He said: a trip to the market

Today we went for the third week in a row to buy a couple dollars worth of flowers. Around here you have lots of choices about such things. You can buy them from the grocery store, or from a florist. OR you can go the the market. Every day in Riga, there are no fewer than 5 large outdoor markets going on. That's "tirgus" for you Lativians out there. When I say large, I mean it. The central tirgus covers about 40 acres and includes 3 aircraft hangar size buildings and 15 or 20 outbuildings, as well as the many outdoor rows of makeshift tables generally under a protective tarp/awning. At any given time there are, say, 1,500 vendors at the central tirgus, and let's say 6,000 shoppers. Rigans take their markets seriously. :-) The other markets in the various city regions would only have 150 or so vendors and 2 or 3 hun'nerd shoppers. The central market has one 'hangar' dedicated to meat. Whole hogs, half hogs, hogs heads, half a beef, (haven't seen any whole beeves (sp?)) all the way down to "Yes, I'd like a half a kilogram of bologna, please." If it's meat, and it's in Latvia, it's in the hangar somewhere, probably fresher than you care to see. One hangar for Dairy: from a 50lb. goulda wheel to a package of 'chester' style processed cheese food slices. (American style cheese is called 'Chester'. Dunno.)
At these markets, you can buy: shoes, boots, coats, lingerie, shirts, hats, ALL manners of vegetables, different kinds of fruits, toys, jewelry, various trinkets, music, movies, cell phones, etc., etc. Of course, the list wouldn't be complete without mentioning hangar 3: flowers. Lots and Lots of flowers. It's like the world's fair of flowers in there, every day.

The process can be paralyzing, though, because most of the vendors are older folks, and therefore aren't likely to speak English at all. For the most part you can point and grunt, but you can forget about any questions, or anything complicated like, "I'd like the pink one, not the white one." The other somewhat confusing factor is that, for the flowers, for instance, all ~300 vendors are selling the EXACT same thing. At what appear to be the EXACT same prices. And they all have such earnest looks on their faces. How can you choose only one? Imagine if this Sunday morning you had 200 or so earnest young people come to you asking you to buy their fundraising product. You can only buy one or two, so how do you tell the other 198, "too bad", especially since you have to parade around in front of them carrying the proof of your purchasing infidelity.

So Ellie and I stopped in at a smaller market 2 or 3 weeks ago, having seen the rows of flowers from the street as we drove by. At this market there are only 10 or 12 flower sellers, so the confusion isn't so bad. We sort of gravitated to one spot that had both lots of individual flowers as well as some nice little bouquets for sale. To our surprise, the seller spoke a little english, even though he's around 40 yrs old. His wife doesn't speak any english at all. As we were praying later, he and his wife were on our mind, and we felt led to try to frequent their flower stand, and see if we can build a little rapport. In subsequent trips, last week and today, we've tried to chat pleasantly while she creates us a little bouquet from the flowers Ellie picked out. We've learned their names and introduced ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, we'll get to use those business cards.

Pray for our flower sellers, and for Ellie, that she'll find the strength to endure all these fresh flowers until we find an open door to these hearts.

Bob

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

She said: Fashion Part II Pictures

Here are some of the pictures I promised. Most of them are taken of the subject's back as I didn't have the guts to take pictures of them when they could see me.














Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

She said: Free Business Cards

We ordered 250 free business cards today from Vista Print. They will print these cards for free as long as we don't mind that they leave their logo on the back as advertisement. We did have to pay shipment to Latvia, but it was only two dollars more than shipping to the US. Our business cards say FREE ENGLISH LESSONS With Bible Study, and then give our info. (We borrowed this idea from my Dad, who used it to good advantage when my folks spent a year in St. Petersburg relieving the missionaries there who were on deputation.)

You see, we're all settled in here, and we're praying, and fasting, and we're meeting some people, but we need a bridge to go from casual conversation to the open door of meaningful witnessing. Kind of like if you were dropped off at the local Kroger or Wal-mart and were told to win those people to the Lord. It can be somewhat challenging. We know we have the incredible message of salvation in Jesus name and a personal relationship with the Almighty God, but how to get your friend from here to there. . . We can't even just invite someone to go to church with us, cause there is no church yet! So anyway, we are truly wanting to see God do his thing and we are trying to put ourselves out there and see if there are any takers. We are believing there are hungry people here in this Latvian city and that the Lord will lead us to them.

Our goal is to start three house churches. We will also be having a major street evangelism push in January with our supervising missionary Bro. Mark Shutes, as well as the team of Aimers that he has assembled here in the Baltics. In February we will be having a Holy Ghost crusade with a team of people coming from the states. Would you like to help establish these house churches in Riga? We do need to raise money to support the work here. If you would like to become our partner in missions or just give in a one time offering, please go to WWW. ForeignMissions.com
and click on the "enroll as PIM link". BTW, our fearless editor, Bro. Kent "PPH" Curry, suggested that we could make an appeal though he tactfully asked that we not make 90&9 our continual solicitation platform. Thanks to him, this is the only time you'll be given this golden opportunity to be a blessing to Riga and open the doors of heaven to be blessed yourself. (-:

Bob and Ellie Neumann



Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

He said: Harriet Miers: I trust the President. If it's not too late.

I'll admit it. My first impression of the Harriet Miers nomination was, "This is a stroke a genius!" With all the media hype over Katrina/New Orleans, (Remember this: All the rape and pillage that happened in New Orleans was Bush's fault for responding too slowly. AND the rape and pillage didn't actually happen. AND it's STILL Bush's fault.), with the price of gas sky high, and with ongoing unrest in Iraq, the president comes into the Sandra Day O'Connor replacement riding on less than a juggernaut. If he chooses, say, Priscilla Owen, the left's response will go from the loud drumbeat of resistance that was the Roberts nomination, to all-out hysterical, fanatical, the-sky-is-falling opposition. Every daily TV talkshow will sound the alarm, every day. Every nightly newshow will pound home the dread every night. 24 hrs/day on NPR you'll hear some variation of the theme that "America as we know it will cease to exist if this extremist idealogue is confirmed" So, in an elegant stroke, W appointed someone whom the right would be proud of, yet has no papertrail, nothing on which the left can get traction.

The genius of the plan, however, leans heavily on the president's credibility with his base. For the plan to work, the conservative base has to be convinced that Harriet Miers is what the President said he would choose, while she is sold to the left as someone who is ostensibly in the mold of Sandra Day. Because Harriet is an unknown quantity, the left has nothing to complain about. At the same time, though, this unknownness put the onus all on W's word: Is she or is she not what he said he would appoint? Unfortunately, the conservatives already feel like they've been burned by a president named Bush nominating a dark horse for supreme court. I, for one, trust the president in the Harriet Miers nomination, because I think that he and I share a lot of idealogical common ground.

You see, "W" is a very different person than "HW". George HW Bush stepped out the the blueblood center-to-left domain and went to the right as far as he must to get elected. He then proceeded to govern and appoint from back where he felt comfortable. So when conservatives feel like they got burned on David Souter: they did! David Souter well represents HW's true philosophical camp. Let's be honest in our memory, though: nobody was under any illusions that HW was a champion in the conservative cause. He was, however, electable, and he was far preferable to the alternative. So you "get what you pay for".

"W", on the other hand has not shown himself to be a fair weather conservative. He has taken stances that are palatable to the center left, i.e. compassionate conservatism, but his true domain, it seems to me, is right about where I am. He has, however, been painted for so long, and so often, as deceitful, that even his base seems to have lost some faith in him. So now he has to prove to the base that Harriet is what he says she is, and thereby do the opposition's work for them. I think Ms. Miers would have been a fine justice, and very difficult to oppose, but it may be too late. I fear that we conservatives may have been too clever by half, because if she is withdrawn, her replacement will undoubtedly look very much like her: the president is not going to choose someone that the left can call "extreme" or "idealogue". He will choose someone to whom the label "center-to-right" can be applied, as opposed to "right wing". With Ms. Miers, we might have gotten a sheep in wolves' clothing. Now we may be stuck with a wolf in wolves' clothing.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

She said: Latvian Fashions

• Every female in Latvia dyes their hair. If they are conservative, it is just regular hair colors with the usual highlights. Many women have bright color-crayon red or popsicle orange hair. You will see these bizarre hair colors on normal working women. It is not considered strange or unusual. (When we first got here, my landlady recommended to me her hairdresser. In her opinion I guess it looked like I needed these services. :-)0) There are salons everywhere, they are called frizetavas.
• Women dress to highlight, yeah, even flaunt their femininity. Most all wear very high heels all the time. (This is remarkable considering the majority walk everywhere they go.)

• In the warmer months many women dress so provocatively and scantily they would be mistaken as prostitutes in the U.S. There are so many of them, though, going about normal everyday activities that you have to assume they are not.
• Bob is relieved that it has gotten colder because these lovely ladies cover up more! There are some truly stunning coats here, though many of them are still long leather form-fitting pieces of art. I will try to get some pictures over this next week.
• Even winter clothes are closely tailored. I have yet to see anyone wearing sweats or big bulky clothes. When jeans are worn by both sexes, they are low-slung, super tight, and usually designer looking.
• You know how you'll see some funky outfits in fashion magazines and you'll think to yourself, "Well, that's weird, no one would wear that in real life." Someone forgot to tell these folks that. Many, many people dress like they are on a catwalk. I have been told that though the average blue-collar worker makes around $400.00 monthly, they will save till they can get one great outfit. They wear just a few items repeatedly.
• I have seen some incredible skirts here and just wished I had the funds to buy all my Pentecostal gal pals back home at least one apiece. Again, I will try to post some pics later.

Okay, I know on the scale of 1 to 10, fashion is not supposed to be high on the list of things missionaries care about. The deal is I was given a healthy dose of feminine interest in clothes a long time ago and I have never been delivered. Maybe the Lord is okay with that part of me so that I can minister in a nation of people that is so image conscious. Any thoughts?

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!