Sharing Time

For those of you who live in the Monterey area, we would like to share with you personally about our trip to Latvia. Some things happened that we couldn't write on the blog, and we'd like to update you about our vision for reaching Latvia. This Thursday, August 31, 7:30 at our house in Marina, you are invited to come, listen, ask questions, see pictures and maybe video from the mission field. Call for directions, 883-8315. If you think God might be calling you to be a missionary, I encourage you to come, perhaps God would speak to you about His will for YOUR life too. (:

Back Home

(August 21) We just returned to the Monterey Bay from our exploratory mission trip to Latvia. We believe God is calling us to move to Latvia and begin church planting as soon as possible. Lena is excited to return and loves Latvia too. For the last year God has been speaking to her about her calling as a missionary. Now that we are back in Monterey, we are getting things in order so we may leave.

Thoughts on the journey home

After four weeks, we are on our way home from our exploratory mission trip to Latvia. I hope to share with all my friends what God revealed our hearts as we stepped out in faith. He has confirmed in our hearts, that He has called us to be His missionaries and He has shown us the that He is calling us to. He has given us a love for the country of Latvia and people of Latvia. We made good contacts among Christian leaders which will definitely help to open doors for moving there in the near future. Lena and I are both excited to return to Latvia as soon as possible.

We have been reminded that we can trust Him fully and completely with our lives and He knows just how to lead us. He gently leads those who are with young. We are encouraged to follow Him, to delight ourselves in Him and he will give us the desires of our heart. It's worth it to not just be a hearer of His word, but a doer of it; we are followers of Christ, we are learning how to be lead by the Holy Spirit. What a joy it is to be disciples of Jesus!

Evangelical Connections

Last Tuesday, I went to a prayer meeting for Christian leaders from different evangelical churches. As we prayed for the different ministries of those who attended that they would be fruitful, God gave me an encouraging word from

Isaiah 55, For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper [in the thing] whereto I sent it.

Like rain the word is sent from heaven and falls down on different locations, it trickles down from the high places and off of the rocky ground into the soft soil, that is where fruit comes from. Many will hear the Word, it will roll off the hard hearted and it will soak into the soft hearted. ---------
After the prayer meeting, Vadim, the leader of the Evangelical alliance, invited me to visit him in the city of Ogre to talk about how churches can work together. ----------
Saturday, we found a shuttle to Ogre to meet Vadim at a local outreach he organised. A group of Christians from different churches were reading the whole New Testament through a loudspeaker in the public square all weekend. Vadim and his wife invited us to their offices and we talked about our common desire to see churches planted in Latvia. He isn't able to help with official invitations by the Evangelical alliance but he introduced me to another pastor who had some information about other documents needed for missionaries from the States. I will be meeting with Vadim again tommorow.
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Another day I took a 3 hour bus trip to Liepia on the west coast to meet and encourage a Russian pastor who has hosted a couple of CC mission teams, we had a good talk about the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit for ministry. He was excited that the Lord was calling us here and he said that Latvia really needs Calvary Chapels to be planted. While we were having tea at his house, he called another brother named Vitalii Andreic on the phone who is organizing a course called CP21 "Church planting for the 21 century" and recommended we meet. --------- So the next day, back in Riga, Lena and I had his family over for tea, I shared how we planted churches in Ukraine and he shared about their plan to equip new pastors to plant churches in the outer regions of Latvia surrounding Rigas Region. It turned out he still needed a teacher for the topic of evangelism. I said, "that's my favorite subject", so he asked me if I would teach it. It would require traveling 1 to 4 hours from Riga to Liepia (west), Jelgava (South), Daugavspils (South-East) and Valka (North-East). I said, I am very interested. So he is wating to hear back from me about when we will be returning, so he could schedule a month for me to teach.

Open doors?

It's amazing to see the opportunities that are unfolding as we explore and meet different people here in Latvia. I've been to a few different cities, praying about where the Lord would want us in the future, but at this point it seems things are opening up for us to move to the capitol.
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There is an apartment not too far from the center which we may rent starting in January '07. They are asking about $600 a month for a 2 bedroom/1 bath on the 6th floor (they converted the attic of an old building into a nice new apartment with vaulted ceilings and skylights). It's not the best neighborhood but there is a fenced in backyard where kids could play and space to park a car. There is a mini market on the first floor and bus stops a block away. This may be a stratigic location for our missionary family to host home Bible Studies and reach out to the Russian community.
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This weekend we are meeting with other CC missionaries who have been in Russia but they are praying about moving to Riga in 2007. If we share the same vision for starting CC in Latvia, we may work together as a team. Please pray that God would make it clear how we are to pioneer a new work here.

Update for prayer supporters

We are in our 3rd out of 4 weeks in Riga, Latvia and we praise God for how things are progressing.

In the beginning most of our energy was consumed by jet lag and finding groceries and things that were unexpected needs (crib for Lily, plastic bath tub for Caleb, cell phones for me and Lena). But we had help from our friend Dagnia from Carmel Valley and her roommate Ilze (two Latvian-American Christian women who have helped us get our feet on the ground. )

Now that we are figuring out the bus routes and shuttle schedules, we are able to get out and about more and fill in our schedule with meeting more people and getting acquainted with the cultural context that we hope to minister in in the future.

God has given us several divine appointments and are looking forward to next week being even more fruitful. I have been able to witness to all kinds of people: Russian Orthodox babushkas (Grandmas), A gypsy couple by the trainstation, teenage Latvians by McDonalds, British tourists, Mormon neighbors outside our apartment, a potential landlord, taxi drivers, people we sat next to on the bus, or met in the park. I've visited churches ranging from traditional Baptists, to hyper Charismatics, to a non denominational church somewhere inbetween. I have met with missionaries from India, Philippines, Canada, USA, Ukraine and Russia. Lena and I are praying about all the advice we've received; about where the Lord might want us to go and and how to start and who we should work with. I am learning about how to get residency permits to be able to live here year round.

We definitely see the Lords hand in preparing us for this trip and using this trip to prepare the ground for future church planting in Latvia. He is showing us that there is a need for balanced churches with sound doctrine and the power of the Spirit.

Please pray with us for

• confirmation that we are to move to Riga in January, we are all willing and believe that this is how God is leading us. The question is not so much "if" but "when" concerning our future in Latvia. We have some ideas of who we might work with, where we may live, how we may start but we need the Lord to show us what is of Him and what is not.
• about where and with whom we would start out. We were advised to be invited by a local church and work partially with them. There is a possibility to work with another non-denominational church in Riga and Jurmala for our first year as we learn Latvian and learn from them so we don't make the same mistakes they made when starting out here. We will go to meet with this missionary team in Jurmala on Wednessday. We have also hit it off with the leader of the evangelical aliance who has invited us to align with them when we start a church and possibly help in interdenominational outreach as there are open doors for the Bible teachers in public schools throughout Latvia. There are some penticostal and charismatic churches that I don't see ourselves working with because of the "word of faith" doctrine and the "toronto blessing" that we don't agree with. We need to meet with the Baptist Union to see how flexible they are with inviting others to start non-traditional churches.
• Also pray for more opportunities to preach the gospel during this next week. I will visit a couple other towns and churches and feel led to take my guitar out to the streets again.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers,

Brenten

Seeds sown in Lithuania

The trip to Lithuania was fruitful, I think. So far I thing the important things the Lord wanted to do were the following:
1. Oksana was encouraged by the Christian fellowship and with the Bible Study from Ephesians about who we are now in Christ in contrast when we were like the rest of the world.
Eph 2:10 "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
2. Her father drove us to the Hill of Crosses after dinner and I was able to preach/share the reason why Jesus died on the cross. He was listened and took time to process it. 1Cr 1:18 "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."
3. Oksana's mother and I talked about the tension between Russian speakers and Lithuanian speakers. I was able to share about the example of Christ in humbling himself to relate to us and how following Him helps us in intercultural relationships. Phl 2:5 "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus"
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Hopefully I was a good example to them and the seeds of God's word that were sown will grow as they are processed in the hearts my friends in Lithuania. I believe there souls are important to the Lord and he brought me there to minister to them. Praise the Lord that I was able to speak almost completely in Russian while with Oksana's parents. She only needed to translate a few words and phrases.
On a more humbling note, I know that I stood out like a sore thumb as Oksana showed me around her city, people were staring at me because I was speaking English with Oksana, taking pictures in the interesting market place and I just plain look different.
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Check out my Lithuania photo album at http://community.webshots.com/album/552858678GLIBbo

Important trip to Lithuania

Tomorrow I am going to visint a friend in Lithuania. Oksana attended CCMB (Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay) and is originally from Lithuania and was in Monterey for a few years as a MIIS student (Monterey Institute of International Studies) and then teacher of ESL (English as a Second Language). She stayed with the Perryman family and just recently returned home to LT (Lithuania). Since we were going to be 2 hours away, she invited us to come visit her while she is with her parents in Siauliai (pronounced showlay) which is only a couple ours by bus from Riga Latvia. I was encouraged by Janet Scalice, our pastors wife, not to pass on that invitation because the Lord is going to do something important. I wrote her to encourage her about re-entry shock, which we experienced some of this when we returned to California from Ukraine. She replied:

Thank you SO MUCH for writing to me. Yes, I miss my life in America and my dear, dear friends over there, especially having NO friends here, in Shiauliai, where my parents live. I have my friends and church in Klaipeda, where I will be moving to sometime in August and starting my teaching. In the meantime, I am getting over re-entry shock, which has been quite mild in comparison with what other people have experienced. I do like being at home, but I long for some real Christian fellowship.

Lena and the kids will stay in Riga, Latvia. It would be too much traveling for them and it took long enough for our little ones to adjust to staying in this apartment in Riga. Isa 40:11 "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd... and shall gently lead those that are with young."

The plan is to take the bus Wednessday from 8:30am to 10:30am. Oksana will meet me at the bus station and show me around her town, have some Lithuanian cuisine for lunch, in the afternoon I will help her and her mom cook dinner, her dad comes home from work at 5pm. Pray for an opportunity to witness to her folks. They will have questions about why I came - that can be a great starting point for the gospel. After dinner, he may drive us to the Hill of Crosses. It's this famouse site where everyone comes and lays a cross on a huge pile of other crosses. Find out why here http://www.inyourpocket.com/lithuania/siauliai/en/feature?id=55808 . Then I will spend the night at a hotel, breakfast included for about $50 and return to Latvia on Thursday by bus.

I am looking foward to seeing Lithuania and being used to bless others there. I know Oksana, her parents and whoever else I meet are important to the Lord, He loves them and wants to bless them. Act 3:19 "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord"