Youth Evening in Dubulti

At the seminar my professor Tim Rippstein and I led on youth ministry a couple of weeks ago, we met a wonderful young woman named Ilze. She is the youth leader at a church in Dubulti, Latvia. I was filled with excitement when she invited me to come to their youth evening and speak. We figured out which Saturday it would work for both of us and thus last night I met Ilze and we headed to Dubulti. After just a short train ride, we were at the church's fellowship building and setting things up. It was a wonderful evening of fellowship, discussion, learning, and praise. We spoke about Jesus's time in the wilderness, why He did it, what it would have been like, what we can learn from it, what it means to spend time recognizing our sin, and thus even more fully understand our need for the perfect savior Jesus Christ. When we were singing at the end of the evening, I was blessed by the inclusion of English words to the songs- we would sing each song in Latvian, then in English, then the chorus in Latvian again! It was so wonderful to meet more of my brothers and sisters in Latvia, and share this special evening together. It was truly blessed.