Recap and Women's retreat

Hey everyone!

The last two weeks Milton and a group have been working in Siauliai (shaw-lay). They had great success. They prayer walked, and narrative mapped the city. They also were able to find a building to rent for a church when they are ready to begin having services.

Back in Vilnius Lara, the kids, I had the chance to meet a new family in Vilnius Steve, Rebecca, and their six year-old son Owen have come to Lithuania. Steve will be teaching Philosophy at Vilnius University. We have taken them shopping to help them get everything for their new home.

Lara, Preston, and I worked on making Bible Study booklets and a God's Promise booklet of scriptures for the ladies retreat which starts this Friday and will go through Sunday at noon. The group from Florida left today and a new group arrived today.

Please be in prayer for the Women's retreat (this Friday- Sunday). Many of the women that are attending have not accepted Christ. Pray that all of the women's hearts will be ready and attentive to the call of Christ on their lives.

Pray for our energy. This is our third group with no breaks in between.

Good News!!!!

This week we have a group from Daytona Beach Florida working in Ŝiauliai (Shaw-lay). Yesterday they were prayer walking and just discovering the city when they stopped for ice cream. At the booth were they stopped the lady working had two friends visiting her. Milton was able to share the plan of salvation and all three people accepted Christ right there. We are very excited about this God event. The group will be here until the 29th. They are working to discover the city of Ŝiauliai. Please pray that God will open more doors for them in the city.

Lara and the kids and I stayed here in Vilnius due to vehicle shortages. We are busy preparing for a women's retreat that will be held the first weekend in August. Please pray that everything will come together smoothly. The group is actually arriving a week earlier than expected so we are shuffling schedules and reservations to get everything in order. This week is another very hot week. The temperature is in the low to mid 90's, which is really hot with no air conditioning.

Youth camp, 21st b-day, and Prayer Requests

We just got back from youth camp yesterday afternoon. We had a great camp. We had 33 people attend. Two teenagers got saved and four others made other specific decisions. All week we were studying about relationships. We emphasized that the vertical relationship (between each person and God) is the most important, and that when our vertical relationship is in order our horizontal relationships (between each person and others) fall into place.

Each day we had morning worship and then the girls would have Bible study and the guys their separate Bible Study. The leaders from Sulfur each shared their testimonies during the Bible studies which really made an impression on the youth.

We also had a lot of fun at camp. I taught everyone how to do the cha cha slide and cupid shuffle. Preston and I also taught them how to do the “lawnmower dance”. The Lithuanians all really enjoyed dancing. On Wednesday night we had a Country band come to the camp and give a concert. We did the cha cha slide, the cupid shuffle, and footloose to many of the songs. We enjoyed the music and expressed our joy. We advertised all through the town about it and drew in many people from the community. In the middle of the concert we took a break from the country music and we led in several worship songs and Milton shared the gospel. After the concert finished we handed out tracts to everyone as they left the camp grounds and shared the reason for our joy.

Thursday was my 21^st Birthday. They helped me celebrate with the Lithuanian tradition. Instead of birthday spankings they seat the birthday person in a chair and raise them above their heads for each year plus one to grow on. After the age of fifteen they start cheating a little, which was okay with me since I get motion sickness. I also had a traditional Lithuanian birthday cake which was very good. That night we had a talent show which I performed a skit with Preston and Christina. We made fun of the differences between American and Lithuanian cultures. Everyone had a lot of fun and laughed the entire time! Later on we had a bonfire and sang songs. The stars were out and very magnificent I was caught in awe at the beauty of the sky.

On Friday we said goodbyes to everyone and packed up and drove to Ŝilute (sha-loo-tey). We went sight seeing Friday night. On Saturday we took a two hour boat ride to Nida which is an island. We hung out at the beach and had a sand castle building contest and just enjoyed the sun.

On Sunday we led the service in Ŝilute. One lady came forward and accepted Christ as her Savior (praise the Lord)! On Sunday we drove back to Vilnius and had worship here. After worship Milton and Peyton attempted to drive two of the ladies home because it was raining horribly, but the roads were all flooded, so they returned and the women walked home. The group from Sulfur also had to walk to their hotel. The group left today (Monday) and our next group from Florida also arrived today. We will be working in another city called Ŝiauliai (Shaw-lay). We will be prayer walking, doing narrative mapping and looking for possible places to rent.

Prayer requests

Pray for good weather as we work in Ŝiauliai over the next week.

Pray for the group – Their leader was unable to make the trip due to last minute circumstances, pray that the group will not be distracted from the work.

Pray that God would provide safety in traveling.

Pray for our energy that God would provide the strength to do our work and be focused.

July 4th Weekend and Prayer Request

At Wednesday night prayer meeting we were talking about what a great time of fellowship we had. Ausra mentioned that she had never been to Silute and then we discussed the fact that this weekend was a four day weekend, so we made plans to return with the church group to Silute and spend Sunday there.

On Sunday (July 4) we woke up bright and early to be in Silute for 11 am there were about 30 of us. We were saddened that Ausra got sick and was unable to make the trip. We had a great time of worship. Everyone sings with everything they have, the services are filled with such joy that is so uplifting to be around. Milton preached from Exodus about when Joshua and a few of the Israelites fought the Amalakites and Moses stood on the mountain holding his arms up to God. As long as his arms were up the Israelites were winning. Milton challenged all of us to hold our arms up to God.

After church we drove to have lunch Tomas and I didn’t see anything on the menu that looked appetizing so we walked and got kebabis (kebabs) which are like a Greek meal. They put lamb or pork inside with vegetables and sauce. They were really good, but most of mine ended up on the ground. Haha They are very hard to eat “neatly”, but very good.

We then went and relaxed and spent the day at the beach in Palanga. Monday was a national holiday for the coronation of Lithuania’s first king. So we spent all day Monday on the beach too, where we played badminton, looked for sea glass, and sun bathed. It was hotter so I forced myself to go all the way into the Sea. It was very cold and everyone made fun of me because I kept jumping around to keep warm!

We returned to Vilnius on Tuesday and immediately missed the beach. The temperature dropped from 26 degrees Celsius to 18! Preston and Peyton returned from Louisiana on Wednesday the 7^th. On Friday the group from Life Church in Sulfur arrived. They will be leading Youth camp for us all next week, July 12-16. We know of 10 youth coming that we have never met before. Please be praying that through all the activities, worship services, and Bible studies that God would reveal himself to them.

Birthday Party in Silute.

We had the opportunity to travel to Silute last weekend. We had a great time. We attended an 80^th birthday party for a lady on Saturday. When we arrived there was a long table set up for twenty people to sit at and was covered with food. We sat down at the table and then a hot plate full of food was brought to each of us. We didn’t even touch the food on the table! We ate our food, sang some traditional folk songs and then a couple of hours later we were told to snack on the food on the table. We played a couple of games and enjoyed time together. We then sang happy birthday as the cake was being brought out. We ate the cake and drank coffee and tea. Just as we were finishing our cake another cake was brought out. This cake was called the 100 leaves cake. Everyone then was given two marble stones and was asked to say two things, wishes for the birthday lady. A glass goblet was passed around and we dropped our stones in it after had spoken to the lady. The party lasted 6 hours! Lithuanians love their parties and their food. The preacher’s wife from Silute was running the party and said as she was bringing out the second birthday cake that I would send word how much Lithuanians eat. It was really nice to be surrounded with such a large family. Everyone spoke with everyone and enjoyed each other.

On Sunday we worshipped with the congregation in Silute. There were 27 people all together! We had a great time! Milton preached from Ezekiel 37 on the valley of dry bones and how Lithuania is like the valley. We ate lunch with a larger group. It was nice to have other people my age to talk with. Tomas is the preacher’s son in Silute and has decided to help me learn Lithuanian by speaking very little English to me. Well he dropped some ice and put it on my plate…so I decided in my wisdom to chunk it into the grass. Well what I didn’t see was that there was a man walking by who thought I was throwing the ice at him. Tomas then encouraged me by saying that now the man would beat me up! Luckily he did not beat me up but did give me the evil eye. We drove back to Vilnius and had service with the group there. It was a fun weekend.

Headdresses, Presidents and Prayer!

It was really great to have people from Louisiana here with us. They were great encouragement for us! We worked all week in a city called Panevezys (pawn-e-va-zes).

On Friday evening we were walking around and came to the town square where a festival was being held. Many nationals were there in costume doing dances. It was very exciting to see. I took many videos that I hope to find how to upload. After the dances were over our group asked to take a picture with one group. The lady I stood next to asked where we were from and I told her America. After the picture our group stood around trying to figure out where to eat. This lady came up to me and put her headdress on my head and her husband asked to dance with me. I was very honored and obliged. Milton told me after that he has never seen a woman take off her headdress much less put it on someone else. This to me was a great inspiration that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

June 23 is a special holiday in Lithuania called St. John’s Day. We were informed about a festival taking place in Panevezys and decided to attend. We Went and took a train ride on an old (100 years old) train which is the only narrow track train left in the country. It took us to a clearing in the woods where they had set up a wooden dance floor and picnic tables. We were standing watching the festivities when the president of the country grabbed my arm. Lara greeted her for me and explained that we were visitors from America. She then turned to us and welcomed us to her country in PERFECT English! We were very honored. When she was given the chance to address the whole festival she greeted her fellow Lithuanians and then said, “Please excuse me we have some guests I need to greet”, and once again greeted us in perfect English. We asked if we could take our picture with her and she agreed. Our picture was taken by all the paparazzi at the festival. We appeared in the newspaper and on the morning news! How exciting. We claim the verse from Matthew 10:18, “ On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them…” Please pray for President Dalia’s salvation as right now she is an atheist.