You know, when you look on a map, there’s always this black line between countries. This is especially noticeable if you’ve even drive across the border of a country. Rarely are the borders back to back… usually you leave one country, drive some distance (maybe feet, maybe a mile) and then you drive into the other country. I remember years ago traveling, I believe, between Czech and Austria. There was quite a distance between the borders… maybe a mile. My friend Laurie and I began to think, “So, where are we? We left Czech, but we’re not yet in Austria… what we we did here, or what it a baby was born right here, where would the be born? Where the heck are we? We’re on The Black Line!”

Yesterday, Chris and I took a trip to The Black Line between Latvia and Lithuania. There was an outreach team from Norway working there with YWAM. The one girl leading it, Benedicte, is a friend of ours and is leaving Latvia after this outreach, so we went to hang out and say good bye. Also, one of their translators is our friend Eduards. It was his first time doing actual official translating, so we went to check up on him, as well as just to get out of the area and take a break from everything going on in Talsi.

So, we headed to Ruba. The last 20km or so were dirty, dust gravel roads. We wondered how they chose this village to go to. First we saw “The Black Line” sign, which declared we were entering the “borderland”. The next sign we say said, “Lithuania - 4km” Ok… so we must be getting closer. We turned off onto yet another dirt road and drove through what looked like it was an abandoned factory zone… we later figured out it used to be the border station. We kept driving and then… “beep beep beep”… our cell phones alerted us that we had a new message, which read, “Welcome to Lithuania… we hope you enjoy your stay!” Ok, well, we MUST be getting close! We did eventually find the village & team, which were working at a camp at a local school. I guess when it’s winter and the trees are bare, you can easily see the Lithuanian side of the border.

After our 2 1/2 hour drive, we had a good lunch, toured the village school, which used to be the mansion of a Baron back in the day. It was beautiful. As were the gardens around it. The 4 of us had some time to just hang out, have fun and chat. Before we knew it, it was time for them to go to dinner and get ready for the evening, and for us to leave on our 2 1/2 hour drive home. Maybe it was a long way to go for a 3 hour visit, but I think it was worth it, for everyone.

And besides, it was cool to hang out on The Black Line! *smile*