This beautiful picture was taken right out of my airplane window as we were landing at JFK! I couldn’t resist sharing it with you. Isn’t it magnificent! It truly was the most beautiful landing I have ever seen anywhere. The sun was so bright, the water was glistening and the city of Manhattan was just so clear, you could make out everything. It just seemed to make time stand still. Of course it takes forever for them to go out, turn around, come back and make the landing, but that is beside the point. It was still beautiful.
There are two things you can always depend on when traveling abroad: Dirty bathrooms and jet lag.
Granted, the first may not have been your choice of pet peeves but it is mine. I always dread “going” anywhere! I do not know who came up with Charmin’s latest slogan but seriously, the guy, I am totally convinced it was a guy, is surely out of a job by now. “Enjoy the go!” Yeah.
But unless I get too carried away on the subject I will get right to the second: Jet Lag. Ugh. The first time I flew overseas we didn’t arrive at night and the missionary we were working with told us NOT to go right to sleep, even though we had been traveling 24 hours! He said we should stay awake until bedtime or our internal clocks would be a mess. We took his advice and slept about eight hours the first night.
The next night we went to bed around eleven and were to meet them sometime around noon the next day…we didn’t even wake up until 11:30! We had slept over twelve hours without waking up once! We couldn’t believe it! We didn’t have any trouble sleeping and were told over and over how lucky we were.
Boy, how right they were! The next few times we have flown abroad have been just like this one. Rough.
The second night I slept One. Single. Hour. Period. Third night was successful with a good eight-nine!
Here I am on number four composing this beautiful blog post at 3:00 a.m. Latvian time. The Sweetheart is softly purring away.
On to things more spiritual!
Our first service here was wonderful. We had a full house at the church in Riga! I thought you would enjoy listening to the worship team singing “Mighty to Save” in Latvian! I wish I would have moved further back in the building to video but it is what it is. I just grabbed on instinct.
Isn’t it beautiful?! God is everywhere. You can see Him, you can feel Him; you can worship Him in any language. You don’t even have to speak it; you can still give Him praise!
My heart was overflowing to hear them worshipping the Lord together, hearts in one accord. They have been praying and fasting for weeks in preparation for their annual conference to be held this coming weekend, so anticipation is in the air!
Lunch was delicious with one of our adopted “kids”, Kyle, a missionary from Napa Valley, who took us to a new chic burger place.
Street Burger was next to the Galleria shopping center and he had told us we were going to love it for three reasons:
1. They had great hamburgers.
2. It was cheaper than TGI Fridays (there is a Friday’s in Riga but it’s almost double the price of the States!) and
3. FREE REFILLS!
Free refills are unheard of in Latvia, for that matter in Europe at all. So when you find a deal like that? We are on it! He was right on all three counts!
But the best part of all was that God was with us. I love this quote. You can truly see God from anywhere. I never dreamed just three years ago that I would have the opportunity to take the Gospel to other countries and meet so many incredible people that have changed my life forever. These beautiful Latvian and Russian people are precious and amazing to me.
They are doing great things for God and are part of His plan for end time revival!
Their stories are not unlike yours and mine; they struggle with fear, loneliness, pain, heartache, rejection and shame. But they also have hearts full of love, hope, joy and compassion.
They are some of the most giving people I have ever met in my life.
This beautiful country with a history of over one thousand years, has only known freedom for about 42 years!!! Twenty of it was right after WWII and the other has been since 1991!
It is time for revival to sweep this land and for the enemy to go! These are the last days, if we are going to reach souls, we must do it NOW!
Would you join with us this week and pray for this conference? The church here is called Apostolic Way. The services are Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday afternoon. The church has a prayer chain going with people from the States helping to join in. We would love to have you be a part of this effort to help pray for the people of Latvia.
Pray for the many hundreds that have been invited that they would not be hindered, but would have freedom and liberty to get to the conference.
Pray that their spiritual eyes would be opened.
Pray that the enemies hold would be loosed!
Pray for direction for the speakers and ministry.
Pray for healings and miracles to be done in Jesus’ Name!
Please leave a comment that you are joining with us and let not only the enemy know that his days in Latvia are numbered, but let the people of Latvia know that America is covering them with her prayers!
If you want to literally be a part of the chain, you can email our prayer coordinator, Rebekah, at rjokline@yahoo.com and she will send you a link to the prayer chain!
God bless, we appreciate your prayers while we are gone so much,
Nannette and The Sweetheart
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