Tuesday, October 18

Lutherans and Baptists

Aluksne Baptist Church invited us to Aluksne, Latvia, to perform at the Lutheran church. The pastor, Davids, traveled with us all day and translated for us. Tonight he joined with the Lutheran and Catholic pastors to make the concert happen. We arrived at 4 and a few of us set up while the others saw the first translated Latvian Bible.

At 5, after a short rehearsal, we went the the Lutheran parsonage for tea and snacks. We left there at 5:45 and headed back the church for the concert, but I had to get people changed into their black. The ladies went first and blocked the windows in order to change on the bus. Then the men went in to change at about 5:59! I was a little tense but I got Brad to make some filler music which was awesome, especially because our bass player rocks! The sanctuary was very cold. We had to constantly blow arm air through our instruments to keep them from going flat. Musically every thing was pretty good. Spiritually God was working. Both Brad and Don gave great testimonies and the flow of the service went great.

posted by Eric Kelley @ 10:30 AM 0 comments

Sightseeing Notes

We have just completed the sightseeing portion of our day. We were taken to Sigulda, which was a very beautiful rural setting. First we hiked to a valley overlook where we could see an old castle on the other side. The river that ran through the valley was Gauja. Everyone did well, but Betty really hurt when we were finished. Afterward we went to a cave called Gutmana (Goot-mahn-yah). There we saw a cave where there were 17th century inscriptions and 21st century kids everywhere. This morning has been wonderful for seeing the beauty of the country we are serving. We are now back on the bus on our way to lunch. Afterwards we will begin our 200 km trip to the Lutheran church we will perform at tonight.

posted by Eric Kelley @ 3:20 AM 0 comments