that occupies the majority of the well kept and centrally located building will move to new quarters and the entire building will be provided for the free use of the SA outpost. Meetings are held twice weekly and social services are offered as well.

A husband and father, a well known local criminal in town, began attending meetings shortly after the Army’s arrival. He had been arrested, charged and convicted of a crime and was awaiting sentencing. During that time both he and his wife were saved; she is now a soldier. When the day of sentencing came the Corps Officers accompanied ‘Andre’ to the trial sentencing requesting the opportunity to speak to the court on his behalf. The judge heard the story of Andre’s conversion and positive new lifestyle and decided to, instead of sending him back to prison, to release him to the custody of the local Salvation Army. The impact that these officer heroes are having in this small part of Latvia is remarkable and speaks to their commitment and God’s faithfulness.

A key element in the morning meeting was the enrollment of three more recruits adding to the already impressive number. We shared with the Captain that we had delivered 47 uniforms to regional Headquarters in Riga he joked and said we are having a bit of a revival as you can see. Is there any chance half of them can be delivered to us?! From what we witnessed the Captain may well be prophetic.

God bless The Salvation Army in Seda!

Sven Ljungholm
(active) Former

Visist to Sarkani

Sven and Glad Ljungholm reporting from a visit to Sarkani:

The Latvian headline read; Latvian pedestrian with twice lethal alcohol level killed by car while he lay in a drunken stupor on the roadside. My mind immediately raced to Sakarny.

Sakarny is the site of former Soviet military barracks abandoned in 1991 when the Russians recalled all troops subsequent to Latvia’s independence. The Latvian government adapted the barracks for use, copying a Russian model where all possible social ills are hidden from view. During Soviet times in Russia the sight impaired, deaf, and physically challenged persons were all relegated to infirmaries and institutions hidden far from cities and towns. It was the government’s clumsy attempt at hiding a less than perfect Soviet citizen, often claiming to a doubting ‘west’ that there is no missing chapter dealing with their disability history.

Some visitors to our blog may recall that during the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow, a Western journalist inquired whether the Soviet Union would participate in the first Paralympic games, scheduled to take place in Great Britain later that year. The reply from a Soviet representative was swift, firm, and puzzling: "There are no invalids in the USSR!" (Fefelov 1986).1 This apparatchik's denial of the very existence of citizens with disabilities encapsulated the politics of exclusion and social distancing that characterized disability policy under state socialism. Historically throughout the former Soviet bloc, persons with physical and mental disabilities have been stigmatized, hidden from the public, and thus made seemingly invisible (Dunn and Dunn 1989).

In Sakarny Latvian alcoholic families are hidden away from public view and their dependence distanced from the reality of Latvian society. Some thirty families many with children are housed in unheated flats with only the basic necessary pieces of furniture. There is no running water or plumbing of any kind. A tractor brings logs from the nearby forest to be used to heat the very crude make-shift furnaces. Many of the adults can’t be bothered to make the effort to collect the logs and heat their flats so the children suffer while their parents remain in a drunken stupor.

There are no shops in the settlement of six barracks, and the only items for consumption sold is bootleg liquor sold by traffickers. The children, some as young as 6 and 7, become unwitting enablers in the attempts to protect their parents as best as possible. This includes carrying them in from sub zero temperatures, cooking, and feeding them and cleaning the messes their parents make. They shield their parents’ addictions from their friends by never inviting them to visit. Such behaviors are referred to as codependence.

Sakarny has been an area of particular interest to the FSAOF since we first learned of the children’s plight. This included the need for warm winter clothing and financial support to provide school lunches. Both challenges were met and we were anxious to visit first hand to see what had transpired.

We arrived in Sakarny in our Toyota van following the Corps leaders in their Ford station wagon on a sunny Sunday, with the temperature hovering at -10. From a distance we could see the children playing in the snow. Even in the sub zero temperature it was a more desirable place to be than in the flats watching their parents in various degrees of drunkenness. However, they were comfortably dressed and warm thanks to the kindness of a great many people not least, those in Exeter who responded to the articles in the Express and Echo.

When the children spied the familiar SA station wagon they all came running waving and shouting their hellos. The Captain and his wife are more than pastors to them, they are their surrogate parents. Some of the children have been moved to nearby Skangali, a SA children’s home where they reside Monday – Friday under a special judicial ruling allowing the SA to make legal arrangements directly with the parents as to the care of the children. The Sakarny children who live with the orphans during week are jokingly referred to as missionaries as they constantly talk about Jesus, with the 23 orphans housed there. The childrens home operates a pre school programme three times a week from 9-1 where the children are provided two meals and a warm shower. One of the young girls was presented with soap and shampoo as she emtered the shower- on exiting the shower some minutes later it was noticed that neither the soap or the shampoo had been used; she had no idea what they were to be used for!

The children, who knew nothing of Glad and me hugged us warmly as if we were their family, no doubt due our uniforms with which they would be familiar. The oldest girl had all the children line up in a row as if they were siblings and named each of them for us. We then asked if we could take their photo and they promptly took their places. Then, out came ‘Babushka’ (grandmother), the mother of one of the alcoholics and who assists in caring for all of the children when they join in the Army activities arranged for them in the two rooms allocated by the local government for our use. (The SA will soon be provided additional space and it is our intent to take a work team to Sakarny in the summer of 2010 to renovate some of the flats in which the families live along with designated SA facilities.

When it came time to leave one of the boys threw himself on the ground in front of our car and the others joined in and there was soon a pile of children letting us know they didn’t want us to leave. The joy on their faces was infectious and their spirits exuded love and affection, the result of constant contact with their Christian ‘parents’. One of the young girls asked if she could pray with us before we left and, of course, we said ‘yes’. Her prayer was not (from what I understood from my limited knowledge of the Russian language) one asking for a better life, heat and comfort, regular meals … She thanked God for these visitors who had come and for all those others who had assisted in providing warm clothing and who had guaranteed that there would be a lunch served every day in school … and then she closed with a lengthy petition that God would grant Glad and Sven travelling mercies; roads clear of snow, a warm bed and smooth seas!

The army's presence and Christ's imprint on their young lives were unmistakable !

Dr. Sven Ljungholm
Former
Exeter Temple Corps, UK

Meeting in Riga II corps

A report from Sven Ljungholm travelling in Latvia (from fsaof.blogspot.com)

We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or give our anguish scope.
Something was dead within each of us,
And what was dead was Hope
Oscar Wilde

Those words seemed uniquely apt and could well be applied to each of the one hundred and seventy five 'homeless' persons who met to worship for three hours today at The Salvation Army Riga II Corps, Latvia. The service in the capital of Latvia was conducted entirely in the Russian language which is the mother tongue of more than 30% of the Latvian population. These are a people living in exile, a diaspora population abandoned by both their country of origin and the country where they were born, raised and reside.

Subsequent to the Russian invasion of the Baltic states 100's of thousands of Russians were transported to every corner of Latvia and the other conquered nations to indoctrinate the people in ways Russian. Now, some six decades later and following perestrokia, the people are second and third generation Latvians without any rights. They have no possibility to gain citizenship in Latvia, and their homeland Russia, don't want them either as they would only add to the unemployment and social problems already so prevalent in Russia.

They are a people without a country and without a home. The majority are unemployed and are on a constant search for a place to rest their head each and every night. The most recently enrolled soldier shared that he sleeps in the trolley station during the day but when the doors are locked at 8.00pm he wonders the streets in sub zero weather until dawn and then repeats the process. Today however, he moved into a flat with four other recently enrolled soldiers a stones throw away from the Corps were he and his colleagues spend all their time assisting the CO in providing social services. The costs are assumed by salvatio9nist griends in the 'west'. Ought this become a FSAOF project ?

The hopes of these worshippers are not for a middle class life or to auto ownership or vacations abroad. Their hope is simple just one more hot meal, a warm place, and a loving heart and listening ear; they have found them.

Were you to visit their worship service you would find that pungent smell so familiar to every SA Officer from days working with the homeless that visited your Corps or institution. These are the people Jesus said we ought to 'see as better than yourself". These are the people for whom Jesus died to give hope and erase anguish. Had only one of these downtrodden souls ever lived Jesus would have come for them. And He comes yet today thanks to the selfless loving embrace extended by these Salvationist heroes.

The singing was electric - the prayers moved us to Heaven - the testimonies gripping - the preaching powerful and compelling; resulting in queues waiting to kneel at the mercy seat. It was the Army at its most authentic and I was humbled to think that God has a place in it for you and me.

Tomorrow we set of to see the children for whom you and all in our fellowship provided winter clothing and funding for their school meals through the end of the school year. We will bring greetings on behalf of you all as I know you lft up our Salvationist comrades in Latvia in prayer.

'And what was dead was Hope"... however, here we saw a new flame of hope lit again, and again, and again, and ...

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History has shown us and our conviction remains, that starting new corps or local centers for mission is the most effective means of fulfilling the great commission and bringing people to Jesus. Our initiative is called 210 in 2010. By the end of next year we want to have 210 corps.
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