I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get this last part going. I was wisely encouraged to hurry up and get part 3 done because the coming weekend will be insane as well, which I am well in the midst of already.

6:30am arrived very early. As soon as I got up I made some strong Hazelnut coffee, as I eluded to above in Part 2. It was going to be a long day and on 3 hours of sleep, I knew it would be more than needed.

We were out the door by 7:30, which was a miracle in and of itself. The 5 of us (remember, we had 3 house guests that night) loaded into the van. It was still a bit chilly that morning, which is how we found out that the van we had borrowed had little to no working heat. Brrr…

Off to Ieva’s to pick her and Madara up, then Andis and last Peteris and Marta, and we were driving away form their house at 8am. I could hardly believe we were on time. on our way out of town, we dropped off Kristofers close to the main high way so he could hitchhike home. Everything in my American mind said “NO HITCHHIKING” but I know this is a very common practice here, especially among high school and college students… and in general anyone who doesn’t want to spend the money on a bus.

So off we 9 of us now went towards Riga. Our end destination for the concert we were to give that day was Cesvaine, a small town in Latgale (eastern Latvia) outside of Madona. We dropped off our 3 friends in Riga an hour and a half later, and continued onto Cesvaine.

Does it feel like it’s taking forever to get to the point? That’s what it felt like for us, too. It took us 5 nearly hours to get there.

We didn’t really understand what this concert was for… just that we were invited to play by one of Andis’ friends. We were under the impression that there were 4 Christian bands playing (us & 3 others) and that it was a big benefit concert for a local orphanage. Cool.

One of the things that we should have been more concerned about was the drum status. Our band does not have drums of our own, so we usually borrow them form one of two places, and often where we play will provide drums. That was the case this time too. One of the other bands was going to let us use their drums. No problem.

When we finally arrived, it was cold and rainy. We were also the first ones there, which was strange, because we were running late. We had heard that on band, the one bringing their drums, had been delayed because their car had broken down outside of Riga, but they were still coming. That helped soften the blow, because when Chris walked into the hall and saw the drums that were there, he about laughed. When asked if they were ok to use, he said, “A couple of card board boxes would be better. Sorry, but honestly, they are trash.” We were thinking, well, ok, we’ll just use them for our sound check and the other band will be here before we go on and we’ll use those for the concert.

This is when we also found out that there weren’t only 4 bands. I mean, there were, but there were other people… solo acts, dances, etc. Hmm… this was not what we were thinking. We also found out then that this wasn’t a Christian event. That’s not bad, but it did make a difference in our song line-up. I’m not sure when we discovered this, but at some point we were told there had been a misunderstanding and this isn’t a fund-raiser for an orphanage, but a local concert to raise funds for the continuing remodel of the Cesvaine castle. At this point, so many things had changed that we were just like, “Ok, whatever.”

Since the band bring the drums was going to be so late, they re-ordered the line up… so now, instead of us being one of the first groups, we were after the intermission, over an hour into the concert. We were getting a little concerned because we knew we had a long drive back yet, and everyone had school the next morning.

So, the concert began and we sat as spectators. It was a very strange feeling. Some of it was kind of cool. They had some Latvian Folk dances which was interesting to me. Then there was the choir that had a minimum age requirement of 80, I think. They sang forever, and we began to joke that by the time Fusion got up there they would be the same age. *smile*

During the concert the band finally arrived… but with no drums. They were told that there were drums there (the BAD drums) so not to bother bringing them since they had car trouble and just to come. So we now had 3 bands that were all without drums.

During intermission, the bands all went to set up. Ansis, the drummer from the third band did have his own cymbals and snare drum. Chris was very nervous to ask him if could borrow them, as this drummer is very protective of his pieces, and he should be, because they were very expensive and very good quality. But Chris felt he had no choice. Just as he was approaching him, Ansis said, “If you wanna use my stuff, you can. I understand the frustration and I know how you play, so I trust you.” WOW! High praise. So, all three drummers had some great cymbals and an awesome snare, and “cardboard boxes” for the other drums. It was nuts.

We had planned to leave the concert by 4:30pm so we could get home at a decent hour. We went on at 4:45pm. They did great though. They had all decided that if we had come all this way, we were going to give a good show, have fun and worship God no matter what happened. And they did.

Back on the road, though now it was snowing and, remember, no heat in the van. It was a long ride home and many slept most of the way. We got home that night at 11:30pm.

So, in the end, we:

• spent 9 - 9 1/2 hours driving there and back
• spent about 3 or 4 hours in Cesvaine, and
• played on stage for… 15 minutes.

I think we’re going to start being just a little bit more choosy over which concerts we do and which we don’t.

Monday morning, life started all over again. Now, a week late, I have 2 crazy American guys in my house, taken photos and video of our lives to make a documentary about our life & ministry in Latvia… so this past weekend and this week is… dare I say it… MORE insane than last weekend! Check out some AWESOME pictures that Jim is taking… click the link on the right to Jim Baker Photography.

*Disclaimer* It is highly recommended that the reader reads Part 1 (below) before reading Part 2. Also, after comments on readers being exhausted by just reading about what happened, the author takes no responsibility for any side effects reading this blog may incur. (This applies to Parts 1-3.) :)

Saturday… Saturday started out slowly. I had a bit of time to sleep in (thankfully) before the chaos of the day began. It’s one thing for life to be chaotic and for you to be able to express that to someone, but it’s a whole other thing when you have to keep this chaos under wraps, especially from a spouse.

Add to that the fact that I am a HORRIBLE liar. I can’t even play a good joke on people because I bust, I start laughing or whatever. I never could lie, even as a kid. Of course I still tried, but I always got caught, and my parents had this policy of “if you tell us about something you did before we find out, your punishment will be much less severe.” Since I am a logical person and hate being punished, I would just tell them what I did. Therefore, I never developed the are of lying. So, when it comes to surprises, it’s REALLY hard for me to pull off because it required so many secrets.

I started planning a surprise birthday party for Chris a week ago. I admit I didn’t really think it through, though, which is rare for me. I’m a very calculated person, so when I started spontaneously inviting people to a party for Chris, I then decided to make it a surprise. I knew that getting older was not an easy thing for Chris (or for any of us), so I thought turning 35 might be a tough one. I also knew that sometimes it’s hard to see if you’re making any effect on people. Living as a missionary, you always wonder if people are interested in you just because you’re foreign or if they actually care about you. So I thought it would be fun to try to pull people from all the different circles that Chris has participated in. So I started the list… YWAM people from the different bases, the band, other youth in Talsi, and other random people that he knows. I just kept inviting. I honestly didn’t think there would be that many people. Then the responses started coming in… Thankfully, I had contacted Kaspars in the beginning of this whole thing to see if he could help me by getting Chris out of the house in the afternoon and bringing him back at a specific time. Kaspars was game, and, as Chris declared later, is an incredible liar! (haha) (THANK YOU KASPARS!)

So Saturday I started cleaning. Chris was still home, but since I had a cover story (Kaspars and his wife Evelyn were “coming to dinner” that night), he didn’t think much about it. In the afternoon Chris had band practice and then I started my work in earnest. I started some baking and really cleaning. I had an idea of how many people may come, but you’re never really sure about something like this. Practice ended and Chris brought Ieva over “to hang out with me” while he went on an outing with Kaspars. Once Kaspars finally got here and we got Chris out of the house (at 4:30p), stuff really picked up. I then left Ieva to keep baking and to vacuum the house while I ran to the store and picked up Andis. We got back to the house at 5:30p. I put Andis in charge of decorations and jumped in the shower while Ieva drove back to town (driving by herself for the first time!!) to pick up our early out-of-town guests. They were back by 6:15p. I was frantically making food and others started to arrive at 6:30p. I was in the kitchen, and Andis was on door duty, so I wasn’t even sure how many people were coming, or who. I just kept cooking and directing. People, food, gifts (even though we said no gifts) and more people kept arriving. Before I knew it I got word that the guys were driving into our village, so we shoved everyone into our living room, shut the door and turned out the lights. Then Andis and I realized there were still had coats and shoes in the foyer! Oh no! Throw them in the bedroom! (Have you seen a bedroom where you throw 30 some coats and pairs of shoes?) Shut the door! And we began to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Where the heck were they? I looked out the kitchen window and finally saw them pulling into the parking lot. Ok, finally.

Another 5 minutes.

Cell phone call… it’s Kaspars. “Ok, we’re coming up now.” I’m thinking “It’s about time!” but I say “Yeah, ok, we’re ready!” It’s around 7:30p by now.

We only live on the 3rd floor, but it was another 3-4 minutes (which is an eternity when you’re doing something like this) before they came in. Of course Chris had no idea, so he’s just taking his time. He’s also dirty cause they had gone 4-wheeling, which is a big deal but kinda expensive to do here. He’s telling me all about it and I’m like, “Ok, well, why don’t you hang up your coat and come here, I have something to show you in the living room.” He says, “But my shoes are dirty.” (Dang European customs.) I say, “It’s ok, I just really wanna show you what I did.” I was so nervous. I had no idea how he would respond or react. Of course Kaspars is waiting too, so finally we go over to the living room door, I open it and turn on the lights and about 30 people who are crammed into my living room scream “SURPRISE!” and start singing Happy Birthday to him. He was very overwhelmed and I even saw tears in his eyes before he pulled his baseball cap down to cover them.

As he looked around at who was here, his first words were something like “The fact that you got all of these specific people in one place is amazing.” That’s what I wanted.

He did finally get his muddy shoes off and then a receiving line of sorts formed where each person could hug him and wish him a happy birthday and give him flowers or whatever. It was so sweet.

For the next 5 hours people from all the different realms of our lives mingled and talked and ate and ate and ate. The first hour or two I don’t think I stopped as I was still trying to fix more food and serve it. I did learn a valuable lesson by the time the cake went out and that being that I should always snag some for me before it hits the table. Thankfully that Honey cake was AMAZING, and I did get a piece of that. :)

Around 9:30 or so people slowly started leaving. (Was it my imagination or was it the older people first?) Once it got down to us and about 10 youth (around 11pm), some spontaneous worship broke out in the office. I listened as I started to clean up (I had no choice knowing how busy Sunday would be… but you’ll read that in Part 3) and my heart was so blessed. Here we were, celebrating Chris 35th birthday… I’m not too far behind his age either, and we have a room full of 16-20 year-olds hanging out in our house and worshiping God. It was awesome. I did join them later on and was so blessed.

At midnight Peteris’ mom came and picked up him and his sister, Marta, as well as Kristaps and Jogita. I got ready to take Ieva home and Madara was staying with her that night. Chris got our 3 house guests (Kristofers, Daiga & Keisii) installed in our guest room and in the living room.

It was awhile before we all quieted down and relaxed enough to go to sleep. For me it was that euphoria you experience between adrenaline and relaxation. I was SO glad and even surprised I had pulled it off. I had feared no one would come, but I was gladly mistaken. But I hadn’t realized how stressful keeping this from Chris had been. All of the sms/text messages, other message, skype chats that started with the other person saying “Lydia, is that you or Chris?” and phone calls that began with “Are you alone? Can you talk?”… it had become very tiring, and it hit me hard that night. I was just so overjoyed that I could do this for Chris, and so exhausted at the same time. I had so many nice comments about how much people enjoyed the evening. Surprise parties are not common here, so this was really a new experience for all the Latvians that were here (which was everyone except me & Chris and 4 others). I was also blessed when I was told that I had a real gift for hospitality. I love that.

In the end I counted it all up and we had 34 people in my 650 sq ft apartment. It was so much fun, though, and I can’t wait to do something like it again. :)

Just before going to bed, I got everything ready to make some strong coffee the next morning. The last thoughts on my mind, as I fell asleep at 3am, was that my alarm was going off in 3 1/2 hours… and then Part 3 of the longest weekend ever, would begin.

Stay tuned. :) Part 3 is coming soon.

I remember when I was younger and I used to live for the weekends… no school, no work, just fun. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but sometime in the last year, my weekends have become even busier than my weekdays, hence why I have taken to declaring Tuesdays as my “weekend”. I don’t have school and I try not to leave my house on that one day… but I digress.

This weekend’s insanity started on Friday morning. Ieva had been invited to a regional English competition. “Olympiads” are held often for each subject that the study, but since she had placed in the top 10 in her “county” (for 11-12th grade), she was invited to a regional competition. I ended up driving her to the competition in Tukums, around an hour away. She went in the test room and I went in the teacher’s room. This was a completely new experience for me. I had NO CLUE what to expect. I thought that since the room was full of English teachers, there may be some English conversation going on. That was mistake #1.

But then I stood up, and I looked around and I said, “I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Lydia. Yes, I’m an American and I volunteer teach the 12th grade English class at Talsi Christian school. I’m kinda nervous because I’ve never been to anything like this, so I’d really appreciate your help.” And then everyone smiled and were so polite and bent over backwards to help me!

Oh, no, wait, that’s right… that’s what happened in my extremely active imagination, when I become the bold confident person that I am not, though long to have the courage to be. What actually happened was… (pause) nothing. No one asked me anything, not who I was or anything. Chris could have walked in there and sat down and pretended he knew what was going on and no one would have been the wiser. Weird. They did ask us to grade the tests as each section was finished. I finally sat down next to another younger teacher and told her, quietly, that I had no idea what I was doing. She said, “We’re grading these tests.” Ok… I knew that much. After we finished that section, I decided to try to start a conversation with her. “So, where do you teach?” She responded, “I teach at a small school in Liepaja.” Silence. Nothing. My expectation would be that she would say, “And where do you teach?” Nope. Nothing. *sigh* I killed some time on my cell phone with Chris. Before too long Ieva was done and we had to leave before the results were finished. I figured since no one really knew I was there anyway, I wouldn’t be missed. So we kicked out of there. We did find out later that out of the 54 12-graders there, she got 13th place, which is really awesome! I was very proud of her!

So we jumped in the car, got some food at the grocery store (ever try eating something like potato salad with no utensils? I tried my little rolls, but that didn’t work. Ieva tried using potato chips but that didn’t work either. I ended up eating it with my fingers… while in a nice skirt outfit… while driving… a standard drive car. Oh the fun.)

We got back to Talsi and came home and crashed for an hour. Ieva actually fell asleep on my couch. Then I took her back to town for practice for the evening school event: Žetonvakars.

Žetonvakars is a traditional Latvian event in high school. It’s when the seniors get their class rings, kind of “inducting” them into the alumni of the school. It also a time when they thank their teachers, do some skits or music depicting school life and such, as well as receive some sort of “gift” from the 11th grade. (This year it was a song and “awards” for each of the seniors.) Afterwards there’s food and a million pictures to be taken. This started at 5pm and went to about 8:30pm. Chris took Ieva home and then brought me home to change clothes.

Then we went to Musician’s night at the Christian Fellowship. We often go to this event which is every other Friday. It started at 9pm and would be considered a flop if it ended before midnight. It was no flop. We left before everyone else, and got home at 12:30am.

Saturday dawned much earlier than I had hoped it would. But that’s in Part 2. :)

We started redoing our living room this weekend. Wow… this kind of thing is much easier in America. Our landlord gave us a budget of sorts since there’s a good amountof damage tot he walls we need to fix, and if we spend over that it’s on us. We’re over already. Eh, what can you do?

First, we had to strip wallpaper off the walls and ceilings that has been up for probably 20 years… it took 3 of us (me, Ieva & Andis 2 hours to get it off of one 5′x 8′ section. Then Sunday we all 4 worked on making concrete to fix the holes in the walls (all the walls are concrete). The we had to make plaster do cover all the walls. It took the 4 of us trading off about 8 hours. Thankfully this is Andis’ dad’s job & specialty and he’s worked with is dad a lot, so he knows what he’s doing & we were able to use his dad’s tools to do it all. Plus, since he’s 6′6″ (2 meters), he can do everything up to the ceilings without ladders and stuff. That helps.

Monday Andis plastered the ceiling while Chris and I sanded the walls. What a mess. I’m so stupid for not actually taking EVERYTHING out of the room before starting this process. We covered it all, but we now have fine plaster dust all over the house, even though doors were shut. I’m wondering if my carpet (yes, still in the room with dust and such all over it) will ever even be close to the same color again. Hmm…. We also started hanging wallpaper. (The wallpaper they have here that is made to paint over it. Since it’s hard to paint directly onto concrete. Plus is has a raised pattern of some sort on it so that any imperfections on the walls will be disguised.)

Yesterday (Tuesday) Chris sanded the ceiling, while I started painting doors. Then we painted the ceiling, of course ran out of paint, had to buy more and then I finished it while Chris went to band practice. Afterwards, Andis & Ieva came over and continued hanging wallpaper. He will finish it this evening.

Today (once I get going) we’ll put a second coat on the ceiling and I hope to get some of the walls painted… the ones that do have paper on them already. Possibly get some more trim done, too.

I’m pushing to get it done, pushing hard. I hate living like this. It doesn’t help that, to get to Chris’ office, you have to go through the mess of a living room. The cat is going nuts being confined to half the apartment and not being able to be with us while we work.

I’m tired and sore, but I’m SO anxious to get this done.