Skramiishi

December Update

2012-01-03T14:09:00.003+02:00

Leading up toChristmas this year just wasn’t the same. It seemed something was missing thisyear. Last year Lasma was doing a lot of different Christmas things, but thisyear she didn’t. Still that wasn’t it, something was missing this year. Oh,yes! Snow! This year we’ve had no snow compared to the last few years. I washappy that I didn’t have to clear the snow or have to dress up extra warm forthe weather, but Christmas is just not the same without it. Overall, I amthankful for what God has given us and how He’s provided for us, and lookingback on this month I’ve recognized a few pivotal God moments.

First, near thebeginning of the month we started a new ministry called “The Coffee House.” Iam really trying to make this into a youth run ministry that reaches out tonon-Christians and Christians alike. December was a prep month where I overseethose whom I’ve asked to take responsibility in organizing each week’sschedule. It was an eye opener to say the least. I got to see peoples realmotives and desirers. The objective was to have youth from Cianas, ages 18 to24, to work together and create a coffee house atmosphere. Well that objectivewas achieved by the youth, which I am happy. However, the purpose of having acoffee house was to invite new people/friends to the churches café for a nightof chilling and talking about Christ. Half of this was achieved; that being thechilling out part. The not being able to talk about Christ is a set back to themajor purpose in having the coffee house in the first place. Over the month of DecemberI made some small guest friendly questions for those who were there to talk andopen up to each other. Somewhere able to openly talk about at their tables, butmost were not able to even raise a signal point. It’s as if they are notinterested in learning and growing in their Faith in Christ. I had a good discussionwith the Pastor from Cianas, and he informed me that the youth guys disliketalking about spiritual matters and would rather offer their services to thechurch. Such as: setting up tables and chairs, cleaning up, taking down,setting up the sound system, and operating the sound system. I can understand,as I’ve got to know these guys, that they like hands on ministry. The good newsis that there are lots of hands on work needed for “The Coffee House.” So theycan still grow in their serving and offering their hands on work to theministry. For that I am thankful, but I am still praying that they would openup more in talking about where they are at with Christ and what areas they seeneeded for them to grow. I want to help them and encourage them to grow more. Ijust exactly don’t know how, because in the past I’ve tried many things toencourage them to grow. As for the two whom I’ve asked to help organize “TheCoffee House,” they are not as motivated in taking responsibility as I firstthought. So now I need to ask someone or two who would like to be responsiblefor organizing each week. Their tasks would be setting up a weekly schedule toshow who is doing what and when, making sure there are food and drinks, andadding or asking someone to organize something creative for the evening. Decembershowed me that no one wanted to take responsibility. It’s as if everyone is toolazy or not wanting to give their time and efforts. My role is to encourage theyouth to run this ministry. I will help out in any way, but I am not the oneleading it as some think I am. I want this and other ministries we are doing tolast once we leave. For this year it’s going to be the biggest challenge for usto overcome.

Second, not having alot of money has been a challenge every month. This month we need some work onour car so that it would pass the inspection. We weren’t sure how mucheverything was going to cost, so we were thinking 100 for fixing, another 100for road taxes, and another 100 for the inspection. So a week before taking thecar in for its inspection, we got it looked at and serviced. It needed two new bearingsfor the front axes, but besides from that it was in good working condition.That cost way less than we were thinking, so thank you Lord. Then it was to theinspection where we also had to pay for the road taxes. Well I was thinking itwas going to cost somewhere between 150 to 200, but again the Lord was good andit cost twice as less than we expected. As for how the scary inspection went,we passed with only a small oil leak as our only negative number against us. Ifyou get 4 minuses you fail the inspection and have to get it fixed beforetaking it back. That is what happened to us last year where we had minus 8. Tosay the least we were very happy to have passed the test and paid such littleamount.

Third, after Christmaswas over Lasma and I were invited to take part in a concert where Lasma woulddo some singing and acting, and I would lead a game, give a message, and dosome acting too. We did this last year for two cities in Latvia and had a greattime. To me this is why I am living here. I like it when people as for my helpto assist them in ministry. If my gifts can be used to help others than let God’sWord reach the lost, the least, and the poor. There are so many poor familiesin Latvia right now, because of unemployment and poor government assistance. Myheart goes out to these families, as I understand more and more how difficultit is to provide for my family. This is one reason why we want to move toCanada. Jobs are really hard to come by, and for those who can afford it theyleave Latvia to find work in other European countries like: Sweden, Norway,Demark, Germany, and England. Going back to the concert, Lasma and I had agreat time performing a drama, and sharing our gifts with the families.

Just from these threethings that happened this month I see how God is still using us and how Hestill is providing for all our needs. I hope and pray that more support willcome in so that we can put into the ministries. Also, we too are need of someextra help for this coming year as it will be a big transition. Thank you foryour prayers and support.

In Christ, EricScramstad

Latvia YouthMinistries

November Update

2011-12-02T10:17:00.001+02:00

This past month we've celebrated a lot of birthdays with friends and family. For us as a family it was our son Filip who turned two years old on November 27th. We had two parties for him: one with his little friends, and another with his Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles.

Josef 81/2 months

Filip making his own pizza.

Banana split with a birthday candle on top.

Near the beginning of the month I went to Latvia's first Global Leadership Summit, where they showed some past videos from 2008 and 2009 conferences. I was a little disappointed they were showing older videos, still they were all new to me.

The first day I was tired, because we had to leave Liepaja really early in the morning. Once we arrived in Riga I was screaming for coffee. Luckily for me and everyone else there they had tons of free coffee. One of my fears before leaving was whether the summit videos were in English or not. Sure enough the video's were in English with Latvian subtitles. I had went with the Pastor from our church (who knows a little bit of English), with Lasma's dad who is the head elder at the church (who knows no English), and with Lasma's sister and her best friend (both who are alright in English). The first video was with Bill Hybels, and right off the bat I was interested. It came in the form of tears; maybe because I missed hearing people talk in North American, or because God was possibly talking to me. All of the lectures were encouraging and helpful for us all who came from Cianas church. However, there was one thing that got to me while I was there. I felt alone as if I was not really part of anything. It was a shame for me to feel this way when I was surrounded by Christians who were Latvian, Russian, American, and even Canadian. Still, I was about to leave the conference with the feeling I don't belong, when someone came up to me. A lady who I had met in the summer came up to me and told me how much God blessed her through my story I shared to the kids at the camp. This meant the world to me. I realized that probably a lot of the different things I have been doing over the past two years have gone unnoticed. To me this is better than it being noticed. Sure its nice to see the results of God's work, but it is probably better for my head that I don't see the results. It's for Gods glory and His kingdom that I am serving people here in Latvia. What happens is not for my gain or fame, but it is nice sometimes to hear just a little bit of the hard work I'm putting in is helping others.

For this month of December we could really use your prayers with finances and ministries. First, because its Christmas there are lots of different things happening at the church. We are helping out any way we can, but its hard with the kids. Josef is growing and needing more and more attention. He seems to cry all the time. Filip is himself which makes it helpful for us to help out at the church more, but he still needs a watchful eye from trouble. We are just starting to ask for help in the form of a babysitter, and so far we had the boys looked after once. It went ok, but she had a little problem with Filip wetting his pants and Josef crying and crying. These last few weeks before Christmas are going to be busy with ministires so please pray that we will be able to help and get things done. Plus that the kids will be looked after when we need the help. Second, finances are a big concern for this month. We were blessed with some extra support in September and October, but nothing has come in since. With Christmas and are car we have some extra expenses needing paid for. I am not too concerned about Christmas stuff, we are trying to budget a small amount for spending on gifts and buying food. But the car is a must for us. It needs a tune up and car inspection done before the end of the month. Pray that God will meet all of our needs and bless us with a warm loving Christmas. Thanks and God bless,

Eric

October Update

2011-11-14T13:50:00.001+02:00

Well, where do Istart? A lot happened in October and a lot of things didn’t happen too. Hereare a few things that happened and didn’t.

So, we’ve been talkingfor the past few months about our car given us problems, and how we wanted tosell it. Well, that didn’t happen because we decided that it would be best tojust keep the car and hope and pray it doesn’t break down again. I’m sort of glad we made a decision, becausenow I don’t have to think about it. Still, in the back of my mind I was lookingforward to driving a minivan with my family comfortably stowed in it. And thento have all that extra space to store things and pack stuff, like our doublestroller. I guess we’ll have to wait until future for that larger vehicle.

The ministries aretaking off slowly. This month we had another youth outreach, “MissionImpossible,” where we had 17 kids come and take part. However, I was pleased tohave 12 volunteers from the older youth assist me in running and taking part inthe game. Also, this time compared to September’s outreach, I made it more focusedon informing the kids about the church and how they can come and be part of it.A week after the outreach we saw half of these kids come so Sunday School, andthey keep asking me when will there be another “Mission Impossible” night. Thegood news for them is that I’m already planning the next outreach which will beon November 17^th. For the kids who are not coming to the church yet,I’ve been able to keep in connect with them because they come almost every dayto jump on the trampoline in our backyard. God is really using us to buildrelationships with these kids. I am amazed at what God is doing.

Our other ministries weare involved in are moving in the right direction. I’ve been praying and askingGod to tell me how I should lead these ministries to become sustainableself-growing ministries that will last. In truth, I just want God to do thework and I’m just there to listen and obey. Hmm! Allow God to lead the churchwhile I help! Sounds like a great idea. But how will this happen? The way I seeGod leading the ministries is by connecting them to the rest of the church. Right now, I don’t think people really knowwhat is happening at the church. I’ve come up with a diagram that shows howministries work and are connected to the church. I’m sort of a visual learnerand this helps me see where our ministries stand and how they can be part ofthe entire church.

The first part basicallyshows how outreach opens the door for kids to the message of Christ. The secondfloor focuses on telling the kids the importance of knowing Christ personallyand excepting Him as Lord and Saviour. The third floor is the attic and theroom starting to get smaller, which basically means that fewer kids are goingto go to this level in their faith. For me personally, I’ve seen some kids cometo this level at Cianas, but unfortunately they have gone back down to thesecond floor. The attic is where I believe kids are going to make real choicesto follow Christ or not. The fourth floor is again part of the attic and theroom is getting even smaller. So again, fewer kids are going to come to thislevel, but for those who do choose are growing in the Spirit and are able to worshipGod in spirit and in truth. The final floor is the tip of the attic and the tipof the house, and that is where leaders and disciples are born. They are theone’s ministering to those in the lower levels and floors, and do it withhumility and integrity. They don’t need to have a title or name given to thembecause they too are still growing and learning like the rest of us. They learnto become part of the church by offering up their gifts and abilities to helpserve and encourage the body to stay focused on Christ. I hope this helps youunderstand more what is happening here in Liepaja. Like I mentioned, I am trulyseeking God’s direction in leading the ministries so that they will last. Thekids here are important and I believe I’m able to direct with them to God becauseof the testimony of Christ.

Some prayer requests, firstfor the ministries, second for my family. Ministries are moving and need God tolead and guide them in the proper direction. My family is doing fine, it’s justthat Lasma and I miss spending time together because all of our time is withthe kids all day. We need to fine a baby sitter so that we can go out and enjoya date. Also Josef is still not sleeping through the nights and its beginningto get tiring. If you have any tips please send us some pointers of what maybeworked for you. We would love to sleep a full eight hours of sleep. Besidesfrom that, God is good and is helping us with all of our needs. Thanks for yoursupport and prayers, many blessings to you all.

Eric Scramstad

Latvia Youth Ministry Slideshow 2011

2011-10-25T22:42:00.000+03:00

What happened in September?

2011-10-12T11:47:00.006+03:00

I start with this question to help me remember what exactly happened last month. I know that we were super busy planning and organizing different things at church, but I really am having a hard time remembering what we did. If I recall, September started with us helping the Sunday school with their beach walk. It was a prefect day as far as weather was concerned, and the children who came were few which made it easy for the leaders to keep everyone in line. Lasma and I brought the two boys of course and they both enjoyed the long 6 km walk which brought us to a friends summer cottage where we ate food and played games. I think the Sunday school leader was hoping for more kids to part take in the walk, but those who came had a lot of fun and we all got on well together.

The following week, I did my first outreach for younger teens. In the past I focus more on those who were coming to Cianas, and they happened to be old teens if not college students. This year I really want to focus on building up the younger teens, who are few, so I plan on having once a month an outreach targeted at younger teens. The Treasure Hunt was something I had done in June and July for teaching younger teens English. In August I wanted to use the Treasure Hunt as an outreach, but time didn't allow me to organize the event. So in September we managed to put together the outreach and advertise it near the school which is close to the church. I was really happy to see kids come and want to part take in this event. A lot of them were kids I had never met before so again I was happy. After the hunt was finished we told them about what we do at the church and how they are welcome to come to Sunday school, and to youth night. The next day half of the kids came to church and then again came back the next week. I'm not totally sure if they came back the following week because we were away for two weeks. Still, this is the beginning of building a younger group of teens who want to learn about Christian and hopefully become followers of Christ. This is my goal for this year, so please be praying.

Lastly, like I mentioned we were away for two weeks. Lasma had to be in Riga for her school, so I of course looked after the boys. I thought that it was going to be difficult, but it turned out to be a good two weeks. At the end it was a great feeling to be coming back to Liepaja and find out what we missed. For Lasma is was also a great feeling to be almost finished her degree in business management. All she needs to do now is write and hand in her final paper. She has until the end of this year to write her paper and than in January she'll have her graduation. I'm really proud of her for not wanting to take a break from school when she had both Filip and Josef. Two years ago I was wondering how she'll manage, and now she's a paper away from being all done. For me, I'm having to give some more serious thought about going back to school to finish. I probably need to do another year to graduate with a degree in Youth Ministry, but I'm praying and asking God for direction.

Now its October and the days are getting shorter, the leaves are falling from the trees, and the air is getting colder, especially during the night. Just as its another season of the year we too are going into another season of our lives and ministries. I'm hoping and praying that our college ministry will get started this month and that even more younger teens will come out to our second outreach event. Also, it seems that I was to late in booking the sports hall for guys futsal for this year, so now I'm faced with having to find a new gym to play in. However, we are leading the Friday sports night again. I am teaching younger guys to play futsal from 6 till 8pm, and than after we are finished theirs volleyball from 8 till 10pm. Its great that the school lets us use the gym for free, but its really small and old making it not possible to play a full game of futsal. This year I have passed the futsal on to some of the guys from church to lead and organize, but I told them that I would be responsible for starting it up and then they will take control of the ministry.

As for us as a family, we are all doing good. Maybe this month we will take Filip to a pre-school for the first time. He would be there for an hour with other kids his age. Josef is finally getting his first tooth. Its been three months of him crying all the time because of teething. We were waiting and looking if anything had popped up but nothing until now. Lasma is happy to be learning ballet. She goes twice a week in the evenings for an hour. In November or December she'll be preforming in a ballet production. I am wanting to find someone or someplace where I can get Latvian lessons. I really feel I need them to help me motivate myself to try studying and speaking more. Besides from that our things like our car is ok. I still would like to sell it but so far we haven't had any offers we like, and its been sort of hard to look for a replacement. So maybe we will not sell, but maybe we will. I'm not a hundred percent, but if it runs good and pass the inspection in December then will keep driving it. Thanks to everyone who prays for us and has supported us we always feel blessed to know that you are thinking of us here and helping us reach youth in Liepaja.

God bless, and stay tuned for more news and updates.

Eric Scrmastad

Treasure Hunt Outreach

2011-09-10T22:30:00.001+03:00

Today we hosted our very first outreach event for teenager ages 12-16 who live in the neighborhood.
The event was a treasure hunt.

Lasma and I leading the event. We planned to have this event back in August but there seemed to be no time to fit it in.
Today turned out to be a great day to do an outreach.

This is the group who came. We had 6 volunteers from the church and one girl who also is from Cianas.
Everyone else was new.

Guys team trying to solve a riddle.

Groups getting ready to leave the church to run off and find more treasure map pieces.

The game ended up taking 7 hours, and that's with making it shorter. Lasma and I helped as much as we could without giving them the answers, but in the end we had to give them the answers. I guess I mad it too hard for them. However, they all enjoyed the time and tomorrow night they will be coming back to the church to watch a movie.
Pray for the teens, and for us trying to reach them with the good news.

Summer coming to an end :)

2011-09-06T13:04:00.000+03:00

August Update Letter 2011

Quick little update for the month of August. All through the summer I’ve been leading a Bible Study for the youth from Cianas. The study is on the book of James, which to me is a great letter to study because there’ s so much information for how we can live godly lives. The study will continue into September because of some personal time off needed during the end of August. Still, I am excited for this coming season at Cianas. Lasma and I have been brainstorming ideas for how we will go forward with the youth group and ministries. As for the youth, it’s going to be a smaller group made up mostly of girls, but I am praying and planning outreach for the fall and winter.
August was also a time I got to catch with the Pastor from Cianas. Him and his family took time off, and we were able to meet with them and plan and pray for this coming season. We reflected on the past and evaluated how the past two years has been. He basically has been serving at Cianas about the same time I’ve been serving. So we have this in common to try and evaluate what needs done for this year. For me, it’s trying to involve 13 to 16 year youth to feel part of the church body. The issue I’m face with is that this age group has stopped coming to church because they feel like there’s nothing for them. It’s hard for me to deal with because I feel like I forgot about them when I was trying to disciple the 18 to 22 year old youth to become disciples themselves. So now, my goal for the fall and winter will be to connect with these younger teens and try to encourage them to be part of something at the church. For one, I would like to make a small drama team with these teens and get them to help serve the Sunday school and even in the Sunday morning service with skits and mimes.
This month also made me feel more part of the church body with people recognizing me as Youth Leader, and also because I had the privileged this August to share and lead a service for the first time. A strange thing happen during that morning service for me, I was super nervous about leading the service and was fighting a stomach illness. I felt weak the whole time and wanted to stop and tell everybody I can’t continue, but I kept saying to myself give God the glory and praise and He would get me through it. He did, and after the service was over I went straight home to bed. As I reflect back on that morning, I see how I got myself so worked up about leading the service, which could have been the reason why I felt sick that day. After I had rested for a few hours at home my stomach was better but my head was a little achy. I really believe God did get me through the service, and if there is a next time I hope I’ll not stress myself out too much to the point I feel ill.
For the most part of the month of August we were without a car. Basically since June on our car has been a big head ach. It was in the shop getting fixed for three weeks in June and July, and then at the end of July we took it back because it was doing something else. We ended up waiting for four weeks for our car to get fixed. At times it was nice not to have the car and just walk everywhere, but I also missed having a car on those rainy days. We would go out for a walk to the center and end up waiting out the rain to stop, and then try making a break for it, but only to end up getting soaked trying to get back to our place. Even when we didn’t have the car we still managed to go camping on the weekends with friends and family. Lasma and I with just Josef went to Lithuania for a few days. And we in the end we got our car back just in time for Lasma’s cousins wedding. All in all, I was tested with my patience and had to regularly go to God in prayer for help and strength. It made me frustrated that I couldn’t deal with the mechanic myself, and I fact we can’t just save up money to get another vehicle. So now since getting our car back we are trying to sell it and with that money buy a minivan to help make it a bit easier for traveling with the kids and our friends places. We are really praying that this September we’ll have a different car.
The best thing about this August was that we moved back into our normal home on Plavu iela. That means Meadow Street in Latvian. Now it’s just trying to get back into the swing of things with raising the two boys, discipling the youth at Cianas, starting up Pitstop and guys futsal for the fall, and beginning the new ministries for younger teens. All of these you can be praying for, we really want God to move this year. We as a family are always thankful for your prayers and support, and hope that you will continue to help us serve here in Liepaja, Latvia.
God Bless,
Eric Scramstad

Don't Stop Believing

2011-08-04T23:53:00.000+03:00

For some reason I really sense God's peace in my heart tonight. I think its because of the good Bible Study we had today. God really spoke to me through James 3:1-12. I've been using my words so negatively, while knowing in my mind God's promises and words of instruction. It's interesting how our hearts can be so corrupt at times that we only think of ourselves. I know that their are people who have less than we do, and who are suffering for being a believer in Christ. Yet I'm here complaining and wishing things were different. I like what James writes in verse 2, that we all can stumble on many things. The more I think about this verse the more I see how I am not all that mature. My faith is in Christ 100%, but at times I don't fully believe. Like with our car. I've been praying and praying asking God to help us get it fixed so that we can sell it and buy something else. But the more I think about it the more frustrated I become and stop believing that the car will ever get finished. Waiting for three weeks is a pretty long time, but I am now coming to a point where I see what God was probably trying to teach me. To trust in Him no matter what happens. If the car gets fixed tomorrow, that would be amazing. But if it takes another three weeks, than so be it. I and my family will push through this time and I will try my best to stay humble and follow him. I have a bike, and I just made a few adjustments so I should be fine to get around town. But I do pray that all this will be resolved before winter comes.

Don't stop believing!

Eric

The great month of July

2011-08-02T12:41:00.002+03:00

I've always liked the month of July. Probably because its usually the hottest month out of the year, and I really like hot weather. Even when its too hot I still enjoy all the outdoor sports and activities you can do. Like swimming and playing soccer during the cool evenings.

This month I've been keeping myself more busy with teaching English to 10 to 14 year old kids. It was great to spend my afternoons with a bunch of young teens and organize a fun way to learn English. I used a treasure hunt concept that involved using math, puzzles, riddles, and words to figure out clues to find pieces of an old treasure map that lead them to the treasure. It lasted for six weeks and I had about 35 kids in total sign up. It was hard to use the camp as a ministry opportunity, but I think that God was using me to reach out to those kids anyways. God has gifted me with a natural ability to connect with this age group. The comments were encouraging from the parents and kids so I plan on possibly doing another treasure hunting camp again but this time with children who live near the church.

This month I was invited to be a guest speak twice for VBS camps, but I was only able to go to one of them because of transportation problems. Lasma and I lead some fun games with a group of 60 kids at a camp and then afterwards I shared a message. Again the response back was really encouraging for me and Lasma too. Word spread that Eric from Canada is really good with young teens that another camp called us if we could be a guest speaker there. I wanted to go and we were so willing but that week our car broke down and we couldn't find a car on short notice to go. So that was too bad, but I truly feel blessed to be able to bless others.

I've been trying hard to reach out to the older youth at Cianas, but its just getting more harder. With summer many youth seem not interested in coming to youth projects and the bible study, so I'm not trying as hard. Its too much work to pour my heart out when no one seems to even come and want to be challenge in their faith. So our youth Bible study is way more chilled and just focused on reading through the book of James together. We read it and than talk about what is being said and how we can live it out in our lives. So far we've gone through half the book and by the end of August we will have finished. I am praying for direction with regards to the youth at Cianas and will be talking soon to the Pastor to discuss how I will continue teaching and mentoring the youth. I still want to use Pitstop as the main youth night, but it will probably have some changes for the better.

While our car was still working earlier in July, we would take some family trips on the weekends to escape our summer house. The home we our living in is OK, but difficult because its crammed with lots of things and is just hard to feel at home in. So we go camping for a night and just try to enjoy the summer. We've been three times and we plan to keep going during August. But finding a car is just the issue to figure out.

Like I've been saying our car is just a big headache. Last month in June we got it fixed by replacing the engine, and now it looks like we will have to replace this engine. I just want to get rid of it, sell it and buy something else. But we have no money no savings no nothing at the moment to really deal with this car. For the past three weeks we've been walking everywhere, to get food, to go to church, to visit people, to bring our laundry to get cleaned, and so on. Its been a humbling experience to say the least, but I am feeling terrible as a husband and father that I am not able to really provide for my family. I am struggling to find my place here. I just feel lost. And I know its my fault.

Since I've been living Latvia, its been hard to adjust to the culture and way of life. For us it is different compared to other families living in Latvia because we are a bilingual family who is mostly using English. A lot of families here are speaking in two languages, Russian and Latvian, but in rare cases like ours you'll find people speaking English, German, Lithuanian, or some other neighboring language. But here's the hard part, because Latvia is such a small country with only 2 million people, with more than half of that million living in one city, it is hard to be accepted for who you are and where you come from. Two years ago I had a conversation with an American missionary who has been living in Latvia since 1994. He graduated from PBI, the same school I attended, and moved right away to Latvia to begin his new life and mission. After living in Latvia for five months he was speaking Latvian and it wasn't long after that he was leading a church. He also married a Latvian and has three children. He told me, that most missionaries who come to Latvia fail to become connected and part of the culture during their first two years, because they never were able to grasp the language and gain the respect of the people. I've now been here for two years, and in some ways I am experiencing this disconnect with the people, because I have not grasped the language and I have possibly lost the respect from some of the people. All the more, I wish at times that I was back home. This is a little bit of what I've been facing for the past few months, and only now I am beginning to realize what I've done.

Please pray for me, for my family, for are needs like having a car again. Its so much easier to drive with kids than walking. Your prayers are amazing and I know that God is at work and is using me and my family here to bless others and to share the good news. I'm here mostly because of my family, but I know its the place where God has placed me to minister and serve. All will be well. I believe in this, it just takes time to come. I though I knew what patience was, but I am learning what it really is when it comes to living for Him.

Thank you, please pray for us and supporting us here. GOD's love and blessings to you all.

Eric Scramstad

June Update

2011-07-17T15:00:00.002+03:00

Like I promised here's a little update from what we did last month in June. Again I'm sorry for it taking so long to come.

For Latvians June marks the beginning of their 3 month summer holidays. It's also a time that I make changes to ministries for the summer. June for all the ministries we are involved in leading was the end for the season. To take a break and charge up for September. But it is also a time that I plan events and weekly bible studies for those who are sticking around for the summer. For the first half of June it was a break for us all, but I still wanted to keep doing things in and out of church to help people. One project that I took on for the church was to gather up some youth to help paint the Church's cafe. It took us two days to do it properly, but now the cafe looks great and many people in the church were happy to see us using our hands to help out. The next week we got a phone call to help out some more people from the church by helping them stack wood for the winter. It only took us an hour to do but it was definitively a great way to show the neighbors what kind of people we really are. From these two examples of us serving I'm praying that we will get involed more in helping not just our Christian brothers and sisters but also are fellow neighbors and even the strangers on the street.

On the 12th of June it was a special day as one of our youth got baptized. She is only 13, but she went to the Pastor and told him that she really wanted to get baptized before the summer came. At first the Pastor wasn't going to do it because of the timing, but in the end he knew it was the right thing and a few days before the baptism another person from the church asked if he too could be baptized that Sunday. Also, on that same Sunday we had the Pastor and the Church pray for our little Josef. It was a special day for all of the Church. I wish there were baptisms and baby dedications every week, it makes Church feel more alive and encouraging to see the growth.

After that we had a week to pack up our belongings and move out of our house for the summer. Every year since we have lived here we've had to move out for two months because the owners come back from Ireland to spend their summers in Latvia. So for this summer we are living in an old house filled with lots of old things, like old soviet books, furniture, and dozens of tea sets. It's OK because we don't pay rent but its dusty and hard to make it feel like a home. We just keep saying its only for two months, and to keep positive that soon we will be back in our normal house. Really the only problem is that it's not kid friendly. Both Joey and Filip get frustrated once they been their for more than 4 hours during the day. We just take them for walks or go over to Lasma's parents house.

Lastly, the big thing that happened this past June was taking part in Latvia's big summer solstice. Usually solstice are pagan and have nothing to do with Christ, but the one we take part in every year is run by Christians who want to use the time to celebrate Christ together with lots of believers from around Latvia. Lasma and I both helped out by leading one of the events during the night. I also played in a mini soccer tournament which we won. There was lots of things to do there from sports to learning how to take photos. On one of the nights there was a talent show and all four of with the help of some friends performed a drama. I think lots of people liked it and how we were involving both Josef and Filip in it too. The summer solstice celebration is pretty cool to go to, and it will always be a great memory for me because it was at my first Latvian summer solstice that I saw Lasma back in 2008.

So it's already the middle of July, and I'm still waiting for the hot weather to come here in Latvia. I am working lots leading a summer English camp, so when it is sunny out I don't get to go and play in the sun. But Lasma and the kids our going to the beach and enjoying summer. We are taking family trips on the weekends to enjoy the time and weather while its not winter. But please be praying for us here we are trying our best leading the youth at Cianas. The summer's are slower with youth work because most kids are gone to camps or traveling with their families. For now we just are focusing on weekly bible studies and getting together to pray and hang out. I'm praying for more direction for this coming fall, and it seems GOD is leading us sort of in a different direction. We are getting by but our poor car isn't. We are trying to sell it, but first we have to get it fixed again. It keeps breaking down. Please pray that we will sell and with that money are able to buy something that will not have problems. Thanks for your prayers and for your support, its a blessing to us and we feel deeply loved and grateful for them. God's blessings to you all and have yourself a great summer. Will be writing again soon to tell you news from July.

Eric Scramstad

New Update coming soon for June

2011-07-12T19:49:00.002+03:00

Been busy this July and haven't had time to sit down and write an update, but I'm planning on writing something later this week for June. Please keep praying for us here in Latvia, the ministry has been hard to continue during the summer season with all the youth doing their own things. But God is faithful and he is at work. Blessings to all and thanks for your prayers and support.

More news on Latvia's government

2011-06-06T20:25:00.003+03:00

Go to these sites and read what's happening in Latvia

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ho7tKzrGUSmOWZzdMK8YPTy0CVVw?docId=CNG.8fa875910351b4d56b4f2c3c4f00e20d.71

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13628945

May, kicking and screaming!

2011-05-31T12:21:00.003+03:00

When it comes to raising children they will do there far share of kicking, hitting, bitting, most of all screaming. Filip this month has had his moments. It could be that he's teething or its a stage in his development. Sometimes even little Josef gets into the act and we'll have two little boys crying for us. But who is doing most of the kicking and screaming? Filip? Or Josef? Well I think am doing my far share too with the fact that I can't believe I'm 30 years old now. I feel like I'm kicking and screaming to be younger not older. I played in a football (soccer) tournament this month with some of the guys from the futsal ministry. We put together a team and entered into a marathon of a city soccer championship for Liepaja. All together we were 8 guys, which was a small team for this tournament, but it was 6 vs. 6, 15 minute games and we were guaranteed 5 games. However, these games were play over a period between 9 at night till 2 in the morning. We won 1 game, tied 1 game and lost 3, which meant we were out of the tournament. Still I was happy it was over and that I could go home to bed. The next day I felt stiff and sore all over and could barly walk without my back hurting me for two weeks. I guess I am really 30 years old, because my body is trying to tell me to look after better, but my mind is still thinking I can get away with all the resting and streching before and after playing sports. The good thing is that I feel fine now and that I'm ready again to play in another football tournament.

Probably the best thing about this month was that my little sister Holly came to visit us for three weeks. Having a family member come here and see where we live and what we do was very encouraging for me. She brought a little bit of home to me which made me miss Canada and all my family and friends there. With Holly being her we took her around places in Latvia and to the South in Lithuania. Holly was a big help too, she helped with looking after the boys with cleaning and cooking meals. She made us feel good and I think for herself she felt at home here. Also with celebrating my 30th birthday, she made it even more special for me just because she was here. I really wish that it was easier for my family and friends to come here and see us and vise versa. I only thing Lasma and I regret is that we didn't take Holly enough times to the beach here in Liepaja. It was hard at times because I was working and the boys need their napes, but the beach here in Liepaja is amazing and its someplace you can spend the whole day at.

With regards to ministry here, May was our end of the season month for Pitstop and for the futsal ministry. We had a good month of teaching biblical truths to the youth and to challenge them to go deep with God this summer, plus we ended Pitstop with a barbecue party at our house which was also Holly's last night with us before leaving to see some other countries in Europe. Also with the futsal ministry, we had some slow times with only a few guys showing up to play, but that happens this time of year because of their final exams for school. But, I also had a futsal year end party at the church with a few of the guys. It was good to talk to them outside of the sports hall and tlka about other things that are happening in their lives.

For the summer we are not stopping ministries, only changing them for the summer. For those who want to come from the youth they are invited to Bible study at the beach which will start near the end of June, and also for the guys who like playing sports we will be playing outdoor football in June, July and August. I'm really praying for more guys to come and play so that they can hear the gossip.

Another thing that I'm changing for the summer is the men's bible study group. This month it was a big failure. Before May started I called all the guys to come to a meeting where we would talk about a new time and possible places to have our bible study together. The first thing I asked them was if they really wanted to have a bible study group together or not. They all agreed yes they would. But when May came, every week I would send messages to remind them about the bible study and each replied back that they wouldn't be able to come because they were busy with homework, studying, or something else. Each week it happened and so I was a little upset because I had put work and effort into making the bible study material and set aside the time to have the study. But they all weren't coming. So now, I'm faced with a difficult task to try something else. Like I've told in the past, the guys from Cianas are not too committed in their faith and it's difficult for me to reach them and connect with them. Maybe if I was a single guy with no wife and children I would have more time to meet with them during the week. But now with summer approaching this will be a time where they have lots of free time to possible give to GOD. So I'm not giving up hope on them nor will I stop trying to work with them to mentor them and disciple them to grow in Christ. As for myself, I feel that the summer could be a good time for me to grow as a child of God. He has been teaching lots through this year and I hope its for the better of seeing more and more young people come to Him.

Another summer plan is to have a night of prayer every week for anyone to come to. This was also done last summer, but it was too early for all the youth. So this year it will be during the evening, and hopefully this will be a recharging time for all of us leaders and new followers in Christ. Also possible this summer there will be some more youth getting baptized, so far their is one girl who really wants to make this step in her faith. We are just waiting for a few more to also make this commitment.

Other projects are to make a youth work team of servants who are willing to help out others when and where ever needed. Some of the first project ideas are to brighten up the church by painted and cleaning some of the rooms. We are just in the process of getting some funds to help buy supplies needed. And we are also beginning to put out the word that if people need some help to call us and let us know so that we can serve them with the love and joy of Christ. This was a result of what we were learning this month at Pitstop, learning to be Servants, learning to live more holy lives, and learning to be more willing to do the Will of God in our lives. To me the key is allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to us and guide us in reaching out and loving others. It's easier said than done, but its do able.

Lastly, thanks for the support that has been coming in. We are grateful for all that you are able to give to the ministry and for our lives here in Latvia. Please keep sending in your support it is still greatly needed for other ministries we are running and organizing.

Our situation for the summer is still unclear. We don't have a place to live for two and half months yet. The date for us to move is June 19th, that's when the owners will come back to live here for the summer. Most places to rent here is above our budget, and to make things worst for our budget we are have new car problems. Not sure what' going to cost to get our car fixed, but as of right now we are not able to use our car. By tomorrow June 1st, hopefully we will find out what's wrong and how much with it cost to repair it. We are at our car's mercy, because next week June 6th till June 10th Lasma has her last week of school. We need to be in Riga for that week and we need our car to get there and to drive every day to her school. I'm just praying we will have enough money to pay for the cost and that it will be working better than normal before we go to Riga.

One more thing, in Latvia right now their are some major political events happening. I'll give you this link to read about it your self, but basically the President of Latvia is trying to fire the government to get rid of the corrupt officials in office and start a new government that is willing to put Latvia back on to its feet. The country has the EU's worst employment rate and average income rate. This makes Latvia a less desirable place for people to want to live. Read this about the President. http://www.timescolonist.com/story_print.html?id=4857551&sponsor=

Thanks for reading, please pray for these things and for us here. We will post some new photos of our family and of some of the other things which happened this month.

God bless, from your friend and brother in Christ

Eric Scramstad

2011-05-03T15:31:00.006+03:00

Easter sunrise service near Liepaja's Lake.

This past month most of my work with the different ministries were focused on celebrating Easter. Last year we didn't get to celebrate Easter because we were busy celebrating my older sister's wedding. Too say the least, I missed it last year and I am grateful that this year's Easter was longer than any other Easter I've had. With becoming the official leader for the youth at Ciana's in March, I wanted to engage myself to help and encourage the church as a whole. So on the 21st, I organized a Last Supper re-enactment. It was not exact to the Disciples and Christ's Passover meal, but I did some research and joined together some of the same food's and customs that Israelites would practice with a Christ focus of Him being our Great Servant and Saviour. The Evening however, did not go as I planned. Most of the people who came were not into taking part in some of the activities and devotional practices, like foot washing, and stopping to read passages of scripture to reflect and remember. Still, I was surprise to see how many people come, as I thought there would only be a little group of people including the youth who were helping to serve and direct people as they walk in. We had the meal in what would be the church's Upper Room, which is were the youth gather together to worship GOD for Pitstop. As people came in and went to a chair, I could sense an uncomfortable-ness in the room. To me, this is a good sign; people are sometimes more open to Christ and not closed to Him. The night again was suppose to be a re-enactment of the Last Supper where we could reflect and remember what Christ could have been thinking prier to being arrested and torture. At one point when the youth were serving food to all the people sitting around the room, I had one lady ask me where's the meat? I think she was joking but I did sense some seriousness to her question and felt a little bad that we were not giving them a feast, but offering them a time to reflect on Christ and worship Him. As the evening came to an end, we had a few people give testimonies. This was not planned but with all the other stuff I did plan and didn't happen, I though it wouldn't hurt. In fact it was the first time that people opened up to each other and spoke from their hearts. I hope that this will continue to happen in the church, because the church needs people who are not afraid to speak and encourage the church.

On Easter Sunday morning, I did something that SBC does every year, a sun rise service. Liepaja is surrounded by water. There's the Baltic Sea on one side, and a lake on the other. Then there's two channels on each side, so basically if there was a flood we would be swimming. But nothing like that has ever happened here. I wanted to keep the service simple and fresh, so we got permission from the city to have a service near the lake. This way we would watch the sunrise and have the beauty of the water in the background. Lasma also had the idea to place the cross at the end of the road, that way people would walk or drive up to the beach and see the cross. We had a little music and some scripture reading, and then after we served coffee and tea out of the back of our car's trunk. I really enjoyed seeing the sunrise, its not too often I wake up at six in the morning to see the sun rise and if I did I'm probably busy taking care of one of the babies. Here's a video from our sunrise service that one of the youth posted on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUWqU77LyZk&feature=player_embedded

As for my family, we are all doing well. Both boys had some noise colds but that's gone and they are better. Filip is really growing learning new things. He is starting to speak more, but its all in Latvian. Josef is sleeping lots and doing all the other things a two month old baby does. I love it when he tries talking and makes all those cute little baby sounds. Lasma and I are trying to finish some jobs around the house before summer comes and the owners come back to live here for two months. Mostly its organizing and painting doors, but the big thing was seeding the yard. I leveled the ground off, got rid of rocks and glass, and now we are just waiting to see some new green grass grow. Should be nice when its all done. We have some prayer requests, and most of our needs is for support to help cover ministry expenses. As a family we are basically just getting by each month. But when support has come in it has been such a blessing and help for us. We are also praying about where we will live for the summer. Right now we have no ideas, but we are praying. Also, my little sister Holly is going to be in Latvia for three weeks in May. She arrives on the 8th of May and we will host her and show her around Latvia. We are praying that our car will have no problems (right now its dripping transmission fluid.) and that we are able to drive around safely without the boys being too much trouble. Filip hates being in his car seat for more than ten minutes. Lastly, please keep praying for the guys from the church. As of right now, this is my main ministry. To reach out and encourage these young men to become passionate followers of Christ. I hope to share more of my plans to reach these guys, but I can't until I know for sure that they will happen. For now, I'm ministering to them through sports and a bible study, but they are always forgetting to come to the bible study. I'm not giving up on them, but I just pray that they would open their hearts more to Christ and be transformed. Keep us in your prayers and if you are able to donate any support please do. All is a blessing and a big help to us here.Remember that donations are made out to Summerland Baptist Church and just put as a note that it's for Latvia Youth Ministry. Thanks and God Bless.

Filip's name day party, April 6th, 2011.

He didn't understand what we were playing.

Filip's favourite toy!

From the Scramstad family in Liepaja Latvia.

2011-04-20T10:36:00.003+03:00

PITSTOP IN PHOTOS

Spring has come:) To celebrate that we set up trampoline and invited youth over to hang out:)

It was so much fan that we decided to do it every week after Sunday service:)

Tent of meetings.

It was awesome night. We red, talk and sang a lot:)

Josef was with us:)

Worship night at Pitstop with Filips Baumanis leading it:)

The Good and the Bad times

2011-04-05T23:50:00.001+03:00

March was here and now it’s gone, that’s all that comes to mind when I think about last month. With the birth of our second son, Josef, this month went by so fast and now I’m just reflecting back on the good and bad times. So what was good about March, well we have a lot to be thankful for, like our new baby son Josef, who is healthy and fitting in well with all of us. He was born on March 12^th at 3:30 in the afternoon, weighting 3.32 kg or 7.3 lbs and was 53cm long or 20.8”. I was so happy when I saw him and got to hold him for the first time. The feeling was much different from when Filip was born, but just as amazing and wonderful. And Lasma, while let just say I was super proud of her that she was able to get through the whole delivery. Weeks before leading up to the delivery she was getting nervous and scared. I just started asking people to pray for her and I too prayed for her before going to sleep. I don’t think there is no escaping the fact that giving birth is going to be painful, but I do believe that God can help. For Lasma, it was sort of like that. That day when she was having contractions she was laughing the whole time about whether they were contractions she was feeling. On arriving to the hospital we were all calm and wondering if this was for real or not. After the doctor examined her, we were shocked to hear that she had dilated 7cm and that they would break her water for her. So that was probably around 1:00 in the afternoon and both of us where thinking why didn’t we grab something to eat before coming. Still, we were calm and relaxed and Lasma was still laughing and giggling over the fact that she was going to give birth on that day. The nurses were even making jokes about her smiling and laughing, which only made Lasma smile and laugh more. By 2:30 in the afternoon, finally Lasma was feeling some pain and she was no longer smiling and laughing. When we look back on this whole day both Lasma and I see how God was there helping her take her mind off the fear and on to something else. Sure that hour was difficult for her, but it was like God took away her fears and replace them with joy. The happiness returned to Lasma an hour later at 3:30 when Josef Robert Scramstad was born. We are proud parents and we feel even more blessed to have another son.

Other good news to report was the baptisms of three of our youth. They were three girls who all got baptized on March 6^th at Cianas (I just learned what Cianas means in English, Zion J). That day the church had four baptisms, and being that three of them were youth was super cool. For all of the girls I was excited, but one of them I was greatly encouraged to see taking this step. She is the youngest youth who is only 12 years old, but she comes to Pitstop and other youth events regularly. From the time I first meet her to now she has grown so much. I believe God has amazing plans for her; especially in the near future. I’ve been discipling her along with some others each week and she is always into the challenges I give and teachings. The relationships she built with some of the older girls at youth has also encouraged her. What’s amazing is that she has brought some of her friends from school to Pitstop, which makes her braver than most of the guys. I know I shouldn’t compare, but I am just thrilled to see her growing in faith. I just hope it spreads to her friends and other people she’s around. Plus I see her as one of the future leaders that girls in Sunday school will one day look up to when they reach her age, so to me she is a perfect role model for them, and even for some of the other youth already.

With regards to Pitstop and where this ministry is going, to me it’s heading in the right direction. But, I’m just reminded of what happens at Pitstop should be a result from the Holy Spirit. I think last month taught me this lesson. What I do should be a reflection of what the Holy Spirit is doing in me. This month’s Pitstop was not properly prepared and thought about. I tried preparing back in February knowing that I might not have the time because of Josef being born, but I managed to only plan one evening for Pitstop. I was hoping that I could ask someone to lead one or two Pitstops, but everyone I asked said no. So I was left with preparing the day of (last minute), which I don’t like to do ever. Still, somehow I believe God took over and lead the evenings, which is what should happen every week. I’ve been praying for direction and inspiration for each Pitstop, but I don’t do enough seeking out God on my own and submission to God’s leading. But somehow in my own lack of planning and organization, God lead and guided us in the Pitstop’s that I thought were rubbish and lacking appeal. God is greater than me and my ideas, and I must submit more to him leading us. This was good to learn and now I will put this into practice this April, starting with our first Pitstop of the month. But this should also go with everything I do, like the futsal ministry and guy’s bible study group.

In March Futsal has been going strong. There are now 12 to 14 guys coming out regularly to play and take part in. Before futsal starts I lead a guy’s bible study group at my house. The same principle I learned from leading Pitstop this last month also goes with the bible study group and the futsal, because if it’s not God leading it then it’s got to be me which isn’t good. What I want to see happen with these guys is to see them sharing their faith and growing in faith. But I think I’ve been too hard on them and have not been caring enough for them as brothers in Christ or future brothers in Christ. Two examples would be with the relationships I’m not investing enough time with the guys in the bible study group, and the lack of relationships I have with the guys at futsal. For me I think it’s because I am scared to leave my family to hang out with them. They are great guys and I want to get to know them more, but I use my family as an excuse to hold myself back. I’ve talked to Lasma about it a bit, and she is actually wants that I hang out with the guys more often. Pretty simple, but harder to do when half of them don’t understand English and I’m not able to speak enough Latvian to them. What I must do this April is submit to Christ and allow Him to lead me.

Lastly, never get sick in Latvia J. This is sort of a joke, but there is some truth to it. Lasma this past month had some problems after the pregnancy and had to stay in the hospital for 6 days. It would have been worst if she hadn’t kept such a good attitude through the whole stay, but basically Liepaja’s hospital scares me. From the moment you drive up to it you are thinking this can’t be a hospital it looks more like an old Soviet housing building. But it is, and then when you are inside its old and dark from old lighting and the floors give a cold and gray feeling that makes you think you’re in the wrong place. When Filip was born I learned to never use the elevators and just use the stares. It was much quicker to walk up 9 flights of stairs than risk your life in a death box of doom. I wish it wasn’t true about the hospital but it doesn’t stop there. I guess it’s still trying to get itself out of the Soviet era, because everything to me seems backwards or just doesn’t sense. Lasma was posting comments on Facebook during her stay there about all the things she couldn’t do. Some of the things were ok and you understand but some were like why not? I’m just glad she is out and at home and Josef is too, because it was also difficult for me to run around everywhere with Filip. However, let me leave you with this one positive not about the hospital. They are fixing it up, and the elevators will soon be replaced with new ones that don’t move when you step into them.

One more story from this past month was a day before Lasma went into the hospital we were out shopping in the market. I was standing in the middle of the hall when a strange woman and man spotted me with Filip and Josef in the twin stroller. The lady acted as if she had never seen such a stroller for babies and had to come up and look at it. She spoke Latvian to me, but I didn’t understand a word she said but understood the situation. The man then said a couple of comments about the stroller, and I noticed that I’ve met this man before. Last year or so I met him in the public library and I helped him with using a computer. He wanted an email address so that he could write messages to his daughter who lived in London. I showed him what to do, which made it good practice for my Latvian, and set him up with an email address. It was funny because he had no idea how to use a mouse and type on a keyboard. I also realized that he was sort of strange and acted different possibly because he had problems drinking alcohol or something. I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to help. After that first time I met him I began to see him around town. I would wave or greet him, but he acted as if he had forgotten who I was. Just like this time, he was talking to me like we’ve met for the first time. Then after finishing talking about how nice our stroller is, he did the most unexpected thing. He pulled out from his jacket pocket a semi-automatic hand gun. I was shocked and more than a little nervous. Right in the middle of the market he pulls out a hand gun. What was he thinking? Well, all that I was thinking about was getting out of there. Lasma came back from buying some pastries and he showed her too laughing as if it was a joke. Then his wife handed me the owners guide for the gun, because she heard me speaking English and want me to read it because it was written in English. But I was not going to help them out this time. We took the stroller and walked right out of the market, but they followed us outside with the guy saying to Lasma that he is allowed to have the gun that it’s not against the law. I looked at Lasma and said lets go back inside and get as far away from this couple. This time they didn’t followed us and we found Lasma’s mom who was inside and told her what just happened. This never happens in Liepaja. People with guns are not common here. This guy is strange and doesn’t understand what he’s doing. Once we got home I just kept thinking about this guy and how sorry I feel for him. Two weeks later I realised who the lady is. She sits on a corner near the market bagging for money, and a few times I’ve stopped and given her some. I feel bad that probably no one respects them as people and possibly they’re own children, that’s if they really have some. But, I hope that the next time I see this man or his wife, that God will lead me and protect me from danger.

Please keep us in your prayers. You can pray that God will provide for all of our needs. Pray for the ministries we are involved in leading. Pray for the guys I’m discipling through the bible study and that I’ll find more time to hang out with them. Thanks for your donations, every month we are in need of this extra money to help pay for and to support the ministries we are leading, like the futsal outreach and prayer breakfast to name a few. I hope in the near future we are able to post some video blogs where both Lasma and I can share praises and prayer requests. Thanks for reading and don’t be shy to leave a comment or send an email to me @ eric.scramstad@gmail.com. The encouragement is always welcomed.

Sincerely Eric Scramstad

Baby Josef

2011-03-21T17:49:00.001+02:00

Challenges

2011-03-08T12:08:00.000+02:00

This past month of February was full of challenges for us as a family, but the ministries we are involved in leading went well. God is at work at home and in the church. We are seeing fruits of the ministry through spiritual growth in the youth and in seeing old faces coming back to church, to the futsal ministry and even coming to the new guy’s bible study.

The Thursday night youth and young adult group, which we call Pitstop, is still in its beginning stages, but real cool things are beginning to happening. One night during a week where I was feeling down, which I will explain more later, everyone was focusing on the amazing attribute of God as Creator. It was sort of like a prayer walk but I turned it into a bible walk. The whole time while you were walking around reading different scriptures the projector was displaying videos of God’s creation. Basically, each Pitstop has some sort of element that is to encourage us as a body of Christ to be the church to one another and to the lost people. Some people, mainly the guys from the church, are not supporting this style of youth night and have only come once since we started in January. I understand them to some degree for their reasons not to join and take part, but I also am concerned that they are not willing to grow deeper in Christ. Their unwillingness to grow along with some of the recent chatter that I’ve been hearing has made me wonder if they actually are Christians. They might go to church on Sunday mornings and be involved in different duties of serving the church, but their actions and words are not centered on Christ from what I’ve seen and know of them. However, I am not giving up hope on them. Time will tell along with the encouragement I am able to give them through the guy’s bible study group. This is new and just started in February, so I hope they are willing to come regularly and that God will challenge them to go deeper. Please be praying for this to happen in their hearts. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelation 3:19-20

The futsal ministry is much the same, guys are coming out regularly when they can. We have had one injury to one of the guys. Nothing too serious, just a bad knock on his ankle which will put him out form playing for a month. This young man has been someone who I’ve gotten to know over the years I’ve been here. When I first came to Latvia in 2007 I met him and his brother while playing soccer with the neighbourhood kids in the town of Grobiņa. I got to know him even more the following year in 2008, and that was the summer he accepted Christ into his heart. Then his family moved to Liepaja in the summer of 2009 for financial reasons, and that is when I started to connect with him through futsal. Right now his family is really struggling because his father lost his job and can’t find a new one, and his mother is only able to get part time work. His brother is now living in Riga studying in university, but his parents are still supporting him with living and food. So I can image that it is hard for them to support their family with the little income they get. Lasma and I are praying for him and his family. We wanted to help them by giving them a little money, but even for us money has been issue. I just hope that his dad will find work and mother will get more hours so that they can get back to normal. Please pray for him and his family. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 1 Corinthians 1:3-4

As for us as a family this past February it has been a challenge. First, I had a few bad days with feeling home sick, being annoyed with not understanding Latvian which makes me feel alone, and allowing myself to get frustrated at the guys who were not being honest to me. Since then I’ve come away with a peace that it’s in God’s hands for the guys to change, that thinking and talking of home only makes me miss it more, and that it’s possible that I might never learn to speak and understand Latvian. I prayed through it and it has passed. Now I am facing a new challenge with being concerned with our financial situation. With our second child coming, we’ve had to buy a few new things for this new son, Lasma needed some more medicine, vitamins and doctor visits, and more importantly we had to pay for the hospital delivery. These things we knew we had to pay for, but it doesn’t help when we had to pay for extra things like getting our car fixed again. I know that what we receive each month is a gift, but we are struggle to get by now. I think it is going to be like this for the rest of the year, unless something changes. I am a little concerned when we have to find a place to live in the summer because that will mean paying for rent along with the bills. Right now, I am just praying that God will provide for all of needs and that we will not go into any kind of debt. Please don’t feel sorry for us, because we are not. We are happy with what we have. It’s just a struggle. If anything this is the challenge to trust God more with our finances and to think of ways to save. We are going to have a new joy come into our lives soon. When he does come it will make our lives even better. Ways that you can help us is providing all the support for the ministries, from futsal to Pitstop, to transportation to material and supplies. Whatever you give it helps. Thank you to all who are praying for us and supporting us here in Latvia. Keep reading our blog, because soon we will have new photos of the new baby. No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it. The Message, 1 Corinthians 10:13

In God’s strength, Eric Scramstad

2011-02-25T11:14:00.002+02:00

PARTY PITSTOP

Yesterday we had Party PITSTOP. We went to play bowling. It was really nice for all of us to meet outside of church building:) I think we should do it more often:)

2011-02-08T17:32:00.002+02:00

Latvia Youth Ministry January 2011 Update

2011-02-08T17:29:00.001+02:00

The New Year has brought new thinking and new methods for Latvia Youth ministries. Ever since the beginning of the fall I have been thinking and planning how to make the ministries we have started more effective and focused on our goals and vision. Maybe it would be good that I first share those with you so that you can understand the changes we’ve made. The vision for Latvia Youth ministries is to build up (disciple) this youth generation in Latvia to become fully devoted followers of JC (Jesus Christ) so that they may build up the next generation and so on until our Lord and Saviour comes again. I believe that this vision is shared by many who are involved in all kinds of ministry especially those focused on discipleship. Plus I believe this vision is just not for the now but for a long time to come. The goals we’ve made for Latvia Youth ministries are simple yet centred towards the ministries we’re involved in. Here are the goals as follows, disciple the youth who are part of the local church to become mature believers, establish a youth group that is capable of leading itself, teach and practice being the body of Christ, encourage youth in their faith, encourage youth to share their faith with others, encourage youth to practice spiritual disciplines regularly, and reach out to local youth through sports and activities.

What we were doing last year was good. We established a youth group that meets each week to learn and study the Bible together, to worship God through praise and singing, and to encourage each other through fellowship. However, I wasn’t seeing nor hearing about them maturing in their faith. It was as if they were coming out of routine and expecting me and others to spoon feed them Christianity. I did not like the direction we were going. I did not see how this was meeting the vision and goals to its fullness, so I prayed and prayed until some ideas came to my mind mid-December. Instead of making a youth service where we were mimicked a Sunday morning service, that we call Pitstop, I decided to make it more into an evening where young people can practice their spiritual lives together. The first new Pitstop was a purposefully night centred on giving our hearts to Christ. We did this by having our own holy ground experience where we first pray on our own to God seeking Him to enter our hearts. Second, we prayed with a partner confessing sins and seeking forgiveness, and third we prayed as a whole group asking for unity and giving thanks to God for all that He’s done and is doing. The encouragement we gave to one another to really live out our faith in Christ was amazing. I couldn’t have thought better than how everyone really enjoyed this night, and this was only the first of many evenings like this one to come.

Pitstop is growing into something that I believe was its original intention. Not all the youth nights are serious. Once a month we have a party pitstop where it has games, entertainment, and a fun atmosphere. My intention is for the youth run this evening themselves, coming up with the ideas, preparing, and leading the night. It’s difficult for me to really explain how Pitstop has change. But the Pastor at Cianas wants to have something like Alpha with Pitstop, which would take away the youth night and make it into an evening for both younger people and older people to listen and learn more about Christianity. I’m for this and enjoying teaching people who don’t know much about Christ, but it would take away the youth from having their own thing. When the Pastor saw and heard reactions from the youth he decided that it would be best to leave Pitstop alone, and have this Alpha course on another night. I think this is one example that shows how Pitstop has changed. Our youth night might not be seeing more people coming out yet, but those who are coming are being more challenged and encouraged in their faith. It’s also become a night where I can also worship God with the rest of the youth. Before, I always felt like I was going to work. Now I feel like I’m going to be with my Latvian brothers and sisters to worship God.

The other ministry which I made some changes too was the futsal ministry. Last year I was approached if I would like to do some ministry at an orphanage in Liepaja. I thought that this would be a great idea how to get the guys who come to play futsal sharing their faith with other people. So, I went and visited the orphanage to see whether this idea would work or not. I imagined the orphanage to be this dark gloomy place where children wore old grey color clothing and had expressions of happiness yet fear written on their faces. I arrived with the relief that was wrong, the orphanage was more like a private school, the hallways were clean and bright, and the children were like all other children I’ve ever met. I had a fun time and got to play a little 3 vs. 3 football (soccer) in a small room used for exercising. I left with an excitement in my heart and eagerness to share with some of the guys from futsal that we should make monthly visits to play with the kids. But, there reaction was not that encouraging to me. They need more discipleing and time to grow in their faith. So, because of this I started to pray until an idea came to me; a men’s bible study group before futsal on Wednesday nights. All the guys from futsal were given invitations to Band of Brothers bible study at my home. This is open to guys to come and learn more what it means to be a man of God. I’m doing the bible study in a way how guys relate and can be encouraged in their faith. Men are different from women, and a lot of the things we practice at church are more feminine than masculine. So, I’m making this bible study more appealing for men who like sports and acting tough, but we still read the bible and learn from it to be men of God. In time hopefully there will be some growth in the guy’s hearts, and that they will want to be in ministries like playing with kids from an orphanage and telling them about God. As for playing futsal, more guys are coming out to play and they seem interested in the talks we have about Christianity.

That’s about it for ministries, but lots are happening with our family. Filip, is growing up fast. He’s loving life having fun with his mom and dad. The only thing that worries me as a parent is how often he falls and hurts himself. Whatever I try to do to prevent it from happening he still finds ways to climb up on tables and chairs. I just wish he had better balance, because he has fallen off them. Thank God nothing serious has happened to him yet. We are thinking about buying a helmet for him to wear around the house. We just might! Lasma is doing good, she had some pain for two days but nothing serious. Her doctor always knows when she is coming to visit her, because she doesn’t act like the other pregnant women who walk slow and steady. Lasma is Lasma, she may look pregnant but she does everything like a race going mock 10 at times. I tell her to slow down and when she does she out like a light sound asleep. Pretty soon my older sister Heather will be having her first child in February and then it’s our turn the second week of March. We have gone to the hospital and signed a contract, now we just need to pay for it and get Lasma’s hospital bag packed and ready. I’m looking forward to having another baby, as for his name we will share that with everyone once he’s born. Living in Latvia for me has been a cool experience, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Canada. I miss silly things like Tim Horton’s and shopping in stores where everything is written in English. I’m trying my best though and I know God is taking care of us, but sometimes I fear that I’m not providing enough for my family and I will never be able to have an normal conversation with my parent-in-laws. Please be praying for us, pray for our needs and for our challenges. We need monthly support for the Futsal ministry, $160 to cover the cost of renting the sports hall. We also can use support to help us buy supplies for Pitstop, prayer breakfast, men’s bible study, and to help cover the cost of transportation. Living in Latvia is different from any other place I’ve been, but it’s a great country and they are great people here. This year Latvia Youth Ministry wants to develop more in encouraging this countries youth in seeing and experiencing Christ. Take the time to pray for us, and give from your heart to help us live out the vision and goals. Thank you for reading, God Bless.

Eric Scramstad

Camping Pitstop

2011-01-21T17:26:00.003+02:00

Holy Ground

2011-01-11T11:15:00.002+02:00

Last week we at Pitstop we had Holy Ground night. Focus was on giving our hearts to God, repenting of sins, encouraging each other and praying for unity.

Here is a video from this night:

Christmas in Latvia

2011-01-05T19:03:00.005+02:00

What do we think about this time of the year? We think of Christmas of course, like presents under the tree, advent calendars filled with chocolate, Christmas classic movies, and hot coco or apple cider close by on those cold winter days. Whatever we do think about during Christmas I would have to say that living in another country can be difficult at times, because there are things and people you miss back home. Yet, when living in another country you get to experience another culture and their customs, especially around this time of year. Being here last year was my first Christmas in Latvia and I learned a lot about how they celebrate Christmas both as a country and with Lasma’s family. Getting ready for Christmas in Latvia is not too different really from how Canadians get ready. Every day leading up to Christmas Eve are busy-busy-busy.

We started out the month apart; Lasma had her university lessons during the first week of December in Riga. I stayed back in Liepaja looked after Filips while managing to work during the evenings at the church and language center. This would have been a great time to do a little Christmas shopping, but we didn't have too much money at the time because everything we had was going towards fixing are car to pass the inspection. We were thankful that the Lord answered our prayers for the car and it did pass inspection.

Not sure if many of you watch news for Europe, but most of Europe was hit with snow and even more snow. Latvia is sort of use to getting snow, but the country doesn’t have enough money to manage the situation we experienced during December. It seemed like every day it snowed. It would snow a little during the morning and some more during the evening. All of this snow adding up and the temperatures staying while below freezing. Driving places was not to fun too, because of the ice and snow covering the roads. On some roads there was only enough room for one car to drive; sort of like driving on a one way street. But for us driving places is very common. We had a number of places where we had to visit, some places for family, and other’s for ministry.

One place we drove to during a very snowy day was Tukums. This is a small city 100 km away from Riga with its major industry being dairy products. The event we were taking part in was a Christmas production for lower income families. Are youth group were the main performers and shared some Christmas songs, played a few games, and I shared a message about Christmas. It was a great way to tell them about Christ to these families, plus I was happy to understand that all of the families receive extra support from families in Norway during Christmas. Really cool! We were asked to come again but to a different city for another group of families. We did it again and it was a lot of fun. But the driving their and back home was pretty scary each time.

Lasma once went with some of the youth to do a small concert of singing. On the way there the car drove into a snowdrift and got stuck. People stopped and helped but couldn't get them out. two hours later the girls were praying that God would send an Angel or something to save them. Right then a tracker came out of no where and pulled them out. They got to the concert two hours late, but the families stayed to listen to them sing. Sometimes when I drive for a few hours in bad conditions my body tenses up and I get pains in my back and neck. To say the least I did not enjoy driving and I didn’t want Lasma to experience the same pain with being pregnant. Still, it was worth the driving to these places because I know God used us all to share his love with these families.

One thing I am already tired of doing is shoveling snow from the sidewalk and from around the car. We are having troubles finding room to put the snow, and this is only the first month of winter. Driving around the city you see the same problem, where do you put all this snow? It’s actually just now January that the city is getting rid of snow from the streets, but I don’t see our street getting cleaned for some time. Besides from snow and driving in it, Christmas was really great. We celebrated Christmas with the youth by having a Lord’s supper. We cooked and everyone brought something to share with everyone else, then we had a fun game of gift exchange. Last year we had the gift exchange and it was everyone’s first time playing this game so there wasn't a lot of trading gifts which I think makes the game fun. This year it was way better, people we trading every second gift and some of the gifts were really funny. Afterwards we prayed and thanked God for His gift to us all. Similar to the Christmas party, the youth’s New Year’s party was much same. Most of the evening was centered around games, and for the first time everyone stayed up until 6 in the morning. I was in charge of giving rides home for the youth; by the time I dropped off all the youth and went back to help clean up a bit I got home at 8 in the morning. Crazy, but Lasma was super nice and took care of Filips on her own while I slept till 2 in the afternoon. I didn’t feel like myself again until I had a good night’s sleep which took two days.

Going back to Christmas, our Christmas in Latvia is eating food, singing songs, and opening gifts on Christmas Eve. I like this because you don’t have to wait until the morning to open your gifts. Lasma and I both surprised each other with some pretty nice gifts, even though we didn't have a lot money to buy gifts we came up with some good ones to express our love for one another. Filips actually was the first to open his gifts because he had to go to bed early, but I think he was a little confused what was going on. Next Christmas I’m sure he’ll understand more what happens on Christmas.

On Christmas day we drove to Lasma’s grandma’s house in the country, again fighting the snow to get there. Most of the family were out having fun in the snow, but I stayed in to play with my new Christmas gift that Lasma got me for Christmas, FIFA 11 for PC. I was pretty happy, and so far its been a great way to invite the guys over from Futsal.

This month was a pretty good month for futsal, only thing was I was sick two times and couldn't be there. We have about eight guys coming out regularly, I’m praying for more guys to come in the New Year. Plus my vision with the futsal is to invite boys from an orphanage to learn how to play futsal and hear testimonies from the guys how Christ has blessed them in their lives. Please be praying for this as these guys need to learn how to talk about God with each other people and with people they don’t know. Also if we are to invite these boys we need the support of the director from the orphanage to allow the boys to go. I really feel this is why we started this ministry and that the guys will learn to share what God has done in their lives with others. As for other news, we are praying and asking God for more monthly support. This last month was difficult for us with having to spend money to fix the car and for the inspection. Also, with all the driving we are doing for ministries are fuel cost is higher than normal. We probably will not get back to the same fuel cost until the snow is gone. Until then, we are doing are best to survive and we know that God is blessing us with all that we need. We are happy for what He is doing in our lives and we pray that He is blessing you too in yours. Thanks for all the support that has come in this past month, it was a big answer to our prayers.

Yours faithfully, Eric Scramstad

P.S. Please be praying for Ciana’s Church as they are doing a difficult ministry serving the poor living around the building. Sometimes 80 people are coming to their soup kitchen, and sometimes during our youth nights there are people coming in asking for food and money. A lady was crying as she was explaining in Russian that she lives off of $10 a month for food. That’s crazy to hear that poverty is happening right next to the very building where we worship God.

Update: November is Latvia's Birthday

2010-12-08T11:17:00.006+02:00

In November it’s not only Latvia’s Birthday but it’s Filips Birthday too. Latvia celebrates their independence from all the different countries that at one time controlled them, like the Swedes, the Germans, and the Soviets. The year was 1918 the first World War had just come to an end on November 11th, but in Latvia the war was not over. They were fighting for their freedom. Basically, one week later on the 18th Latvia fought for their independence and won. It’s on this day when Latvians celebrate their freedom from occupation. The sad part of Latvian’s history is that during the Second World War the Russians again occupied Latvia along with many other Eastern European countries until the collapse of communism in 1988. Latvia again had their freedom in 1990 and had their own government established in 1992 to lead their country into the future. Their story is rather incredible to imagine, but somewhere along the way I found myself visiting Latvia and fall in love with one of their daughters.

Leading up to November 27th took a lot of work and time. This day is Filips Birthday, but all the work and time was not going into his party it was going into hosting Latvia’s Baptist Choir Workshop. Cianas Baptist Church was in charge of hosting the 2010 Choir Workshop, which is a pretty important event for youth. With all the other ministries Lasma and I are leading we did not want to take on so much responsibility for this event. So Lasma helped out in her own way, and I did my best to help out in my way. Together we ended up putting in more time than expected, but it was worth it. The Choir Workshop is not really a workshop it’s more of a day where a bunch of youth and some adults gather together to organize a huge choir and perform a concert that evening.

In past years there were over 200 people involved, which is a big number considering the size of most church buildings in Latvia. At Cianas this year we had about 120 people involved. The group of singers, conductors, musicians, and sound crew practice from 10 in the morning until 6 in the evening. Of course they have breaks in between, but it does take a lot of effort and work to last. The theme for this year was the first advent and so it was easy to setup the church with all the Christmas lights and candles.

That night the concert went well, with over a hundred people coming in to listen and watch. Pastor Andris shared a message near the end, and our friends put on a fun drama which went through out the concert. Gifts were given to those who helped out, given by my wife Lasma who presented 3 gingerbread houses and 14 small mug size gingerbread houses to all who helped.

Lasma's girls group “Do it yourself” made them for the Choir Workshop during most Mondays in November. All through this day (27th) we waiting for 5:49pm to come to say happy birthday to our son. The next day after church we hosted a party for Filips birthday, inviting some friends and family to celebrate Filips first year with us. It was a special day for us as parents and believe for him too.

The other ministries during November went alright. The best was probably having seven youth show up each time for Monday morning prayer breakfast. With the weather changing so fast and the mornings being so dark still I would never think so many youth would want to wake up early to come and pray. It’s pretty amazing, and to those who come each pray breakfast I see them as the one’s listening to God and growing closer to Him. They show more of a hunger to want to learn more about their faith and grace they have in Christ and are willing to tell other people about it. These are the youth who will lead their friends and brothers and sisters in Christ to a deeper relationship with our Father in Heaven. Over the next year I hope to encourage and teach these youth what God has taught me and together with Christ will build His kingdom.

The futsal ministry is starting to see more guys come, which is amen to God. I and a few other guys have picked up some injuries which for me will stop me from playing in December. Still, the positive aspects of this ministry is spreading and I can say now having played once in December already that more and more guys want to learn and come and play. I still share with them each week something about Christ and faith in Him. I know that most of the guys believe, but I’m not too sure if they are really living for Him. Thank you for the support we are able to pay for the rest of this year for renting the sports hall. Come next month I will let you know of some more needs we might have for the new year.

At church youth are slowly coming some nights more than others. I talked to some of the youth about the Bible study on Tuesday nights and they do not want to go because it’s sort of like going to a Sunday morning service. I understand them as I too can see it that way. I bible study will come to be more of my full responsibility to organize the groups and help with their meetings. This will be something we will be working on in January to start up, as the rest of the church at Cianas is doing the same thing. Our youth night “Pitstop,” seems to be losing its vision for most of the leaders helping, but I am not going to let it go. I believe it will just take more time to develop and more prayer and discipline to make it grow. What we are dealing with is a youth group who likes coming together, but half of the youth group are talking about God and the other half is talking about other things. Even when someone is sharing you can hear some youth chatting about other things. It’s getting on some people’s nerves, yet they seem not to care. The challenge I’m faced with is communicating to them in English and maybe half the youth group understands. Those how don’t have possibly taken a deaf ear to listening because they don’t really understand what is going on. I sometimes feel that way too when I’m around a bunch of people, but I try to listen and I still take part. I’ve been encourage by some of the girls at Cianas who are asking questions and God is telling them. I just pray that the others too will begin to take their faith in God more serious and try a bit harder. December will be a big month for all of us who are looking for answers in our lives. I just hope we will not miss it when they come. Meaning – How God sent his Son, Jesus to the world, and many people missed this event because they lost hope or just didn’t believe in Him coming. Well He did, and now we are waiting for Him to come again.

I just want to quickly ask if you can help us this coming month of December. So far it’s been a trail of trusting in God for provision. All of our expenses we cover each month are getting higher. We are paying more for gas, electricity, and water. Come next year prices might go up more. Along with these expenses, we are paying for Lasma's school, and for my student loan. Sometimes we feel we are just getting by. Right now we are face with not having our car. Why? Well it didn’t pass inspection and so we are having to get lots of work done to it so it will pass. The car is in good condition, but for some reason the inspection agent wouldn’t pass our car. We have bought the parts already and on Monday next week we will take it in to get fix, but this is cost us all that we have. My wife and I are not stressed nor worried, we are praying that God will provide in helping us each month and to prepare for our second child to be born in March. If you want to help us that would be wonderful, please send your support to Summerland Baptist Church making it out to Latvia Youth Ministry. Thank you, having a car is a big thing for us to get around and do the different things we are doing.

In Christ, your friend

Eric Scramstad

Side note: We were interviewed for a magazine that came out in November. It's about how Lasma and I got married and why we are living in Latvia. Pretty cool!

Sick in bed :(

2010-12-06T13:26:00.003+02:00

Sorry for not having a new update, but I've been sick these last few days and haven't been getting around much. I will post something new soon once I feel better. Please be praying for us, as this month is seems to be a trail. Will let you know more soon. In Christ, the Scramstad family

HOPE FESTIVAL

2010-11-10T12:12:00.004+02:00

Hi, it's Lasma

Last week was Hope Festival in Riga, Latvia. It was for 3 days in the hockey arena (Arena Riga). More than 38 150 people came to see this festival. There weren't even enough seats for everyone, so every day they added more and more.

(From right: Eric, Marta, Raimonds, Filips, Lilita, Sandra)

Me and Eric went there as well for a day. It was a great concert with a great message from Franklin Graham.

(M.W. Smith)

Personally i was most excited to hear M. W. Smith:) He did a great job.

BUT the best part of all, 3022 people gave their hearts to Jesus.

(F. Graham on the right, Bastiks on the left)

October Update: Using what we have

2010-10-30T11:50:00.007+03:00

The past month for Latvian Youth Ministry has been encouraging even thought not everything is how I would like it to be.

We have a number of ministries happening now through-out the week. Monday mornings we’ve started a prayer breakfast at our house for students. This is only happen twice a month/ every two weeks, but the overall response has been encouraging. Lasma and I basically have opened our doors for any youth to come and join us in prayer and a free breakfast. We encourage them to stay as long as they want, because some students don’t have school until later in the morning or not until afternoon. With winter coming we might even offer rides to our home and to school. On Monday nights, Lasma is leading a girls “do it yourself” club. With me having futsal on Wednesday nights, she wanted to have sometime fun for the girls to do. Her idea is a night where they make and build different things for house decorations, clothing accessories, and other little or even big projects. This month the girls are working on making Box advent calendars for Christmas. It’s pretty cool to see them all around the table working with fabric, ribbons, and hot glue guns, while talking about whatever topic comes up. Next month more girls will be joining and they will be baking and making special gingerbread houses for the Choir Workshop.

Tuesdays we’ve started youth Bible study at the church, however, this has not gone the way we’ve plan. The idea was to incorporate what was already happening on this night. But so far, not too many youth are coming and therefore we have not beenable to get the bible study actually up and going. We might make some changes on where the bible study is to happen.

On Wednesdays I am leading the futsal ministry. Your prayer support is needed at this moment as I am not sure what to do. We aren’t having enough guys coming out to play and make a team. The goal this year is to reach out to an orphanage by using this sport. This month we had on average 6 guys coming including myself. When I began teaching futsal there were 10 guys on average. I had a feeling it was going to be a challenge this fall, because five guys left Liepaja for school or work elsewhere. Still, two new guys have join this fall and sometimes the Pastor from Cianas is coming out to play, but he’s doing it more for the exercise. The goal for this year is to build a team with Christian youth from Cianas and their friends. Once we have a team I’m planning on entering them into a futsal tournament in January and to get them to teach and play with guys from the orphanage. I’m praying and asking God that He would help us to find more guys to take part so that we can work towards these goals.

Thursdays are youth nights at Cianas which we call “Pitstop.” This evening is beginning to see more youth come, and Cianas youth are starting to bring their friends to it. I’m praying that Pitstop will be an evening where youth and young people feel free to talk about their faith, to be challenged, and encouraged. We really want to change the physical atmosphere by renovating the whole room into something that not the youth are only using but the whole church. This is one of our goals for this year, but no matter how it looks as long as young people are getting fuelled up for Christ it’s fine. Hopefully in time we will see the room transform sort of like how we are being transformed.

These are our ministries that we are involved in at the moment. In the coming months we want that the bible study has taken root and young people are growing because of it. Fridays are an open night at the moment, but we plan to have some sort of activities where we are able to invited friends too, something like a sports night for all people. Also, a few of us at Cianas, like the Pastor and myself, are planning on beginning small groups at people’s homes. There are a few people at the church whom I’m wanted to ask if they would like to start a small group together with Lasma and me. This is something new for the church here but is something that lots of us have been part of and know how healthy it can be for our faith and relationships.

As for our family, we have shared that already that we are expecting another baby. This past month we found out who it was going to be. We are happy to announce that we are going to have another boy. His name has not been decided yet, but we are planning on keeping it a secret until he is born in March.

Other family news, this October we celebrated Thanksgiving with Lasma’s parents, her brother and sister and brother’s girlfriend. It felt like back home for me and made my day. It was difficult to find some ingredients but we managed to make most of the same dishes Canadians eat during Thanksgiving. We ate chicken instead of turkey because when I saw the prise at the store it made my jaw drop. Way too much! Lasma baked her first apply pie which was tasty and then we all sat around with the look of satisfaction on our faces. It was a great Thanksgiving for us in Latvia. As for the rest of the month, we took it easy in doors because it rained for two weeks straight. Finding new things to do in Liepaja was a challenge but we ended up going swimming. Something we plan on doing at least twice a month now, because Filip loves playing in water. Even if he see’s water, like the sea, he wants to play in it.

It was nice to have the video Skype conversation with Summerland Baptist Church. The time given to share what we are doing here was hard to fit in, and so I hope that people there will read our update letters and write back with comments. It’s always nice to hear your thoughts and encouragements. Please feel free to write us on the blog, or email us at my address, eric.scramstad@gmail.com.

Our mission is to serve God through his church here in Liepaja, and to reach out to the community through our gifts and abilities. Thank you to all who are praying for us, please keep praying. And thank you to all who support us; we are thankful for your help. As a family we are paying for more help in support each month, and for the ministries we are involved in leading. Please send all donations to Summerland Baptist Church making it out to Latvian Youth Ministry. Thank you and God Bless. Keep posted to new updates and blog entries.

Yours faithfully

Eric Scramstad

All is well!

2010-10-25T10:47:00.004+03:00

Hi, so last month I had to prove that my drivers license was real and not a fake or else I would have to pay a 200Ls penalty. To prove my license was real we bought an international drivers permit online and it came in the mail three working days later. We went back to the police station to write a statement with photo copies of my license and new IDP, which proves that my license is real. This month we received in the mail a letter from the police saying that the penalty has been canceled based on the information we gave last month. This is great news because 200Ls is a lot of money to pay and now I don't have to be concerned while I'm driving around in Latvia.

Other news, Filip is teething and its causing him to wake up more during the night. Hopefully the new teeth with come through soon so that we can all get better rest. Filip is almost 11 months old, his first birthday is coming really soon, November 27th. It's crazy to think he's turning 1 already.

Our October update will be coming soon with news about new ministries and new people coming to Pitstop, so keep posted.

The September update for Latvia Youth Ministry

2010-10-08T19:31:00.003+03:00

September is the restart of many church ministries. In Latvia it is no different from Canada and United States. We re-launched our ministries and have started helping out other ministries at the church. First, the youth started Pitstop again on Thursday nights. The overall reaction from the youth for the first night was dramatic with some bumps and bruises. We played a game that involved popping other people’s balloons with a tooth pick, however, some managed to get hurt in this mad scramble and blamed me for their in

juries. Since then, we, I mean, I learnt a lesson to not give out tooth picks as weapons. Next time I plan on giving out Q-tips or something with a rubber end which doesn’t draw blood. The good things happening with Pitstop are new people coming, the regular youth taking interest in the messages and music, and the vision behind Pitstop is beginning to come to life. Youth are meeting together to pray for one another and even walk around the streets asking complete strangers if they want prayer. I myself don’t feel comfortable praying for strangers, especially when I am not able to speak Latvian or Russian. But, I too, am taking what God has been teaching me and challenging us by ministering to the Mormon missionaries here in Liepaja. The idea is not to go looking for them, but to be read

y to meet them on the streets. This summer I had two encounters with some Mormon missionaries and we talked about if they were allowed to hang out and possibly play some basketball or soccer. They told me they were not allowed because of their busy schedule, but from some of the research I’ve been doing I learned that when they meet Christians like myself they are not suppose to spend time with me unless I’m interested in hearing about the LDS church. Now my plan is to have a conversation where I don’t tell them what I believe and ask them to make a promise to meet me ten times in a cafe or at my home. I have some friends in Riga who have done this already and the Mormons are holding to their word with meeting ten times to talk. They are Christians and are sharing God’s love with them and explain how they don’t need to be under so much pressure to live perfect Mormon lives. I am looking forward and praying for God to reach out to these guys. Please be praying for me when I do encounter them and ask them to meet me ten times.

In September we started playing futsal again. This year I am taking it a bit different from last year. I plan on using this time to connect with the guys more on a spiritual level. So far it has been a challenge as I am not sure if it will happen. I know most of them from the church, but they have never been that open with me to share their faith and struggles. I know that sports can be used as a bridge to reach people spiritually, for us it’s just taking time. I am hoping from working with some of them last year that this year we will break some new grounds involving their faith in Christ. Also, I see this as building a team of players who will compete in a futsal tournament in January and learn to teach others to play the game who are from an orphanage in Liepaja. I want the guys to understand that what we are doing is just not for their own enjoyment and pleasure, but can be used as a way to tell and teach others about Christ.

The church is seeing more children attend the Sunday school this year. From the summer VBS 20 new children joined the Sunday school, which puts the total up to 40 to 50 kids. Lasma and I are going to be more involved this year by helping in any way we can. I am wanting to start teaching the 12-14 year olds a Bible studies at the church, but this will only happen once a month. We had two events this past month with the Sunday school, one being a day centered around the children were they went around in groups to different stations and played games. Lasma and I lead one of the stations, and then tried out our own skill in some of the other ones. At times I think the kids only see the church as a fun place to play games, but then they surprise me by doing what they’ve learned. On another Sunday, the Sunday school went on a small trip to visit another churches Sunday school. They were from a Lutheran church and for most of the children from Cianas Baptist church it was the first time they had been inside a Lutheran church. After taking part in their Sunday morning service we went out

into the country to have a barbeque and play some fun games. Like always, I managed to gather up some kids and played a game called King of the Hill. I made the game up on the spot, but the rules were pretty simple for the kids to understand and we played this until it was time to leave. I really had a good time and in the future will continue to help out in any way I and my wife can. We are just excited to see so many children coming to church who probably are coming on their own. Hopefully the parents will come because of their children’s excitement in wanting to go to church each week.

Lasma was not just busy with her school this past month, but she was also helping out with planning and organizing an event that Cianas Baptist church will be hosting in November. We are hosting an event called Choir Worship, which is for teenagers and young adults. The plan is to make it into a Christmas choir worship, and make the concert an outreach to the community surround the church building. So far they have emailed the posters to all the Baptist churches in Latvia and have put together the budget needed to cover all the costs. Meetings are happening every two weeks at our house, which has been the place for all meetings from the church (Youth, Sunday school). Now they just need the money and start organizing what the volunteers will do.

Besides from the ministries we are involved in leading and supporting, Lasma, Filips, and I are all doing well. We are happy to be living in our old place again. We had a few nice weekends to ourselves to enjoy walks along the sea and in the forest beside the sea. September was when Latvia celebrates Fathers day, so I and Lasma’s dad had a nice Sunday meal for being dads. Probably the only real struggles we faced in September were with a ticket given by the police and having to deal with a new computer that didn’t work. First, the ticket story! At t

he end of August, I was driving and the police were pulling random cars over. We were one of them. On giving the police my licence and car information, the policeman wasn’t too sure about my Canadian drivers licence. He told us that I was not allowed to drive because my licence could be a fake. So they gave me a ticket for driving without a driver’s licence, but told us that we can challenge the ticket if we prove that my licence is real. A year ago Lasma and I went to the driver’s center to ask about whether I needed a Latvian Licence or not, they told us that my Canadian licence was good up to one year. After that I could change my licence for a Latvian or get an international diver’s permit which I keep my Canadian licence but make’s it valid longer in Latvia. Right away we bought the international driver’s permit off the internet, which proves that my licence is real. So we went back to the police station and wrote out our case to prove that my licence was real and not a fake by showing them my international permit. Now we are just waiting on hear back from the police. I am now able to drive legally in Latvia for the next three years so I shouldn’t have a problem again. The other thing that happened this past month was the new computer we bought. Last year my computer broke down and we were down to using Lasma’s computer for work and for her school. At times it was hard to take turns using it but we managed. This summer I was saving money to buy a new computer because poor old Lasma’s computer was getting older and not running as smooth. The time had come and we bought a new laptop, however, the computer we got didn’t work properly. We sent it back and waited. They made a little change and they sent it back, but it still didn’t work. So again we sent it back and this time they tested the computer and found that one of the hard drives weren’t installed properly. Lucky it was an easy fix for them and they tested it again and sent it back. Since then the computer has been working fine and we are grateful to have a new laptop. But the service to get it fixed took a long time and the shop I bought the computer from wasn’t too helpful. Basically we had to take it in every time and tell the computer company in Latvia our problem. It was slow and painful, but in the end it all worked out.

Thank you to everyone who is praying for us here in Latvia. We are exciting to be having another baby, which is due to arrive around March 9th, my sister Holly’s birthday. Lasma is hoping it will be a girl, but we will not find out until later this October. The ministries are growing and developing more, and new ministries are starting up this month too. The Latvia Youth Ministry needs more support to help cover the cost of renting the gym for futsal ministry, it’s about $150 month. We are also looking in getting jerseys or t-shirts to wear when we start playing some games, and to buy more balls and equipment for this ministry. Please if you want to help you can by sending in donations to Summerland Baptist Church writing it out to Latvia Youth Ministry. We also have more needs for the youth at Cianas. We would like to buy new chairs for Pitstop getting rid of the old white pews in the room. This would not just support us as a youth ministry but also the whole church. If you would like to help Pitstop buy new chairs that would be an answer to prayer. We as a youth are planning on buying a new musical instrument, a drum box, which would be used during Pitstop and Sunday morning. We as a family could also use more support each month, so if you want to help us directly you can donate to Summerland Baptist Church writing it out to Latvia Youth Ministry. Thank you, and please keep us in your prayers.

Sincerely

Eric Scramstad

New Update post coming soon

2010-10-05T11:24:00.002+03:00

2010-09-04T21:34:00.003+03:00

Found this near the clinic when taking Filips to the Doctor, thought it was cool.

For those who don't know what SBC can stand for Summerland Baptist Church. :)

August Update

2010-08-31T15:08:00.009+03:00

Hi everyone, hope your summer was fun and full of good times. We had a pretty awesome summer with visiting friends in Germany and leading VBS at church. Now, we are trying to settle into our place for the fall and winter, by painting and wall papering walls and sorting through our things to see what we need to keep. The biggest news probably what we can share with everyone is that we are expecting another baby. We basically found out near the end of July and waited to tell family and friends just now at the end of August. Its pretty exciting to think we will have another child, and with the age difference Filips and the baby will grow up being a year a part. With this in mind our family is slowly growing, so please keep praying for us here and your help is always appreciated.

The ministry that we've been leading this summer is also coming to an end, but with lots of promising new opportunities for the youth attending PITSTOP and Cianas Baptist Church this fall. First off, our weekly Bible Study and prayer morning that we started the first week of July went really well in August. The week we were gone to Germany Liene, who is the youth leader at Cianas, took responsibly for the Bible Study and prayer meeting. She has been busy helping at Camps this summer so it worked out that she was free this week to help us. The youth attending these from what I've noticed have had an open heart to allowing God to transform them, which was my prayer for the summer. We've decided that the Bible Studies will continue through the fall and winter at the Cianas. As for the prayer meeting, not a lot of youth were coming to pray and enjoy the fresh sea air, but we will think and pray about whether we continue to have this in the fall and winter at the church with a breakfast. The other ministry which we were leading this summer was the pick up football. For most days during this summer we came every week to play unless the weather was bad. This August we were fight the weather every week. However, the good news is that from this ministry we've made some new friends.
Just before the end of July Lasma and I made a new friendship with a couple who has twin baby boys who were born a day after our son. There names are Liene and Uldis they are not Christians but have been open to hear about our faith in Christ. This month I told Uldis that he should come play football with us and it's been a highlight for him to come out and play for two hours or so. Plus I've had some great times talking to him about Christ. He has lots of questions, some that I am not able to answer, but hopefully through the friendship we make with them that they would see Christ in us, just like our last friends Monta and Arturs. They became our friends a year ago and through just having them over and inviting them to Church God reached out and they opened their hearts to Him. However, they moved away to another city in Latvia, so it's like God is placing another couple in our lives to minister to and care for. The only sad part about our new friends Liene and Uldis is that they too plan to move, but way further away to Northern Ireland. The situation in Latvia is difficult at the moment because their are no jobs and peoples salaries are decreasing. This is making a lot of people, especially young people like us, move away to another EU country. Our prayer is that God will reach out to Liene and Uldis before they move, and that Latvia will turn around helping Latvians with good jobs and salaries to stay and live here. The bad news about Latvia, which also effects us, is that the cost of gas is going up this year. We have gas heating in our house, so our house expenses will increase this year because of this increase.
The main thing is that God is taking care of our needs here. We are trusting Him with fiances and opportunities to share Christ with others. So far He has done just that. With the fall approaching we are needing support to help cover the cost for renting out gym's hall to play futsal. The cool thing about this year is that we will be partnering with another Baptist Preacher named Martins to teach and play futsal with teenagers who are living in an orphanage. These teens living in the orphanage love playing football, but have some issues with morals and believing in themselves. Hopefully with your help we can pay the cost to have this youth come to play futsal in the city center once a week and through teaching, sharing, and playing they will open their eyes and hearts to Christ.
Two other cool things which happened this August was one, I took part in a rally car race in Latvia and Lithuania. It was organized by the Baptist Church of Latvia, and involved driving to different locations on a map and taking a picture to prove we were there. The team consisting of my brother in law, his girlfriend, my new friend Uldis and myself. We drove a total distance of 700km in 14 hours to find and take pictures of different locations and random places. It was a lot of fun, is something I hope to take part in next year. Not sure what place we got, but it's very possible that we were disqualified from the race for driving too fast. No big deal, because the real purpose was to show us the racers some of Latvia's Baptist church history.
The other thing which Lasma and I took part in Latvia's Baptist Churches 150 year anniversary. The event took place in Venspils which is a 110km away from Liepaja. I amazing thing about this event was that on the Sunday over 80 people where baptized in a river. It seemed that God was shining over everyone this day because around the sun was a full circular rainbow, something that I've never seen before. It was amazing to say the least. Well that is just some of the main highlights this August, and stay posted to the blog for more updates and photos us Latvia Youth Ministry.
Yours Faithfully,
Eric Scramstad

P.S. Pray for Lasma as she needs to go back to her studies this fall. She still has to write some papers and finding time has been difficult for us. Thanks

July + Sun = BEACH (July Update)

2010-08-06T12:39:00.002+03:00

Hi everyone, hope your summer is going well and that the weather has been good. For us here in Latvia we have enjoyed a few nice weeks this past month with temperatures way above normal. Lasma and I went a few times to the beach when the weather was really warm and cooled down in the sea. Filips also enjoyed the water and it seems like he will be a quick learner in water sports. On July 3rd, we celebrated our first year anniversary by spending two nights down in Lithuania. Living here in Liepaja makes it easy for us to go to Lithuania because it’s only a 45 minute drive. Also this month we attended two weddings, one here in Latvia with Lasma’s cousin getting married, and the other in Germany where with my close friend Mogi got married to a Canadian girl. Both weddings were a lot of fun and this next month we have more to attend. With us traveling to Germany for Mogi’s wedding, we also took sometime to do a little sight seeing in Frankfurt. The city is more modern compared to other cities in Germany, but just as beautiful with the old city in the center and the Rhine River and parks around the center.

So far this year, we have traveled two times with Filips, but we are thinking this was our last trip for quite sometime because it’s beginning to be too much for us as parents and for Filips. In the future, like this last month, I think we will be entertaining guests who visit. My friends from Prairie Bible College came to Latvia this July to take part in the Ageless drama camp. We hosted them after they had finished the camp for two weeks. It was a lot of fun to have them around and show them Liepaja. Oh yeah, this camp is where I first got to know Lasma two years ago. A friend and teacher from Three Hills, Kathy Covert, has been leading this outreach ministry for seven years now. The two years I was apart of this outreach we saw at lest two person commit their lives to Christ. This years Ageless was the largest yet, with 60 youth joining the drama camp. Plus this year more kids made commitments to follow Christ which was a huge blessings. The fruit of this ministry is also being seen in the local church in this town, with new Christians attending youth night and the Sunday morning service. Lasma and I still feel apart of this ministry even if we did not participate in this years Ageless, maybe next year.

The summer ministry that we are doing at Cianas Baptist Church is focusing on what is most important in life. Ultimately, the answer is having Jesus Christ as our center but this can be difficult at times to keep focused on every day. Plus, most of the youth don’t know how to keep Christ as their center, so the vision for the summer is to practice two spiritual disciplines together as a group to help us keep our focus on Christ. One is setting a time and day for prayer. On Monday mornings, the first day of the week, we meet at the beach to pray together and encourage one another to continue praying through out the week. I call this prayer meeting, “Beat your body,” because getting up on a Monday morning is beating your body, but it’s a good practice and one that we will continue in the new school year with a prayer breakfast. The other discipline we are practicing is reading scripture and sharing His Word with each other. Tuesday evenings we meet at the beach and have a little Bible study. The study is on the Sermon on the Mount, which is an amazing teaching that Christ speaks on the Kingdom of Heaven. My prayer and hope is that the youth will grab hold of Christ’s message given in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and begin to live it out. Please pray for the youth as they go through these scriptures and that they would open their hearts and minds to allowing the Holy Spirit to transform them into disciples. This is my hope and goal with being a youth missionary here in Latvia. That the youth at Cianas would become disciples and true followers of Christ; growing in knowledge and grace, and sharing the love and passion they have for God with others. From last year to this summer, I would say some are growing slowly and others are comfortable with their faith; which I believe is a danger because they are blind to spiritual growth and maturity. Overall, I am looking forward to this next month of summer and beginning to plan for the new school year.

The other ministry we are doing together with guys from Cianas youth, is playing football/soccer with guys from Grobina. Every Wednesday we go to Grobina, which is a ten minute drive from Liepaja, to play football. The focus is to build relationship with the guys we play with and share testimonies with them. So far we have had a mixture of numbers and different guys come out to play. It has been a lot of fun to teach the guys from Cianas to play football these last few months, and now they are using their skills to play with other guys whom they’ve never played with and gain respect from them. I am also excited to see them talking and connecting with these guys, who are probably not Christians and enjoy living their lives on the edge. During the school year a lot of these guys from Grobina live in Liepaja, so I am hoping they would be interested in joining our futsal training in September where we share and talk about God’s Word. The summer football focus is to reach out to non believes and invite them to church and other sports activities like futsal and Friday night volley ball.
These three summer focuses are what we are regularly doing each week, but the weekends are also filled with youth planning camping, cycling, swimming, and other activities where they invite friends and have fellowship with each other.

Please keep us in your prayers, pray for the youth at Cianas that God will continue to transform them, for the sports outreach and the guys coming out to play with us that they would be open to hearing Christ’s message, and also for the needs we have as a family. We are having in August Children’s VBS, that the youth will be leading and planning. We could use some support to help pay for material and other supplies for the children. In September, the futsal ministry will start up again, and I could use support to pay for the gym rental few. Also, I would like to invest some money into some more equipment, and possible jerseys to wear if we join a league. For us as a family we are thankful for the support you already give, and it seems whenever we are in need of something the Lord provides that extra support to help us. So, thank you for all that you have done and for your caring hearts. God bless and keep the focus on Christ.

Yours truly,

Eric Scramstad

P.S. Keep checking our blog for more news and updates, and give us your commits or write us an email at eric.scramstad@gmail.com.

Keep it real, Peace out 

June Update: ending the season with a BANG!

2010-07-10T15:26:00.003+03:00

June seems to be the month to celebrate ministries coming to an end for the summer season. At Cianas Baptist church, you celebrated Pitstop’s first season by having a BBQ. We invited everyone who was involved in making this ministry a success this past year and encourage everyone to bring new people. The evening was awesome with BBQ food grilling, people playing volleyball and soccer, others talking and just having a good time fellowshipping. The purpose was to show God’s love through our actions and take interest in other’s lives. There were probably about ten new people who came to this event, and from those ten half said were interested in taking part in more events and ministries at Cianas in the future. To know that people want to be involved and help is encouraging, because the vision with Pitstop is to see it lead by all youth who come. Basically, I would like Pitstop to like the earlier church with everyone supporting each other spiritually and growing together closer to Christ. I see my role as a mentor, who teaches with word and action how to live out God’s will within the body of Christ. So far, I’ve only been able to do this through my own language with a small number of guys with futsal, but hopefully one day I will be able to speak in Latvian and use my gifts for more Latvians.
Another ministry that ended for the season was guy’s futsal sports ministry. We played our last game on June 16th, but this isn’t the end of playing together. During the summer we are all playing outdoor soccer as an outreach. The relationships I’ve built with these guys are really close. I would now call them my friends who I regularly hang out with because of playing sports together. The awesome thing is that they are all Christians who live morally good lives. But, they never talk nor show any spiritual desire to grow closer to Christ. Maybe this is why God has placed me with them? The outreach ministry we are doing this whole summer is playing soccer in a small town less than ten minutes from Liepaja. There we play on a field for free and play together with the local kids from this community. If God brings out enough players to play a full field game we will play one 90 minute game with a small half time break where I or someone from our group will share a small testimony about Christ. I can already tell you that God is answering this prayer with bring out lots of kids to play, because this last week we played full field match with 11 vs. 10. Next week many of the same guys said would come out again and play. I will post news of this next week.
The other major event this past month was our Jāņi camp from June 23rd to 25th. Every year Latvians celebrate the first days of summer with a festival were everyone stays up late eats lots of cheese, dark bread and sausages. The real Jāņi is mostly celebrated with getting drunk, but Christians use the time to thank God for what He’s blessed Latvians with, like their freedom from the Soviets. Ciana’s youth traveled to a camp 80km north of Liepaja, where we gave everyone the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Only during the evenings we had planned a worship and prayer night. Lasma, Filips, and I didn’t stay at the camp, because this was just after Filips being sick. We stayed at Lasmas cousin’s house 50km away from the camp. The focus for this camp was practicing spiritual disciplines, like prayer and reading God’s Word. The free time given each day was for them to have the opportunity to practice spiritual disciplines either on their own or with others. I was happy to see new people join us and hear about Christ, but I was unable to talk to them personally because they only speak Latvian and Russian. It’s times like those I wish I could communicate better with people. Still, the Sunday morning after Jāņi I saw these guys and they greeted me like we were close friends. Sometimes words are not needed to get to know each other.
Lastly, two young guys made commitments to Christ. One guy from the youth group named Martin got baptized this past month. His faith in Christ up to this year was not that strong, but with coming to Pitstop and relationships he’s made he started to build his faith in God. It was in May he was learning about baptism from the Pastor at Cianas, and in June he wanted to make the next step in his faith and commitment to Christ and his body. Another guy who comes to futsal named John shared with me that he accepted Christ as his savior. He told me that over the past year God had been knocking on his heart trying to get his attention. Through coming to futsal regularly and sometimes going to church he finally realized that God is real and loves him. This is the Spirits work as I already thought he was a believer the whole time I was talking to him and teaching him about God’s Word and how to play futsal.

Please keep praying for the ministry. The summer is going to be a great time for youth to grow closer to Christ. I’m leading Bible studies at the beach once a week and we are having Monday morning prayer times at 7:30am to start a day and week. These are just two of the disciplines I’m trying to pass on to the youth here. The outreach soccer will be happening every week, I’m prayer for my guys to take steps of faith to start talking and sharing with the local kids we are playing with. For them to learn how to become missionaries in their own country would be rad.

As for our needs as a family, pray that we all stay healthy and not get sick. Filips is feeling better, but he is now going through more teething and learning to sit up. The support that you have given has been a blessing. We are using the funds within the different ministries like the Bible study. There are a few kids who don’t have bibles so we plan to buy a bunch of youth study bibles to give out. We have also used your funds towards the soccer ministry, cost of gym rental, and new balls to teach and play with. For the outdoor, we plan to get some more bright colored pinnies to wear and possible goalie equipment. So more support is always helpful and a blessing to us and the kids God is reaching.

Thank you

Yours faithfully
Eric Scramstad

Latvian Youth Ministry
Email: eric.scramstad@gmail.com

Pictures from "Jāņi" - Latvian traditional celebration 23-25th of June

2010-07-07T10:41:00.014+03:00

Filips still sick, Latvian festival happening soon :)

2010-06-19T14:14:00.003+03:00

Hi, this is Lasma. I just want to share a little bit. As Eric wrote before, Filips had a high temperature and we had to stay in the hospital for 3 days. We had to share the room with two other moms with their baby's. Because of that, now we don't have temperature, but Filip has a cold and pus in his eye. It’s so sad to see him being sick for first time. We really hope and pray that soon he will get better.
Soon we will have in Latvia this huge event when we celebrate summer solstice (23rd-24th of June) – “Jani”. Actually, that is an ancient Latvian folklore celebration, when people drink lots of beer, eat cheese, jump over fire, and stay up all night. Because of that, we Christians in Latvia, use this time as an opportunity to come together and worship God, by building relationships with each other and having a great time during this festival. This year, Cianas youth will be celebrating “Jani” in Sarnata with Sarnates Baptist church youth group. I’m praying to God that He will heal Filips so that he’s healthy next week. That way, we all can go together and help other youth leaders with leading this event. We still need to do lots of preparation for it.
I ask for your prayers for this festival, for new people to come, for them to open their hearts to Jesus and for Filips to get healthy.

Lasma :)

Filip to the hospital

2010-06-10T09:26:00.003+03:00

Last night, June 9th, Filip had to go to the hospital because he has a high temperature. His temperature has been up and down between 37.5 to 39.8 cellos, but the biggest problem was that he wasn't drinking enough fluids. So Lasma and Filip stayed over night, and now they are still there waiting to hear from the doctor if they can come home, however, Filip's temperature is still at 39, but he has been drinking more fluids. Please pray for Filips and Lasma too.

April and May Update Letter

2010-06-09T22:54:00.002+03:00

Latvia Youth Ministry
Over the past two months we’ve experienced lots of great blessings. First off, we spent all of April in Canada visiting family and friends. The trip was Lasma’s first time over to North America and was also the first time my family and friends got to meet Lasma in person. For myself, it was different to come back home and see everyone and familiar places, I probably felt this way because I’m now married and have a baby. To say the lest a lot has changed over the past year, and no doubt in another year a lot will change too. The highlight for a lot of family and friends was yes to meet Lasma, but also to meet our son Filips who at the time was four months old. Everywhere we went people were attracted to our baby, even complete strangers were admiring him. The whole time, while in Canada, I felt a sense of peace and assurance from the Lord that he was taking care of all our needs and blessing us with the opportunity to visit my home.
It meant a lot to me that Lasma was able to see the town which I grew up in and to meet the people who influence me so much in my life. Though, it was too bad we didn’t get to meet more people who I care about and appreciate as my friends. Next time! For Lasma, she was overwhelmed with Canadian politeness and hospitality. To compare it would not be fair to the richness of Europe’s long history. But, one of the first big differences she noticed was how friendly people in Canada are to each other. We would walk into stores, buses, trains, airplanes, or whatever/where ever, people would talk to us and help us if it looked like we needed it. For example, people in Canada would open doors for us and other people, and people in Canada would normally start conversations with us while eating and drinking Tim Horton’s. Sadly, here in Latvia you don’t see too many people acting this nice to each other. It could be that we just meet the right people at the right time, whereas sometimes it can be the opposite.
Overall, the trip to Canada was fantastic. We came for my older sister’s wedding in Richmond, to visit family and friends in Summerland and the lower mainland, and most of all enjoying God’s blessing.
Since arriving back to Latvia it has been non-stop ministry, home repairs, and dentist visits. First off, both Lasma and I needed to visit a dentist. I, however, really needed to see a dentist because my tooth was giving me agonizing pain. It started out like a normal tooth ache, and I thought it would go away. No! The pain got worst and worst, and I couldn’t bear it anymore. The one night I never go any sleep because the pain was that bad. The next morning we called a dentist and an hour later we arrived in his office. I was thinking he would just take a look at the tooth and give me a perception to dual the pain. But he did the opposite and started to freeze my mouth by poking needles into it. The next thing I know he is telling me that he’ll take and nerves out of my tooth. I was happy that I wouldn’t feel the pain of this tooth, but was also afraid of the how much pain this would take and what would it cost. It turned out that it wasn’t that bad and too expensive. For this I was grateful. Lasma was next; she however made an appointment the following week. The whole time leading up to her visit she was getting really afraid, and when it came to the moment before entering and sitting in the chair where she would get her teeth poked at; she was both nervous and scared. She hates needles and most of all she hates experiencing any kind of pain. But, thank the Lord. She was in the dentist chair for less than five minutes and came out with a big smile on her face. Nothing was wrong, her teeth were fine, no cavities. I still need to go back to the dentist to fix a small cavity, which I plan to do before the end of June.
Other things which kept us busy were home repairs. We promised the owners of the house that we would fix up a few things for them. Most of the projects we had help with from our neighbours, like lights and other electrical things. This time we had to do it ourselves, like paint doors. The house had four doors which needed painted. We wanted to wait until the weather got warmer outside. That way we could open windows to let in fresh air. This May was perfect for painting, so we got started and painted two doors downstairs. This went well, both of them turned out good. I wanted to keep painting and finish the other two doors upstairs, but Lasma needed my help to take care of Filip while she wrote papers for her school. Each day I would take care of Filip for a few hours and Lasma would write her paper. It was coming to the end when we needed to start packing are things together for the summer, because June was when the owners were coming back to live in their house for three months. Both Lasma and quickly painted the doors upstairs and also gathered together all of our belongings in boxes and bags. This all happened in three days of us finishing the doors and packing up our stuff to let the owners back into their house. We had to go to Riga for a week, because Lasma had school. Everything just seemed to go by so fast and now I feel exhausted from all the painting, packing, cleaning, and taking care of Filip’s all day long. But, I am thankful that the Lord brought us through this busy time and that he took care of our needs and has answered our prayers again for a place to live this summer. Basically, in the last days of us leaving Riga to come back to Liepaja a lady called us to ask if we were interested in renting her flat for the summer. Said explained her home to us and it sounded perfect, just what we wanted. We are now ready to move into her flat for the summer and hopefully by June 11th or 12th we will have moved into it. For now, we are staying at Lasma’s parent’s house. So far it has been ok. The only problem is that we are all getting sick. Filip has a temperature of 39 cellos. We have given him some medicine, so hopefully this will help and his temperature will go down. Please pray for him and for the rest of us that we would all get healthy.
After coming back from Canada and with keeping busy at home, it was difficult to focus on ministry at the church and with sports. In Latvia, May is the last month of school for everyone and then its summer break for three months. At Pitstop we celebrated together as a group by having a pizza party. It was a great night where people brought friends, we had a pizza ingredient auction, they made their own pizzas, and people hung out for hours. I was excited to see new people come out, and I was excited to see everyone getting along and having fellowship with one another. The rest of the month for Pitstop we focused on being warriors for our LORD, and having a heart for God and other people. I am praying that the Spirit of God will move inside this group of teenagers and young adults and that they will grow in Him and seek to be servant of Christ. So far, the maturity has not developed and their focus isn’t on Christ. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to each of the youth at Cianas Baptist Church, and that He would give me words to encourage them.
Wednesday night futsal has been a great outreach to the teenage guys. On average, 10 guys are coming out to learn and play futsal. Futsal is like soccer only played indoors with five to a team and played with a smaller harder ball. I learn to play this game while I was attending PBI, and never thought I would be using it as a tool to reach out to young guys. We play for two hours each Wednesday and half way through it I stop to read something from the Bible or from a book. I usually focus on scriptures that can be applied to sports and life. Back in January and February I was giving my talks in Latvian, but since coming back from Canada I haven’t done this. Most of the guys understand English, but I want to give these small talks in Latvian so that I improve my language and gain their respect. Still, the talks are effective and if the Lord wills it the Spirit will reach out to them. I am encouraged too that they are all improving so much as players and learning how to play as a team. I believe sports are a great way to not only have fun and get exercise, but they also teach us a lot how to not give up and work together as a team. In June we will play three more times and then switch to outdoor for the summer.
Well that’s my update for May and a little bit of our trip to Canada. I hope that you enjoy reading our updates and thank you for your prayers and supports. Please keep praying for us as we are going to be living in another home for three months and that we will all get better and stay healthy. Also, because we will be living in a new house this summer our cost of living will go up. We have to pay rent plus utilities whereas before we only paid for utilities. The host for us to live in this new flat will be $150 plus another $100 for utilities. If you feel lead to help us this summer it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and God Bless.

Yours faithfully
Eric Scramstad

A weeks visit to Riga

2010-06-05T12:17:00.002+03:00

This week Lasma had to be in Riga for her school, which means, I also need to be there to support her and take care of Filips. A friend of Lasma lets us stay in his flat which is pretty close to her school, and some parks for Filips and me to walk around in. Today is the last day of classes for Lasma, and I am sort of glad that this week is coming to an end. It's not easy looking after a 6 month old boy all day. He's pretty good when he has my attention, but when I try to get other things done he will not let me. So I have to play with him, which I am happy to do, but I can only play so much then I get tired. Once I tried playing with him just to see if I could make him tired, but all that did was make him hungry. After I feed him some food he wanted to play some more, however I was already exhausted from before and fixing him his meal. I don't know where he gets the energy from? The nice thing about this moment is that he is sleeping and I am writing this, which I'm happy about right now. I get some freedom and some rest, and when he wakes up I'll probably feed him and play with him until we leave the flat to go for a walk. Oh, a really cool thing for me right now is that I'm feeding him baby foods, which means he doesn't always need his mommy around when he's hungry.
Besides from Filip and me, I feel for my wife Lasma, who is also having a hard time, but only with her uni. I wish I was able to help her more with her studies, but I guess I am with looking after Filips all day. I really want her to do well in school and not worry about us. This is her 3rd year and she will have to do a year and half more because she is now a part time student. But that doesn't seem to bother us, its actually a really good thing for us for her to be in part time studies. It allows us to live in Liepaja close to friends and family. It allows me to be a youth missionary in a Church that wants helping hands. And it allows us to have time for each other and to take care of Filips together.
Overall, this week has been hard for all of us, but it has also put things in prospective. We realize more and more how blessed we are to have this time and life together, knowing that it will only get better as time goes on. Something that I really enjoyed this week was buying my wife flowers just to show her how much I love her and to encourage her not to give up.
Please keep praying for us, once we go back to Liepaja tomorrow we have no place to live. Long story, I will get to that some other time. Anyways, thanks and remember to keep Christ number 1.

DONATIONS

2010-05-25T21:51:00.002+03:00

Any donation/gift to the ministry, please send all contributions by making a cheque out to Summerland Baptist Church and directing it to Latvian Youth Ministry. My name cannot appear on the cheque! All donations are greatly appreciated and needed. Thank you!

Summerland Baptist Church,

PO Box 454, Summerland, BC,

V0H 1Z0 Canada

Phone #: 12504943881

Just starting out

2010-05-24T23:25:00.002+03:00

I've had this idea for the past five months to start a blog, in order, to share what is happening in Liepaja, Latvia. After much thinking and talk about "I'm going to start a blog," I finally got around to doing it. So I hope that this blog will allow us, our family of Lasma (my wife), Filips (our son), and myself (Eric Scramstad) to give news and updates of ministry and life in Latvia. Sometimes my wife Lasma might write things about ministry or family, and other times I will give updates at less once a month or more on all the interesting stuff going on over here. You will also have access to older update letters starting from last October in 2009 to the present. We will also load photos with comments and possibly videos too. However we use this site we just hope it will allow people like yourself to connect and feel part of what we are doing here for God's kingdom. Thanks for your support through prayers and finances, and I hope to see people reading and looking at our new blog, Skramiishi (which is a cute way of saying our last name 'Scramstad' in Latvian) :)

March 2010 Update Letter

2010-05-24T23:20:00.002+03:00

There have been many highlights to this month’s madness here in Latvia. I’m not talking about NCAA college basketball madness, I’m talking about all the highlights that God is doing both in the Church and out in the community.
First, this month is basically the last month of Alpha at Cianas Baptist Church. So far we have covered the main messages where one can clearly understand the choice they have to give their live to Christ or not. I’m not sure about the adults who have been coming, but from the youth and young adults who I’ve talked to they have all enjoyed learning more about their faith and would say that this has helped them to grow closer to God. If there is any reason why young Christians should be part of an Alpha course this would be one of them. To have them understand more about what they believe and why will make a difference in how they go on living their faith tomorrow and the next day.
I also had the privilege again to lead one of the Alpha nights this month, and from what I shared I learn a lot myself from studying it. It was on how does God guide us, and for myself now I needed to here this. The different ways on how God guides us in our lives is evident in all that we do. I did not realise this until I was working on giving this talk, but God has been guiding me through some unlikely circumstances over the years just to tell me that He is the one who has a plan and a purpose for my life. I thank God for everything He has done and is doing, even though sometimes I can get ahead of myself and start worrying about the future. Questions can start to flout in my head like, “Will we have enough money to live off of? Will I ever be able to speak in Latvian?” But it’s simple to know that God is the one who is guiding my life and He has a plan and purpose.
With that said, it’s only because of God’s leading that people are coming to Christ. I would not say that I am trying to create an unbelievable program nor would I not say that I know what’s best for others, therefore, they should listen to me. All that I am and want to do is live, speak, and do what I believe in and share it with others. I believe this is what I am primarily doing in Latvia. My goal is to help raise up the next generation who will go on and become fully developed followers of Jesus.
Some ways I see myself discipling youth are through sports ministries and small groups. So far the futsal training has been a highlight for both me and for the guys who come out. I’ve kept it really simple in structure; practice, bible, and game. My goal is to build relationships with the guys first, and then if they are willing to be part of a small group to learn more about God. At the small group we will talk about faith in Christ and how it’s possible to live it out in the world. This is what I hear most of the guys telling me, that they want more faith in God. I keep telling them the only way you are going to have more faith in God is if you start trusting God with your life. God’s testimony in my own life is evident on how trusting in God with all of our discussions, choices, jobs, or whatever it is we begin to see our faith become more because we are giving God more of ourselves. In the following months I really hope to share and talk about this subject of faith with the guys in a small group.
The youth group at Cianas this month made a friendship with a Lutheran youth group in a city called Saldus. We went to their Church and city where they hosted us for the night. I was responsible for sharing a message and a few of their leaders lead everyone in some songs and prayer. This was my first time in a Lutheran church and for some of the youth from Cianas it was their first time too. Overall, I thought it was a fun time with the games and getting to know them. However, I don’t think much of the youth from Cianas enjoyed it that much. For some they were not use to their style and form of worship, and for others they were not that interested in making new friends. Lasma, the baby, and I stayed at Lasma’s sisters home so we were fine, but the youth who stayed the night at the church didn’t enjoy the evening nor were comfortable. It was just one night, and the next day after church most of everyone went back to Liepaja. We stayed a few more hours as I got the opportunity to play some ice hockey.
I hadn’t played for almost nine years, but I managed to still give Canadians a good name with my skating and quick passing along the boards. It felt good to get out on the ice after watching the Olympic hockey too, and I think I made a good impression as some of the guys have invited me to play again.
The most exciting news this month is how God is at work in the lives of our neighbours. I’ve talked about them before, mentioning how we became friends. And it was through our relationship that God blessed them with a miracle and faith in Him. Almost three years ago they got married at a young age of 18. Their wedding was sort of against their parents well, but they were in love and knew they wanted to live the rest of their lives together. After their first year of marriage they started to think about starting a family. So they tried and tried. Unfortunately, nothing happened and they started to become worried that maybe they were not able to have children. They went to doctors and asked for help, they read books and articles about it, but nothing seemed to work. Two years went by and they basically gave up hope on having children. This was about the time when we moved next door and we started to become friends with them. They knew we were expecting and they told us that we were truly blessed. When they said this I thought they were just being polite, but now I understand why they said those words. After a month of getting to know them we asked them to come to church with us and they accepted the invitation. On their first visit to the church it was like God was speaking to them through the message. Later that day the two of them started talking about what the Pastor spoke in church and for some reason they responded with a plea to God for a miracle to have a child. A month later they shared the news that they were pregnant. At the time Lasma was in her last week of pregnancy, so I was happy for them but was thinking more about us. Just this month was when they came to us and told us the whole story on how they see God’s miracle on their lives. They explained to me that there was a reason for why we moved next door, because now they believe in Christ and are having a baby this July. We are happy for our neighbours and look forward to the next step in our friendship with them. Their names are Artus and Monta, please pray for them as they are having a baby and need the support of God’s family to encourage them to grow closer to Christ.
One thing that they both want to do is show their thankfulness towards God for what He has done. So together with the youth from Cianas Baptist Church, we are planning on starting an outreach ministry involving teenagers who are living in orphanages. I idea came from Artus who wants to teach orphan children the different skills in building, repairing, farming, gardening, and other jobs. The likelihood of us starting this ministry is strong as there are other guys in the youth group who want to serve in this way. Please pray for this to get organized and that God will lead us in reaching out to these orphans who are often forgotten about.
Lastly, our little family here is doing fine. The third week of March we had to travel to Riga for Lasma’s university. While Lasma is in school Filip and I are out and about. I take him for walks in the parks, we go to the shopping malls, and we hang out at Lasma’s friend’s place which is really close to the school. From the first time we did this together back in December, which was difficult because of Filip being so young. But this time was way better. There were only a few times when Filip was unhappy, because he wanted food but all it took was a text message and mommy came over. We will have to go back in June for Lasma’s last week for classes and for her exams, so hopefully Filip does even better without mom around.
After being in Riga for the week we didn’t head back to Liepaja, because we left to come to Canada. Some of you may have heard that we are planning to visit my family and friends for a month. So on March 28th we left Latvia, flew to Frankfurt Germany, and then to Canada. The first flight we had only allowed us to bring one baby piece which was our stroller. So we had to leave behind a bunch of our own things and put all of Filips clothes and things into one of our carry-ons. After arriving in Germany we flew to Canada the next day on the 29th. The plan was for us to be in Vancouver on the 29th were my little sister Holly was going to pick us up. Unfortunately, we missed our flight from Calgary to Vancouver because of our bags coming off the plane took longer than expected. So Air Canada put us on standby only to find out that all their flights to Vancouver were over booked that day. The only way we were going to get to Vancouver was to fly out the next morning, so we stayed the night in a hotel and flew the next day. For Lasma and I it was a little stressful not knowing when we were going to arrive in Vancouver. Plus we were running out of diapers for Filips and in the airport they only had diapers for newborns and bigger babies. The night in the hotel in Calgary we used bath towels for Filip to sleep in, saving us at less two diapers for the trip in the morning. When we got to Vancouver we had two diapers left and were happy to see my sisters and to be just a little more closer to home for me. So now we are in Canada, and will be visiting Summerland for a week, and traveling around the coast visiting family and friends. Please pray for us while we are in Canada. So far God has been looking out for us and has helped us get here safely.
We are still praying for more support for the sports ministry and for our family. It would be great to have about $160 per month for renting the gym until the beginning of summer. For our family we are praying for a little extra support to help us, which would be about $500 a month. We are grateful for the support we have already received and we say thank you.

Yours Faithfully, Eric Scramstad

February 2010 Update Letter

2010-05-24T23:19:00.002+03:00

This past month was a busy time for both the ministry here and for us at home. The Latvian Youth Ministry is starting to become busier as we approach spring and Easter. Near the end of January the youth service at Cianas committed to host and assist in running an Alpha course. All the materials are from Nicky Gumbel’s ministry, and have been translated into Latvian. This is the first time Cianas has offered Alpha, and will probably be a ministry offered again. So far I’ve helped in teaching and leading small groups with teenage boys and college guys. I also lead one of the evenings by giving the message on how we can have faith. Overall, I believe Alpha is giving the leaders and me the opportunity to know where the youth are at with Christ. This year I really want to focus on the core youth who have been part of Cianas Baptist Church since they were younger. These youth are those who I see and believe will be the next generation of Christians who will lead the Church. For their development and maturity to grow they need to realize what is most important in their lives. So far, I don’t see or hear a hunger from them to want to grow closer to Christ. They are more concerned about what kind of car they will drive and eating fast food after youth nights. As much as my heart for them would like to see them strive after Christ, I cannot force them to become mature. They will have to make that choice on their own, just like the scripture says “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.” Jesus is knocking, we just need to open the door and he will come in.
Still there are youth at Cianas who have opened the door to Christ fully, and I would testify that the Spirit of Christ is alive and at work in their lives. One girl named Kristine is growing in her faith so fast. She has only been a Christian for one year now, but her dedication and love for God is both amazing and encouraging. What makes me encouraged by her walk with Christ is that she doesn’t try to be someone else, nor is she ashamed to call herself a Christian and live as one. The second week of Alpha Kristine brought one of her friends from school, which was a challenge for everyone from church to bring a friend to Alpha. The third week of Alpha she brought another friend making her company two friends. The following week she brought another friend making her company three. Just when I thought she had done enough on fourth week she brought another friend making her company of four friends. All of her friends she’s brought are new to the church at Cianas, and all seemed to be interested in Alpha because of what Kristine told them. I think Kristine totally has a big heart for people, especially for those who are close friends and family to her. I know that not every youth at Cianas will be like Kristine, but I hope and pray that they too would not be ashamed to call themselves a Christian and live as one.
The sports ministry this past month has been a success so far. Each week about eight to nine young guys come to play. The way how I lead sport is by breaking it down into three elements. The first element I lead them in warm-ups followed by some practice drills. This is where I get to use some of my own experience in the sport and teach them how to play the game. The second element is set aside for a discussion. I write out my discussion talks in Latvian and try to speak to them in Latvian. I am trying my best to not always speak in English with the guys, because I want to show them that I respect their country and language. The purpose of having discussions is to build a foundation for which we can begin to share and open up to one another. I enjoy this because I get to hear what they are thinking, but it’s difficult because of translation and my lack of comprehension of Latvian. The third and last element is to play a game. From the beginning to the end of February I’ve seen improvements in their skill and understanding of the game. For me this is encouraging to see, because I am starting to take on the role as their coach or teacher. I also like that they look forward to playing and wanting to learn more how to play the game. In March I am hoping to set up a friendly game against another city in Latvia. The evening would have the same three elements of practice, discussion, and game to assure that there is some structure and purpose to playing.
I have now been living in Latvia for nine months, eight as a husband, seven as a youth missionary, and three as a dad. From the first time I came to Latvia three years ago to now I have always found it very difficult to to speak, read, and write Latvian. This past month has been the toughest on me yet. Back in October I started Latvian lessons twice a week. With having a baby and planning and preparing for youth it was easy for me to not practice Latvian and just count on my classes twice a week. My goal for this year is to push myself in speaking Latvian to my wife, my family here, and my friends. So this February Lasma has been helping me by taking an hour or two on just studying Latvian. I was really encouraged when we first started, but then after one of my Latvian classes I came home really down. The teacher will sometimes give us some dictation where she reads something in Latvian and we have to write down what she says. Well I felt like I was in first grade again learning how to spell. With the different letter sounds in Latvian and stresses I just couldn’t write down what she was reading. I felt stupid and thought I would never be able to speak and write in Latvian. That night I didn’t feel like doing nothing. I just covered my face with shame. The next day was no different, didn’t want to do nothing and wanted to hide my head in hole. My wife Lasma was there for me, she bought me some chocolate and kept telling me that learning a new language just takes time. I now realize that if I am going to learn to speak, read, and write Latvian that it just might take two, three, four, or maybe five years. I am still going to my Latvian lessons and Lasma is helping me study too. We are even thinking about finding more help with finding someone who can teach Latvian in return for some English lessons.
As for the little guy, our little Filip, he is healthy and growing. He is now three months old and is starting to make some funny and loud noises. We are pretty sure he has said his first word “mama,” but he probably doesn’t understand what he’s saying. Even when he was a month old he was making “help” sounds, but again total accident. With having Filip it’s a lot harder to find time for just Lasma and I, but this past Valentine’s Day we celebrated with a nice relaxing evening. “Nothing special,” as we say in Latvia, but much needed as we are always focusing on taking care of Filip first and ourselves second.
We are continuing to pray for more support with helping and leading youth to Christ. Are expenses right now are more than what we get, and we are not sure how long we can go until we run short. The main concern is that we have food on the table every month and a place to live. As for the sports ministry I am still looking for support to help with the cost of renting the sports hall. The sports equipment is still needed, but I am not concerned to have them right away. Ideally, it would a blessing to receive $500 a month to help with the living expenses. The sports ministry for this spring needs about $350 to cover rent, and to purchase the equipment would be about $400. Please keep praying for us here, and if you would like to help support Latvia Youth Ministry please give all donations to Summerland Baptist Church.

Yours Faithfully, Eric Scramstad

January 2010 Update Letter

2010-05-24T23:18:00.002+03:00

I would like to think of this past January as a month of growing. It might be strange to think about growth in the middle of winter, but growth can happen any season of the year. To put it simple, we are all growing every day physically, mentally, and spiritually. For my two month old son Filip, he has grown out of most of his clothes we’ve bought for him. One morning as I was changing him I experienced the shock that he no longer fits into half of his shirts. This was exciting for me because it basically meant that he is growing. I was so proud, and according to Pastor Larry as he informed me this is only the beginning of a constant buying of new clothes. I look forward to it with the joy of knowing that my little son is slowly growing up. Another area where I’ve seen growth this month was with my wife, who celebrated her 23rd birthday. We had a small party with close friends and family. Sort of a tradition we’ve started on Lasma’s birthday last year is that I make chili. Latvians normally don’t eat hot and spicy foods, but a year ago I made Lasma and her cousins my crazy hot and spicy chili. No one could really eat it because I made it way too hot and spicy, so this year I chilled it down a bit and everyone loved it. The thing I find humorous with Latvians they celebrate all the time. If it’s not a birthday it’s a name day, and if it’s not one of these it’s an anniversary or something else worth celebrating. The point that I’ve learned is that celebrations encourage people to grow, and for my wife she has grown a lot in becoming a wife and a mother.
The growth which I am seeing in the Church’s youth is a amazing thing. This month has been the start of the sport ministry, where I am teaching and training young guys how to play futsal. What is futsal some of you might be thinking? Basically, futsal is soccer played indoors within a set boundary. I played this sport during Bible school and now I am using it as an outreach tool to mentor and evangelize to youth. Sports to me work best to build relationships with guys. If you can kick a ball, make a basket, or ollie on a skateboard, guys will open up to you. This is what I’ve experienced over the years and with starting futsal now in Liepaja. The first night ten guys came out, who were mostly all Christian, but I haven’t seen nor heard any desire to grow. That night, each of them shared where they see themselves with God. Total break through, as now I can begin to start building relationships with these guys and understand where they are with Christ. On the second time we trained and played futsal in January, I had prepared a small devotional message written and spoken by me in Latvian. Total break through again, because they are starting to see my commitment to learning and growing in Latvian as I am starting to see them learning and growing in Christ. It’s amazing how guys open up when you play sports like futsal. I am still looking at making the futsal ministry grow by having more equipment, like balls and scrimmage bibs, and have support to rent out the sports hall in the future.
Other areas where growth is starting to happen are with our small groups; two youth girls groups and one youth boys group. For now, I am leading the youth boys, but down the road I am hoping for someone to lead this group. I am always faced with the challenge of language when leading a group like this. With me only understanding English it makes it difficult for others to express themselves to me. However, slowly I am “growing” in my Latvian language, and I hope that I keep making the effort to learn more so that I can better communicate with people in Latvia. For now I do most of my teaching in English, with exception to leading the sport ministry.
The last area of growth has been in a discipleship relationship I started with one young man named Gatis. He is 25 years old, lives with his mother, brother, and his grandparents. Growing up he attend church with his family, but like a lot of young people in Latvia, he had no interest in the Church. It wasn’t until three months ago he changed his mind and heart about church. Up till then his lifestyle was wild and reckless with alcohol and partying. One evening after drinking way too much he got into a fight with some guys. Unfortunately for him, he got beaten up bad and almost died. The next day he woke up in the hospital not able to remember anything. To make things more difficult, his girlfriend who he had been dating for six years broke his heart by telling him that she is moving to Norway to be with some other guy. This was lowest he had ever felt in his life, yet he was reaching out to God for help. During his stay in the hospital he told me he had lots of time to think about his life. He realized that God must have a plan for his life, being that He kept him alive. A month later, Gatis committed his life to Christ by getting baptized. Now he is on that path with Christ trying to figure out God’s will for his live. I am meeting with him weekly to pray and talk about life, God, and God’s amazing grace. It’s people like Gatis that excites me to keep being a light. Just when you think someone is lost, they come back with nothing to offer but their lives. We just need to be ready to lovingly accept them and help guide them to become lights themselves. I am thankful that God is already at work in Gatis to be light.
Overall, January has been a really good month. The weather could have been better, but its winter and -20° is not too different from Three Hills, Alberta. We are praying for more financial support for Latvia Youth Ministry. Support for futsal equipment and gym rental; about $900, and support for our own living cost; about $500 needed more for each month. We appreciate all your gifts as they help us lead young Latvians to Christ.

Sincerely, Eric Scramstad

December 2009 Update Letter

2010-05-24T23:17:00.002+03:00

This past December was a month I will not forget. With all the planning and organizing for Christmas, to traveling to Riga, it was hard to just relax and enjoy being with my new family. In the first two weeks I was running on the pure joy of being a new dad. It wasn’t until we went to Riga for a week that I felt the exhaustion and pressure. We had to go to Riga because Lasma is studying as a part-time student. She only has to attend classes twice a semester for a week. She had already gone once in September while she was pregnant, but this time it was a totally different experience. While Lasma was taking her classes I was taking care of Filip. But I could only do half the work of changing his pampers and putting him to sleep. So whenever he needed food I would text Lasma to leave her class and come and feed Filip for ten to twenty minutes. This was really crazing because I basically sat outside of her classroom with Filip’s in his traveling bed. I had students and teachers walk by and wonder what I was doing. One lady thought we were crazing for taking our baby to school, which I believe she was half right for this reason, Latvia was hit with a winter storm. The temperatures drop down below -15c and some places were hit with so much snow in such a short period of time they had to close roads. We kept on praying for God’s protection and safety through that whole week, and we thank the Lord for keeping us all healthy and safe while we were there.
On arriving back from Riga, we were looking forward to coming home to a warm bed and house. Walking in we realized something was wrong. The house was freezing cold, almost as cold as it was outside. In Canada we have the luxury of central heating and air condition, but in Europe it is pretty expensive to have this kind of system. Most people in Latvia heat their homes using a fireplace. Some homes have a fireplace in every room, while older style homes have one in the middle of the house that can heat each room. In the house we are living in we have radiators which are pretty expensive to use during the cold months. What happen to us was a little miscommunication between Lasma and I. Before leaving the home to go to Riga Lasma had turn on every radiator in the house, but I then turn half of them off thinking that Lasma’s brother would turn them on each day while we were gone. But he only came to turn on the main switch leaving half of them off. The cold weather basically froze the radiators that were off and eventually cause all the radiators to become frozen. Oops! That night on arriving home I sent Lasma and baby over to her parents while, her dad and brother and I did what ever we could to unfreeze all the radiators. It wasn’t until two in the morning that we managed to unfreeze the radiators using electric heaters, a hairdryer, and a hot water bottle. It wasn’t long for the house to warm up after we unfrozen the radiators, and then Lasma and baby came home to sleep. This was a crazy thing to experience and something we both hope does not happen again.
The youth ministry at Ciana this month was great. First off, we had five youth baptized the first Sunday of December, followed up with four of them sharing their testimonies at our youth night called Pitstop. I really believe this was great for them to share and for those to hear who have not yet been baptized. I really hope we will have some more youth get baptized in the New Year. One of the guys who were baptized was an answer to a prayer. We were praying for a guy to join our leadership team, and this young man had just been through a prodigal son experience and wanted to be part of what we are doing at Pitstop. His gifting is perfect for where we are planning to go with Pitstop. We only need now the technology to do these things, for example a computer to be used with the new projector the church bought. For now he is helping us out with designing a logo and leading games. I now know that God was waiting for the right person for this ministry and I see him as someone who will be a positive influence to other younger guys.
Christmas in Latvia was different for me, only because this was the first time being away from home at Christmas. I did manage to call my sisters and talk to my mom before and Christmas and New Years, and it seems like everyone had a different Christmas this year too. In Latvia people actually celebrate Christmas two times. Most Latvians celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, while those Latvians who are Russian Orthodox celebrate Christmas two weeks after the 25th. We had Christmas on Christmas Eve with Lasma’s Family. Then on the 25th, we had a youth Christmas Party at the Church. This night was a lot of fun, with singing, food, a small message, more food, playing the gift exchange game, ate more food, and then played a huge game of Christmas Mafia, and ate more and more food. Probably the best thing we did together as a youth group that day was visit church members who could not come to the Christmas Eve service because of health issues. About ten of us youth from Pitstop went around and did some Christmas caroling. The faces on these old people were amazing to see, and words of thanks was all we needed to hear so that we remember why we celebrate this day, and that is the gift of Jesus Christ. I couldn’t believe how a few songs could bring so much happiness to these elderly people. It was again truly amazing.
Then on New Years Eve we had a big Pitstop celebration to bring in the 2010. With the Olympics happening in Canada this year, I wanted to get everyone here in the winter Olympic spirit by having our very own Olympic games at Pitstop. We had four countries compete to win gold or silver or bronze in a few winter games. The games started as soon as we celebrated 2010 and ended sometime around 3am. This was the first time that the youth at Ciana had done something like this to celebration New Years and I hope we are able to come up with another interesting way to celebrate next year too.
For this coming month and year I am going to be starting a sports outreach. Last month I received donations that will be used to start this ministry, thank you to those who gave. In the coming months I would appreciate if you could pray and think about whether you would like to help support this sports outreach more. These are a few things I am looking for help to make this outreach grow. First, I am looking at purchasing 10 futsal footballs, which would be used for teaching and playing this sport. The cost to buy 10 balls at discount would be around $400 not including shipping. This month I plan to just use one ball until I am able to find the balls I want at a good price. The other area I am looking for support is to cover the cost of renting a sports hall. Right now we are still looking for a hall to use, but most places to rent for two hours is around $50 and we have enough to cover this month. The plan is to ask the youth to pay for one hour and I will pay for the next hour. I am thinking that $500 should be enough to cover each months rent until the summer. At this moment these are the two numbers $400 for balls, and $500 for rent needed for this ministry. Thank you and I hope that you are interested in helping to support this ministry and thank you again to those who have already given to help start this ministry this month.

Sincerely, Eric Scramstad

November 2009 Update Letter

2010-05-24T23:16:00.002+03:00

I am now in my fourth month serving as a missionary at Cianas Baptist Church in Liepaja, Latvia. Up to this past month of November ministers had been busy work for my wife and me. The past few weeks of November we have both slowed down to better prepare ourselves for our first born child. This rest was nice but the waiting was making us nervous and anxious. Finally on the 27th Lasma went into labor. She had been experiencing pain that morning, but we waited until later in the afternoon to make the trip to the hospital. Three hours after arriving at the hospital at 5:47pm EET Filip Douglas Scramstad was born. He weighed in at 6.75 lbs and was 52 cm in length. The joy of seeing him for the first time was more than amazing, it was unbelievably incredible. At first I felt a little confused and scared, because of what just happened. The whole time I felt helpless and weak that I could not help my wife. It was a blessing that the Lord had provided a midwife who knew a little bit of English, so she kept on telling me that I was helping Lasma and doing a great job with being next to her. As soon as Filip was born the nurses did there thing in give him a quick look and cleaning before laying him on his mommy. Everything came together for me once they placed our son on mommy’s chest. I looked at him with pure amazement. I knew then and there that I was now a daddy and that for the rest of my life I will have a son.
As for youth ministry this month, there were also some amazing things happening. At Pitstop, Cianas youth service, Pastor Andris help assist a few times with giving the message. One of his topics was on how we worship God, comparing the youth generation’s style of worship music with the older generation’s style in the church. It seems we can’t escape this topic anywhere in the church. After hearing this message it was a good opportunity to address the topic of judging others. We’ve wanted to start bible study groups, so I developed an example for how to lead a bible study group using the topic of judging others. That night everyone was involved in sharing their own thoughts on this topic, just like a bible study group. I hope from this evening that we will be able to find our bible study group leaders and put the groups together so that we can start our small groups in the January.
Besides having Pastor Andris taking part in Pitstop we also had a guess speaker who shared a little bit what it was like during Soviet times. He became a Christian during WW2, which for him as he puts it was a miracle because he disliked the church thinking it was a place full of weak people. Right before the end of WW2 he was captured and put into a concentration camp some where in Siberia for ten years. At that time he was only a teenager. For us at Pitstop his story was incredible with how he survived the intense work conditions and small amounts of food each day. Today we can be thankful that Latvia is no longer part of the Soviet Union and that it now has their independence. On November 18th we celebrated Latvia’s birthday as an independent nation. For some it’s difficult to celebrate because of the crisis right now, but for my family here in Latvia they are all proud to be Latvians which makes me happy to see people who are thankful for what they have and for who they are.
Lastly, in November I made an effort to get to know more of the youth from Cianas individually. Up to this point I know only a few, but not good enough to openly talk about their lives and relationship with God. I had a good time with one young guy who needed help with an English report. He asked me if I would help him with writing the report. My first thought in my mind was “Not another paper, I’m finished school.” But of course I said yes and it was a great time getting to know him better. He kept telling me that he is very excited to learn some proper soccer skills from me, as he thinks that I know a lot. I thank the Lord for giving me a great coach at PBI who taught me everything I know. Now, I am able to share what I’ve learned with others and try to get to know them better. I hope in the near future to start teaching him and a few other guys how to play futsal which is basically soccer played indoors.
Another time I invited a young girl over to our place for some tea. With my wife there, as she helps with translation, it was a good time for her to ask more questions about her faith. She recently became a Christian this year and so far has not been connected to a church in Liepaja. The cool thing about her is that she’s a dancer. Some people in some churches believe dancing is a sin. When she heard this she almost wanted to give up on God and never come near a church again. But the Lord has been working in her since she first heard this remark and she realized she can use her love of dancing to worship God. She plans to perform a dance at Pitstop this coming January. On another note she was thinking over whether she should get baptized and where. Our conversation was mostly about this topic that evening and now I am happy to announce that she is getting baptized at Cianas. She told me that she feels like Cianas is a great church for her because everyone has only encouraged her in her faith. There will also be three others from Pitstop getting baptized, so I am just amazed at what God is doing here in Latvia and how he is using me and my wife to reach out and encourage the youth in Liepaja.
This month of December will be a busy time for Lasma and I, so please pray for us that we will not get stressed out and that we will still have time to enjoy being new parents. Thank you

October 2009 Update Letter

2010-05-24T23:02:00.002+03:00

This month has been action packed filled with all sorts of different events, where I maybe had one or two days to just sit and rest. The opportunities for youth projects are beginning to take off, like Pitstop.

During October the youth team has been working on making Pitstop (this is the name of Ciana’s youth service) more interactive with the students who are coming. Instead of someone sharing a message every week we’ve decided that each week needs to have an element of surprise. This means we don’t want too much routine, where students become bored and jaded, but to have unusual and shocking examples that speak God’s truth. October has been a good month where the Lord has brought new people to Pitstop and even to Ciana’s Sunday morning service. We are thankful for how the Lord is using us in the lives of others and teaching us to become more servant hearted. This month we’ve focused on what it really means to have a thankful heart, “When ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord, offer it at your own will.” (Leviticus 22:29). For some of the youth at Pitstop this was an eye opener to their own ungrateful hearts. One young man came up to the front and confessed how he had been walking blind with a sour heart towards the church for the past two years. He realized the Lord was speaking to him to turn his heart of criticism and bitterness and turn it towards thanksgiving and joy. This was an answer to prayer from this summer when a couple of us were meeting each week. We prayed specifically for this young man, and look how the Lord answered. Amazing!

I believe since this service we all have been walking with more joy and thanksgiving in our lives. It is not surprising that other people are beginning to notice this joy in our lives and without asking they want to come and be part of Pitstop. What I am talking about in particular is how the Lord is using Lasma and I and others to reach out towards our neighbors. Living next door to us is a young married couple. This couple gave us a welcoming gift when we first moved in. They were excited to have someone around their own age to connect with. Over the first month living in our apartment we never made an effort to call them or go over and visit. Then one day we went over to invite them to the Rock Café. Every Wednesday evening we meet and hang out at the Rock Café in Liepaja. We started this as a bridge for inviting our friends where we can then invited them to Pitstop and other events. Once are neighbors came to the Rock Café they were interested in coming to Pitstop. Since that night they have been coming to every Pitstop and helping out with setting up and cleaning up after. Plus, they asked us if they could join us Sunday morning. Total blessing! The Rock Café is also bringing more students to Pitstop. This past week we had two foreign students join us at Pitstop all because of this bridge of hanging out at the Rock Café.

Also in October my weekends have been full either with helping building at Lasma’s parent’s house or gone to different cities in Latvia. First off, Lasma’s parent’s house had been getting some repairs done on it. They needed a new roof, but also the builders had to take apart bits and pieces of the wall and repairing it. I’ve been helping with cleaning bricks to use again and moving buckets of dirt into huge garbage bins. I can say now most of the repairing and new roof is finished, but there is still more cleaning up to do. Hopefully we can finish before the snow comes and it gets colder. On another occasions this month Lasma and I went to her cousins wedding. It was a long event lasting from 3:00pm until 3:00am the next day. Latvians sure know how to celebrate weddings, we were just lucky they didn’t have a traditional wedding which can lasts two to three days with all the guests. On another weekend we attended a choir workshop in Riga. Every year they have this event where all the Baptist Churches in Latvia are invited to take part in a choir workshop. What it mostly entails is preparing a concert on the same day you practice. Lasma and I didn’t sing, but we supported our friends and enjoyed the music and singing. Next year Ciana’s Baptist Church will host this event in Liepaja.

Well we are getting closer to the due date of our first child. Lasma is getting bigger and more restless each day, and I am coming to terms that soon I will be a father. CRAZY, but totally awesome! I give huge respect to everyone out there that has children and raised a family. This life development of becoming a parent is astonishing to me with a bit of scary. No matter how much I try to think about it and plan things for the future I am left with an aspect that it’s out of my hands right now. I am learning to take each day as it is and live with the faith the Lord is providing now and will continue to provide for all our needs. I just want to end this update letter with a big thank you to everyone who are prayer for us, and to my father who has helped support us so far.

Thank you,

Much love, Eric and Lasma Scramstad

P.S. The baby is a boy for those who haven’t heard and we have already given him a name. Next month we’ll have pictures!