A Supervisor Visit

As a DCE Intern I have an 'On-site Supervisor' and a 'University Supervisor'. My DCE professor Tim Rippstein is my University supervisor. Since it was spring break back at CUNE, Tim was able to fly on over to Latvia to visit and do some evaluations, check in on how things are going, and to help me to understand where to go from here. During this visit Tim and I led a seminar at the youth center in Riga which ended up being quite nice, and has already opened up more opportunities for me to contribute to the community. The seminar was about youth ministry. It presented things to consider, helpful ideas and methods for planning bible studies or messages. We also had a lot of meetings and discussions in days following. The last days of Tim's time in Latvia was in a town called Saldus. We connected with St. Gregor's mission center and both taught the lessons for the students there for 3 days and 2 of the evenings Tim did presentations on family, passing on the faith, parenting and relationships which were open to the Saldus community. We were also blessed to meet many, many wonderful people and visit a small town call Pampāļi, where a Lutheran pastor is really sharing his heart and his dreams to help the community there.

This experience was quite interesting for me. Along with participating in the events themselves, I was able to get some administrative experience before hand, as I planned and prepared in advance.

Tim getting ready to begin the presentation in the evening for the Saldus community. The young lady in black is Inese and was our wonderful translator. The pastor who is introducing the evening is from the local Lutheran Church.

Here is a photo of about 1/3 or 1/4 of the group that attended the evening presentations.

In this photo I'm at the front desk in the classroom as we took some time to reflect on and write down a few thoughts on our lesson for the day regarding love. God's love, our response to Him and then to each other, incorporating the 5 love languages.

What's that? Julia can teach? Ready and willing!

Here's a snap shot of four of the joyful little girls that we were able to spend some time with in Pampāļi. The pastor involved in this community has spent a lot of time and energy getting this children's center up and running. They have a chapel space downstairs and upstairs there is a play room of sorts where children can come after school. It is a safe place for them to have fun, be kids and in some cases escape for a little while from the difficult situations at home. The center also holds donated clothing and other items for families that are experiencing hard times. There are dreams and committed hearts to continue this ministry further with a church, more diaconal ministry and maybe even some opportunities for employment.