letter from Latvia
One of the questions I am asked whenever I return from Latvia is: ‘What is the mood in Latvia at the moment?’
The question relates to the fact that Latvia shares a land border with Russia and has many historical reasons to be anxious about the intentions of its larger neighbour.
My answer to the question is that the mood is mixed. There is a weariness about the war in Ukraine, with some signs of aid-fatigue, but support for Ukraine here is solid.
A tangible sign of this is the presence of a captured Russian tank that has been provocatively placed at the edge of a park immediately opposite the Russian Federation Embassy in Riga. It is a symbol of solidarity, support and defiance.
Broken tanks are not the only broken things that have travelled from Ukraine to Latvia. There continues to be a sizable contingent of Ukrainian refugees here; there are nearly 40,000 registered in Latvia.
Recently I met two of them at the International Church in Riga. Davyd (21) and Kristina (24), are amputees from Ukraine. Davyd sustained his injuries in a mining accident and Kristina lost her leg in Mariupol, when a rocket hit the building next to her. They have been fitted with prosthetic limbs by the mission charity Designed to Live which is based in the tiny city of Cesis, situated 51 miles away from Riga. The work is led by Katie Leatherwood, a missionary from Texas with a professional background as a prosthetist and orthotist*.
Davyd and Kristina have remarkably bright Christian testimonies and appear to be less focused on what they have lost in the past and more focused on living into the future. They both now work for Designed to Live, Kristina in administration and Davyd as a technician. Davyd, who is now one of our part-time students at the Latvian Biblical Centre, also serves as the pastor of a small Ukrainian church in Cesis.
Designed to Live is serving amputees from Ukraine including some ex-prisoners of war.
This is a signal that brokenness can turn into hope.
For more information see: www.designedtolivelatvia.com
