{"id":615,"date":"2012-10-15T10:13:17","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T15:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicebyrd.com\/?p=615"},"modified":"2012-11-15T22:08:36","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T03:08:36","slug":"latvia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/latvia\/","title":{"rendered":"Latvia: Looking West, Living East"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jerry Byrd<\/em><\/p>\n

The Republic of Latvia is land of contrasts and contradictions, but in many ways very innocent and pure, like a child who has been raised in the conservative country-side and now finds itself suddenly thrust into a fast-paced and a-bit-scary large and cosmopolitan city.\u00a0 It is one the three \u201cBaltic\u201d countries, along with Estonia and Lithuania, which were forcibly included in the Soviet Union.\u00a0 Latvia chaffed under the Soviet boot until finally being set free in 1990 as the iron curtain fell.\u00a0 It had originally declared its independence from Germany in 1918 near the close of World War I.\u00a0 It joined the European Union in 2004, a process that will continue for several years until it is fully integrated.<\/p>\n

Today, the country looks as though it \u201cbelongs\u201d in Eastern Europe:\u00a0 the architecture, the communist-built (and crumbling) high-rise apartments, men wearing fur hats, most everyone appearing to prefer dark and conservative clothing, and a simple agricultural model with raw wood being a major export.\u00a0 One unusual item of note is that Latvia is the nesting area for the storks of Europe.\u00a0 Their nests are everywhere.\u00a0 The country wraps around the Baltic Sea like an old woman\u2019s shawl, giving the county an abundance of humidity in summer and snow in winter.<\/p>\n

Although Latvians certainly appear to live in the \u201cEast\u201d, virtually every Latvian see\u2019s their country\u2019s future connected to the \u201cWest.\u201d\u00a0 Most love all things western and are intentionally moving to embrace a life on the Western European\/American model.<\/p>\n

Latvia is relatively sparsely populated with only 2.27 million people, but whose population is shrinking due to mobility enhancement by being a part of the E.U. and the desire to go elsewhere to seek improved job opportunities.<\/p>\n

Christian missionaries arrived in 1180. When the local people did not readily convert to, and strongly opposed, Christianity, German Crusaders were sent into Latvia to convert the pagan population. By 1211, Christianity had effective control with the foundation stone for the Dome Cathedral in Riga, (now its capital and largest city) having been laid.<\/p>\n

For the next 700 years, the Swedes, Russians, Germans and Poles successively fought over pieces and parts of Latvia.\u00a0 World War I devastated the country. When independence was proclaimed in 1918, what followed was a chaos that resulted in three governments, each claiming to be the rightful government of the country.<\/p>\n

World War II brought first Russian, then German occupation of Latvia, both of whom dealt harshly with the people. \u00a0More than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II, including approximately 70,000 Latvian\u00a0Jews<\/a>\u00a0murdered during the Nazi occupation. Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict. The Soviets reoccupied the country toward the end of the war, and further mass deportations followed as the country was forcibly collectivized and Sovietized. \u00a042,975 persons were deported in 1949, and by 1959 the ethnic Latvian population had fallen to 62% and the\u00a0Latvian language<\/a>\u00a0was suppressed.<\/p>\n

In 1989 the separation of Latvia from the Soviet Union began and was complete by August 21, 1991. \u00a0Latvia’s parliament was elected in 1993, and Russia completed its military withdrawal in 1994.\u00a0 By 2004, Latvia had joined\u00a0NATO<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0European Union<\/a>. The Latvian language was made official and complicated issues of citizenship (i.e. what to do about Russians who stayed in Latvia) were being addressed.<\/p>\n

Since the year 2000, Latvia has had one of the highest economic growth rates in Europe.\u00a0 However, it has recently dropped, partly due to active economic migration, mostly to Ireland and the United Kingdom. Latvia plans to introduce the Euro as the country’s currency but, due to the inflation being above E.U.’s guidelines, this is unlikely to happen before 2010.<\/p>\n

While most Latvians understand and speak Russian, it is a reminder of the sad days under the Soviets and most ethnic Latvians are not pleased to speak it.<\/p>\n

The largest religion in Latvia is Christianity, although only 7% of the population attends religious services regularly. The largest groups in 2006 are Lutheran – 400,000, Roman Catholic – 450,000, and Eastern Orthodox – 350,000.\u00a0 According a recent poll, 37% of Latvian citizens responded that “they believe there is a god”, whereas 49% answered that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force” and 10% that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force”. Lutheranism was much stronger before the Soviet occupation, when it was a majority religion, but since then Lutheranism in all the Baltic States has declined to a much greater extent than Roman Catholicism has. About 40% of the total population is not affiliated with a specific religion.<\/p>\n

International Commission has assisted with evangelism projects from the earliest time of freedom from Soviet domination.\u00a0 The first project was introduced by Carlos Gruber, an IC board member who was an ethnic Latvian who lived in America, but never stopped loving and praying for his precious homeland.\u00a0 He was a musician, evangelist and global part-time missionary and was given the highest civilian award by the Latvian Congress in recognition of his service to never let Latvia be forgotten while a part of USSR.<\/p>\n

Prior IC projects were conducted in 1995, 1999, 2006, 2007 and 2008.\u00a0 In addition to these \u201cstandard projects\u201d, a Youth Project was hosted by about 6 Latvian churches in2006.\u00a0 IC has a strong relationship with the Latvian Baptist Union and its Secretary General, which they call the \u201cBishop\u201d.\u00a0 Baptist pastors in Latvia often wear a clerical collar (as do Baptists in a few other parts of the world).\u00a0 Additional projects are envisioned for each year well into the future.<\/p>\n

Because the culture is \u201cold\u201d and \u201cnew\u201d, \u201cEastern\u201d and \u201cWestern\u201d and structured (traditional) and chaotic (post-modern), the outreach material and approaches will be a mixture of the typical Western Europe and the traditional (Catholic).\u00a0 Some churches will have services every night, some will have a few evening services along with other night-time evangelistic events, and others may have no evening church services at all and focus on home-based and other outreach activities.\u00a0 Normally, the urban churches will be more \u201cpost-modern\u201d and innovative while the rural churches can be expected to be more traditional.<\/p>\n

Food served in the rural churches is basic but good and much they grow themselves.\u00a0 There will be some items that you may not recognize.\u00a0 In the city, the food is a bit more sophisticated and in the headquarters hotel and other similar properties, it is world class.<\/p>\n

Participants will find many indicators of a Latvian history rooted in the East, in old Russia.\u00a0 But when you see their eyes and their hearts, they will be facing the West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jerry Byrd The Republic of Latvia is land of contrasts and contradictions, but in many ways very innocent and pure, like a child who has been raised in the conservative country-side and now finds itself suddenly thrust into a fast-paced and a-bit-scary large and cosmopolitan city.\u00a0 It is one the three \u201cBaltic\u201d countries, along […] Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}