Life has totally gotten away from me, lately. I realized today that, not only have I not written a newsletter in ages, but I’m behind on so many other things that I don’t even want to think about.

Our friend, Lizzy, is still here & thankfully helping with dishes and laundry and such, but only for one more week. (This is surely not something I want to think about, though, or I’m sure to cry). We have another friend here, too, that was in my & Lizzy’s TESOL. Emily has been living in Portugal, studying Portugese to minister in Mozambique. She needed to get out of country so she came to visit for a week. So, it’s been a full house and a busy time.

This weekend was fun though… after school on Friday I hung out in town with Andis waiting for Peteris to finish a meeting and did some errands. After we got Peteris, we found out that Ieva’s dad was missing & last seen drunk. Not cool. She finally got a call that he was at his parents house (her grandparents). That evening we also had a big party at our place (hosted by Lizzy) and a “FUSION” band meeting. It was a but difficult because we had to talk/vote about asking Agnese to leave (she wasn’t here, but it was still hard). We also invited a new member, Eduards, to join playing bass. Eduards is in Ieva & Andis’ class, which means he’s also in my English class. I’ve been hoping to have a chance to get to know him. It was a good time, but it was a long and hard & late night.

Saturday we slept late and then me, Chris, Lizzy, Emily & Andis headed to the beach. We were going to go to our favorite beach in Roja (just so Emily could see the sea) but we ended up going to the point/cape of Latvia in Kolka which was SO cool. It’s where the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga come together, from two different directions. The waves were crashing against each other! It was really windy, and sometimes a wave would come from the right, but the wind would blow from the left and blow the mist off the top of the wave. It was amazing! We came back and dropped Chris & Andis off in town to go to a movie and hang out and we picked up Ieva and came home and had girl’s night until 1am.

Sunday we slept a little late, but Chris started off the day by taking Ieva to the hospital to see her dad. He had fainted/passed out at her grandparents’ house, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. We all had to be in town at 3pm for band practice before youth group. It was sure to be a hard practice since it was Eduards’ first one, the first one without Agnese, and the first one in general in like 2 months or more.

Like I said, school started today in earnest. Lizzy & Emily went to school with me today and hung out in my class. It was cool to have them there. This afternoon we also found out that Ieva’s dad will be in the hospital for a while yet. He’s been moved to the Nerve Center of the hospital for loads of tests. I don’t understand all of it, but I guess it’s pretty serious. Ieva’s pretty worried about him, so instead of her staying home by herself, she’s staying with us. So, there’s 5 of us staying in our little 2 bedroom apartment. Lizzy & Emily will be sleeping on the couches in the livingroom so Ieva could sleep in the office on the sleeper couch since she has school tomorrow. She’ll be here until everything is ok with her dad. We’re happy to have her.

We also found out this weekend a little more sad news. We had asked our landlords if they wound be interested in selling the apartment we live in. We’d love to buy a place and we love this apartment. Well, they said no. So, we’re back to square one, looking for a place. They’re not throwing us out or anything, but we just hate renting, especially since we plan to be in Latvia for a long time. Nothing is cheap here… often a 2 bedroom apartment will be about $60,000, and still need some updating. Please pray for us, for wisdom, for a great place and for a great price!!!

Emily leaves tomorrow, so we have a somewhat early morning to get her to the airport. Have a goodnight!