Joining forces.

This week has been so exciting for us interns as we have been planning and preparing for camp. We received an amazing team from our church family, along with a few extra's from England and Switzerland. We showed them around Riga and had a few meetings getting to know each other better and learning about how to care for orphans next week at camp. It was a great experience for me to sit and hear why this team felt called to Latvia. I was so touched and encouraged to hear that other people are just as broken hearted for the fatherless. It was also encouraging that they cared enough to ask about what I have experienced so far this summer. I feel incredibly blessed to serve with these people. Tomorrow we will join forces with the leaders from Ergli for training and preparation. Our camp starts Monday!
The amount of time and prayer that has taken place for this team to assemble and this camp to be made possible is something that I'm extremely thankful for. We know that these kids are important to Gods heart because of the passion He has put inside every person that is involved. God is equipping this team to do great things, not because we can, but because he can.

Please pray that we are in rhythm with His heartbeat.

I can't believe that my entire Summer in Latvia has come down to two weeks. Quite possibly the most impactful two weeks of my life and hopefully even more life changing for a teen orphan.

John 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

Friends from orphanages in Irlava, Eleja, and Rīga.

Map of our adventures!

Kristine and Evita

From Heartbreak to Hope.

Our team has had an adventurous last two weeks! After we returned from leadership camp we had only a day to recover and process everything. Three of our teammates went to a Josiah venture camp in Aizpute to continue relationships they made the year before. Whitney, Endija and Debbie were joined by our church family high school group. After seeing them off the three interns left in Rīga had nothing to do except help Jaycee and Susan with small office work. Knowing that the percent of the work we could actually do was small, Jaycee and Susan decided to send Sarah, Rachel and me back to Ergli to help with a young kids camp.
At this camp I met two beautiful orphan girls named Kristine and Evita. They didn't speak any English at all, but it brought me great joy to spend four days holding them and praying. It was amazing to me that there were 55 kids at this camp, only three of them orphans, and those girls somehow knew that my heart broke for them. We had a bond that was so obviously bound by the Holy Spirit. I pray for these girls often. Kristine is in the states now, and I am praying that she is hosted by a Christ filled home and that they are a good fit to adopt her. My prayer for little Evita is that her heart will stay soft and that she will grow to know Jesus. At camp a Latvian leader told me that she was praying aloud for Jesus to bring her home to her family. Evita has only been in the orphanage about four weeks now, so she is new to the orphan culture and needs people in her life to show her that she is so much more valuable than the drugs and alcohol that her parents chose instead of her. This breaks my heart, but with continual prayer I know there is hope for both of these girls.
Rachel, Sarah and I slept a night at our flat after camp and then headed out to meet the rest of our team and see the high school team as well. It was amazing to share experiences and stories of what the Lord has done in and through each of us as we follow Him this summer. Our time together felt much to short as we said our goodbyes and headed home.

This week our team started orphanage visits. We did three different day trips to orphanages in small towns. We played games, went fishing, went for walks, and just played around with whatever we had. The first day was definitely the hardest day. We were able to witness the beauty of adoption, but it came at the price of splitting up a brother and sister. It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch as the younger brother sob, he did not want to let go of his sister. Our whole team was in tears. I feel strongly that siblings should not be split in adoption, but in this case the older sister wanted to be adopted and the family couldn't have, or didn't want, this boy as part of their family. He has behavioral problems because of his rejection, and this is just another rejection that will lead to more problems. What this kid needs is a loving family and people to care enough to love him through these problems. He will be at our Thrive camp, and our whole team is so excited for the opportunity to love this kid. Even if it is just for the week.

A huge thing that I have been learning in Latvia, working with these kids is that Only Jesus can take these stories of heartbreak and turn them into stories of hope. Just like in Proverbs 13:12; Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

The rest of the orphanage visits have been much less eventful, but still sad in that all the beautiful children we meet don't have a mom and dad to watch them do flips into the lake or jump super far off the monkey bars. It is obvious to me now why scripture tells us to love these kids(James 1:27 for example: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.) These small visits have been such an encouragement. The more relationships we make the bigger impact our camp will have on these kids. Our God is a loving God, and he cares deeply for these kids. He has put that love and passion inside of me and I can't wait to continue sharing that love with more and more kids!
This upcoming Monday we are staring a road trip across Latvia to visit and stay in orphanages to promote our camp and hang out with kids. We have our map all marked up with places we are going and staying and names of kids that we know.
Let the adventure of furthering the kingdom across Latvia begin!

Refreshed and Refueled.

This past week our team attended a leadership camp at the camp ground where we will have our last orphan camp in August, joined by our RMCC college group team. It was the most refreshing and refueling thing we could have done at this point in our trip. We spent four days with the leadership of the camp playing games, joking around, and spending much needed time gathering in worship. Our team bonded with theirs and we were able to build relationships that will be continually uplifting and encouraging. It was a good realization that a church family is something that we crave, believers need other believers to grow and encourage us. I so easily take that for granted at home. I found it so amazing that God knew exactly what we needed as a team to help us serve to the best of our abilities, so He provided us with fellowship with a group of awesome people. This week gave us the perfect kickstart to the changes July is bringing to our team.
This next week we start our July ministry visiting orphanages and stopping by the camps where the high school teams are serving. I can't wait to connect with them and also see the kids we met at our first camp. God is doing great things!

Learning to Love.

We have just arrived home from a very eye opening 12 day orphan camp. It was an interesting experience though because I was submerged into two different cultures. First being the Latvian culture, which was brought in not only by the kids but by the other Latvian leaders who spoke no English and were not too happy about working with young Americans. The other culture shock was the orphan culture. Jaycee and Susan talked about it in our intern training, and experiencing it was more intense than I had imagined. We had to break up at least 25 fights, and I mean punching in the face and pulling hair our fights. They have a learned behavior that craves love and attention in every way. Loving these kids was physically and emotionally draining.
I had two nine-year-old boys in my room, Janis and Denis. They loved when I did the little things like take their shoes off before bed and they always fought over who got the first/last hug after we said goodnight. I found myself doing things that a mom would do for them, I cleaned up after them, made sure they got enough to eat, smelled their feet and made them shower if they were too "fooey" for me to handle. They spoke no English, besides numbers 1-10 and I taught them a few other words like bed and sleep. Communication was definitely a struggle. I had to grab Endija, Jaycee, or Susan to translate when they didn't understand ..or just weren't listening to me (which unfortunately happened often).
In the two weeks I was at the camp I saw the difference I made in the lives of the kids I got close to. I saw that what they need most I can give them, love. My hope is that they saw where my loves stems from. I'm praying that through the way I loved these kids at camp, they were given a glimpse of the gospel.

Sigulda

12 day orphan camp in Sigulda! Let's do this!!

Arrival

Upon arrival after an extremely long roughly 25 hours of travel what the four of us interns wanted most was food and sleep. However, Susan and jaycee had much different plans for us. We were given a red envelope with four bus passes and the name of the stop.

The red envelopes did not stop after we arrived in the city. The next day we split into teams for an amazing race-ish day. We spent the day taking trains and learning how to get around Latvia on our own. We didn't enjoy this much at first, mostly due to exhaustion, but now we are glad we know our way around the city.

The next two nights we spent at a country house owned by another missionary. We took time to debrief from the last few crazy days and train for the upcoming challenges. It felt amazing to drink some coffee/tea and relax.

Now that we are back in Riga we have one night and a brief time in the morning to prep for our first orphan camp. It's a 12 day camp for younger kids from the ages of 6-13. We will need constant prayer for strength when we are weak and tired, and brokenness for the hearts of these young orphaned children. The next twelve days will be rough, but I know that the opportunity to love on these kids is w

ell worth it.

Departure

Our plane left for our first leg to Chicago at 6:30 AM, so we had to be at the airport around 4:30 to check our bags and such. It was pretty brutal after packing all night. The absolutely amazing part of this morning was the blessed feeling of having friends there to support us. I loved seeing that my friends are willing to wake up(or stay up) until 4:30 in the morning to be there for me and my team. It helps me to remember how beautiful our God is and how great His affections are for us. I was truly blessed to see His affections lived out through those people.

3 Days to Go!

I can't believe that only five months ago I was sitting at fire house subs talking with my mentor Jaycee Jensen when she had to cut our meeting short because she had papers to turn in about requesting interns to work with her this Summer with her organization, New Hope. She briefly explained what these future interns would be doing and was on her way. I had no idea that this one small mention of an idea would stir such a passion in my heart.

At the beginning of November a friend of mine asked my college group at RMCC if they wanted to join in on a seminar to learn about the foster care system and adoption process, at first I immediately turned away from this, seeing that I am not of age to ether foster or adopt a child, but I attended anyway to support a friend. From this experience I felt a spark of compassion for these children that made me want to know more about how to help kids that are put in this situation. As I allowed the Holy Spirit to continue to grow that passion I have seen that as a believer in Jesus I have been adopted into the kingdom of God, and my job in that is to spread the gospel to orphaned children, so they can be adopted into His family as well.

Since that first conversation I have been chosen for the job, and will be joining Jaycee and four other amazing girls on an 11 week adventure that will challenge me in ways that I haven't yet experienced. I have many fears, but I know that through constant prayer and being able to have women pouring into my life I will learn how to get through the hard times and, most importantly, I will learn how to lean on the Lord(sometimes I get so caught up in doing His work that I forget to include Him in on it).  The toughest things for me will be that I wont know how to relate with girls coming from much different up bringing and obviously rougher conditions than I have. In those moments what I need to remember is that the one thing I have in common with them is the Gospel. I want them to know that Jesus died for their sins and He wants relationship. I am praying that He will humble my heart, and that He will continuously break it for the things that break His.

Now I have only three days to spend with my family and friends before I get on a plane and head out to our adventure to Riga, Latvia. The nerves and excitement are overwhelming! I can't wait to finally get on that plane and start my journey furthering the kingdom in Latvia.