- Hope Center celebrated 10 years of ministry this past year. As a part of the celebration, all of the moms decided they would like to be baptized and have their babies baptized too! At the FOL gathering, we got the great news that the Hope Center has received its certification and can now be freer to advertise and fundraise. There is also talk about the possibility of renovating the wooden building beside Riga First to further expand the Hope Center ministry.
- The Wesley Camp celebrates 10 years of ministry this summer at Annual Conference. We need to be more vigilant about fundraising to continue to support this ministry. Action point: If churches could together raise enough scholarship funds for 200 campers at $100 each, that would be enough to pay for both the camper expenses and for the expense of keeping the camp open.
- Gita reported that she had her "farewell" meeting with General Board of Global Missions. This means that Latvia will no longer be a Mission Initiative. The program funding that was coming from GBGM will have to come from other sources.
- Although stewardship was set to be one of the main topics this year, we spent more time hearing from the pastors themselves than discussing stewardship (and it was well worth it!). However, there are some resources that have been created for churches who wish to make use of them. Among these are bookmarks in English and Latvian that address the stewardship areas of prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. These are available in the Friends of Latvia shared google drive, which you can access at tinyurl.com/FOLdrive.
- We once again addressed the need for renewed focus on the Pastor's Salary Fund. A proposal has been made to change the wording to "Pastor's Income Fund" with the idea of broadening the audience that might be willing to give. The first draft of a video was shown. When it is complete it will also be available in the shared drive (linked above) for churches to use to raise awareness about the need to support the Latvian pastors.
- We had a special presentation by Jay Analovitch, who is involved with MissionHospice and has had a previous connection with Latvia. He discussed the possibilities of adding hospice as an outreach program of the church. There is a great need for hospice care to the homebound in Latvia.
We also created a roster of all those who were present at the meeting, including their contact information. This also includes contact information for the pastors. If you would like to update your address books are get contact information you may not have had before, click here to view the roster (pdf).
We'd like to announce the following Friends of Latvia officers who were elected to serve for the next two years:
- Chair: Mark Croft of Grapevine, Texas
- Co-Chair: Randy Tolleson of Smithfield, Texas
- Treasurer/Project: Jim Hayes of Norris, Tennessee
- Secretary: Melissia Mason of Euless, Texas
- Wesley Camp: Richard Payne, Joe Acker, Vivita & Edgars Kalnina
- Hope Center: Jim Nance, Holt Cason, Dana McCarty, Kristine Rozefelde, Gita Mednis
- Pastor’s Income: Randy Tolleson, Mark & Julie Croft, Wayne Richards, Edgars
- Relationship (this is a new committee tasked with creating strategies for developing their relationships between churches): Lisa Nelsony, Jim Hayes, Daina Zamberga, Dana Nance