the fall of the soviet union

20 years ago on december 25th, 1991; the ussr officially came to a close.

click here for an article that documents the gradual collapse of the soviet union; which had a tremendous impact on this part of the world.

the incarnation

when heaven scraped the pavement

God became man.

have you stopped to think about how wild of an idea that is? and that we celebrate that it actually happened? what an amazing day! Immanuel. God with us! we celebrate Jesus' birthday on Christmas.

a few more days left till the big day... in the meantime, check out this music video!

youtube of the month: december (special xmas edition)

the christmas story... told by kids!

prayer retreat

our team went on an overnight prayer retreat. nothing fancy, we just spent a lot of time praying!

we prayed together for the churches who we are working with and other specific things related to each of the ministries we are involved with. it was an encouraging time of fellowship together and focused prayer. the retreat happened a few days after anna and i got back to latvia, so it was also good for us to get caught up on what is happening around jv latvia!

rīga fusion zvaigžņu koncerts

fusion rīga held their annual holiday concert this past friday.

it was by far the best fusion concert that ive ever been to or have participated in! new songs, skits, a better venue, a full crowd and lots of laughs. here are a few of the pictures that i took at the concert...

youtube of the month: december

talking animals!

our trip: in pictures

here are a few photographic highlights from a trip filled with highlights...

we're back!

glad to be back in the cold and grey place we call home!

had an unusually smooth trip back. someone must have been praying extra hard for us! :)

we unpacked and had a few friends stop by last night. then we bundled up and slept for about 11 hours. got woken up this morning by the maintenance guy who came to turn on our heat! a verrrry welcome wake up call.

trying to put a dent in my "to do" list today. headed to the fusion rehearsal tonight.

that's all for me.

marriage on the road

anna and i celebrated three months of marriage last week! pretty cool. we also realized that we have been traveling for more than half of our marriage. it has been a wonderful trip, but we both long to sleep in one place for a while. we counted and realized we have already slept in nine different beds on this trip! we appreciate the amazing hospitality we have experienced on this trip, but we will be happy to settle in our bed back in latvia. :)