Now that Luke and I have both passed the B2 level Latvian language exam, our formal language studies are complete! However, that doesn’t mean we’ve yet arrived. There are still many situations where our hearts long to understand and communicate at a deeper level than we are yet able. But we celebrate the milestones and keep persevering!

Over the last month, we have been able to see some great progress as we have begun to preach and teach in Latvian! Luke preached his first sermon entirely in Latvian a few weeks ago to our church here in Ādaži. The men on the preaching rotation in our church (Luke and three others) are going through the book of I Corinthians, so Luke didn’t even get to choose his topic. His week landed on I Corinthians 8, which deals with food sacrificed to idols. That’s a confusing topic even in English, but he preached the entire sermon in Latvian (though Luke would say it was more reading aloud than preaching) ! Here is Luke preparing his sermon with Christopher’s help!

We have also been regularly leading worship in Latvian. Sometimes this is done with a couple other musicians in our church (vocals, keyboard), and sometimes it’s just the two of us. It has been wonderful to feel our hearts begin to be able to truly worship in a new language.

Our women’s small group meets every other Wednesday night for prayer and encouragement, but we have been struggling to incorporate consistent Bible study into our times together. Several of the ladies are newer believers, or have never really learned how to study the Bible, so I wanted to show them a simple Bible study method that can work with any passage of Scripture. I suggested using the “Seven Arrows” method (based on a book written by a couple of pastors/professors in SC). I translated the seven questions into Latvian, and Luke made a fancy bookmark! We’ve now used it for the last month and a half and the ladies are excited about studying God’s word together!

Here is the link to the Seven Arrows website if any of you are interested in using it for your own Bible study (personal or group!). https://www.sevenarrowsbible.com