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The adventure continues: Baltic bread and “feeding the masses”.

It’s always exciting to go to a supermarket in a new country, because you never know what it’ll be like. Yesterday morning we set out to purchase ingredients to cook a meal for 18 people, without having decided properly what we were going to make. To me this speaks of “great faith”, but since I wasn’t in charge I just went along for the ride (and to help carry bags home). Entering the supermarket it was a wee bit disappointing coz it was very similar to Norway. In fact, even the supermarket chain, Rimi, is found in Norway.

The shopping trip in itself was pretty uneventful, except when one of our team took a photo of a couple of us and the security guard promptly came and informed us we had to delete it (and stood to see us actually do it) because it’s not permitted to take photos in the shop.

The afternoon was a real contrast to the shopping trip. We joined with the YWAM Riga staff to do the Baltic Bread Project. Basically we had 80 loafs of fresh bread bought from this amazing bakery, and then we would just walk around and give them to people, rich and poor alike. With it we’d share that this was a symbol of Jesus love to enjoy and share. I went with a couple who were visiting from Montana, so none of us spoke Latvian (or Russian, we were in a Russian area of the city). It was interesting to see the different responses to our attempt to give bread. Some refused, others were so grateful, some didn’t quite understand it... but it was such a simple way of reaching out and I know many were very touched by the gesture. The two that stand out to me was an older man who smelt of alcohol and he could well have been homeless, or at least having a rough life (somehow I always end up connecting with the poor...). He was so grateful for the bread and for about 10 minutes wanted desperately to share something, which I have no clue what was. My complete lack of knowledge of the Latvian and Russian languages made it impossible for me to understand and even trying very hard I just couldn’t. In the end we shook hands and I just blessed him and pray for Him to encounter Jesus and find fullness of life! Then we saw three old ladies sitting on a bench and went over to them. At first they didn’t want the bread because they didn’t understand, but then I, in some kind of Latvian, read the paper with the message of why we were giving out bread (we had it written down) and they lit up and received it. Oh it made my heart so happy. It reminded me of visiting the grandmothers in Brazil and I so wished I could have sat down and had a good old natter with them. They were so sweet!

After the outreach we had some amazing pastries (it’s hard work to hand out bread...smiles) and headed home to cook the meal we had shopped for earlier.

It is so much fun to cook together. We whipped up an amazing spread of food: chicken pate with bread, dates with brie, some puff pastry appetizers with ricotta and spinach, and the main meal was spaghetti with aubergine filled with parmesan and parsley and bread. For dessert we had bought two stunning cakes (one chocolate and cherry, the other a nutty cream cake covered with white chocolate. Needless to say no-one left hungry.

The evening was so lovely. It was the launch of a justice project here in the city and this was the first meeting of those interested. It’s amazing to see how God brings together like-hearted people to bring forth His Kingdom and bring light and justice to darkness and injustice.

After a splendid evening we cleaned up (it’s amazing how many dishes there are when you cook for 16 people) and were all quite tired, but good tired!

This morning the sky varies between blue and grey, but I hope it’ll be nice when we head out to do some sightseeing and prayer walking later on. Well, I should end this and post this now. We’re about to have some coffee and left over cake (more food!!) and a time of worship together. It’s good to be here!

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