Have a Merry Little Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Of all the fabulous Christmas Trees in Riga, this one is our favorite. Somebody in town has a very keen sense of design. Holiday cheer is everywhere downtown. We have the privilege of staying our first 4 nights in an apartment in Old Riga, right off the doorstep of Dome Square.  We walk out of our building and are presented with this charming little Christmas Village. 

The city is gorgeous with Christmas lights. They have done a wonderful, unique job of lighting up the night (which begins at 4:30pm). 

Of similar beauty ;) we proudly present OUR Christmas Tree......

We spent Christmas Eve at a church service in the building of Jekabs' childhood church, where he fondly remembers receiving the gift of a tangerine each Christmas. Afterwards, we spent our time decorating our cute tree with homemade, paper snowflakes and paper ornaments. The boys loved it! I do hope the owner of the apartment forgives us for using his plastic water pitcher to hold the tree up! It was that or a trash can! We chose to be a touch classier than the can. 

Our kids seem to be genuinely happy with the Christmas celebration we were able to scrape together in 2 hours while Jekabs' mom babysat. Although, after opening their 2.5 presents Isaac kindly asked me if that was all! I said "Yes, are you satisfied with your gifts?" He very graciously reassured me that he was. As a parent, there is always the conflict of not wanting to over-indulge, and yet not feel pangs of guilt or fear that we will disappoint their society induced high expectations of "Christmas magic". 

*********************************************************************************

Now that I have made note of our Christmas, I will mention our traveling. The day went smoothly. Each of our 3 flights were shorter in duration then originally expected. We had the fortune of strong tail winds to speed our delivery to Latvia. Liva was manageable until the last 15 minutes. She just vented all her agony in that last, small jet plane. How do you explain to all the surrounding passengers that this little baby DESERVED every moment of her screaming agony, after enduring 15 hours of almost non-stop air travel? I was only sorry for her. 

I must be honest and say regret and remorse are what greeted me at RIX (Riga International Airport).

"What in the world did we just do to our lives?"

Pang after pang of regret. 

 We gave up a lot materially and emotionally to move here. Jekabs gave up a very good, nice paying job. We gave up owning a home. We gave up a network of close friends. I gave up being able to converse normally to people. We made Isaac and Crish give up their best friends! I gave up my Cadillac! What a nice car that was! (By the way, it is currently sitting in Tulsa, Ok waiting for a better week then the week of CHRISTMAS to be sold!) We gave up 80% of our personal belongings. All we own is shoved into a 5 x 10 storage unit "closet" in Texas......We gave up America, for awhile. 

But, now that the sensation of depressing culture shock is diminishing (my thoughts of regret are almost entirely gone), I am remembering the light. Partially, which is the lightened burden of not managing so many material possessions. 90% of the stress of moving is dealing with STUFF! This must equate to a similarly high percentage of life's frustrations being concerned with stuff.  Saying goodbye to friends is deeply saddening, but dealing with stuff is awful. Now I understand why people hate moving. You have to find a place for every miniscule object you own, be it the trash can, recycling bin, a willing friend, donation center or storage tote. 

Anyway, we all are healthy and and fairly happy. It is always a new adjustment to come back and adjust my expectations of how to live here. I love the fact that I just had a delightful conversation with a Latvian couple who just moved back from spending 5 years in England. Many of the adjustments were similar (why do people around here appear so grumpy!). Cheerfulness really is a choice that societies/cultures make. This culture has chosen to suppress emotions. Yes, all you Latvians know this is true! There is some benefit to this attitude, I suppose. You bypass a lot of pretentious social facades, which can be exhausting. 

Our living situation over the next 4 weeks is not ideal. We will stay in Riga another 2 days, overnight with his parents for 2 nights, move into university dorm housing for 2.5 weeks, then settle into a more permanent apartment on Jan. 16. Is there a house shuffling song that is available to be our anthem? 

Finally, a big THANK YOU to Jekabs' mom, Sarmite, for thoughtfully offering babysitting to us every afternoon we have been in town. That's a perk we are not used to! 

We'll be in touch again soon!

April 

Greetings from our family!

Fast forward 2.5 years from our last documented adventure, Riga 2011...Living Latvia Outloud, and we are happy to report that since that time we have added a precious baby girl to our family, Liva Rue (16 months old, pronounced Leeva ), Jekabs completed and earned his Ph.D., and we have made the decision to
move to Lithuania, on December 22, 2013.

What an adventure! It all started back in May when a recruiter with LCC International University (a christian university in Klaipeda, Lithuania), touched base with Jekabs during a visit to Dallas Baptist University. Knowing that his origins were from Latvia, she thought that perhaps, one day, we would be interested in pursuing a relationship with the university. Interestingly, we always said we would like to move to Latvia for a couple of years. Now, we feel so blessed to have the opportunity to make a big red check on our Bucket List! Jekabs will be the Chair of the Business Administration Department at LCC. The job is a 3 year commitment, but considering his family ties to Latvia and my long time fascination with Europe, we hope to successfully live there for 3-5+ years. Of course, the future in unpredictable, but if we could choose our route, that would be it.

A bit of information on our soon to be home:

Klaipeda, Lithuania is a port city located approximately 3 hours southwest of Riga, Latvia (where Jekabs is originally from). It is on the west coast of Lithuania, on the Baltic Sea (see map below). Klaipeda is the 3rd largest city in Lithuania, with a population of 160,000. After living in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for 15 years (population 6.7 million) this sounds positively wonderful! I wholeheartedly welcome the down size. 

A significant change coming our way is the climate. We will experience very long, dark, cold winters (think Canada). We would gratefully appreciate your prayers for our well being during the time period of November thru April. However, don't worry about us in the summer! In the summer months, we will experience the most glorious, light filled days. Our joy will be bountiful as our days will soar to the heightened temperature of 85 degrees, possibly 90 degrees on an unusually warm day. And sunlight will fill the vibrant sky for 20 hours a day, paradise! 

On that note, summer is the perfect time for you to visit us! We know a lot of you have dreamed of a vacation to Europe sometime during your lifetime. We extend an invitation to anyone who is willing and able to travel. For the joy of your company, we will try our best to accommodate you with complimentary bed and breakfast (in other words, if you come half way across the world to visit us, you can stay with us for free,  although you will have to tip toe around our children's toys and toothbrushes in the bathroom, in a tight space of around 1000 square feet, up to1500 if we get lucky!) and you will have plenty of interesting excursions around the lovely Baltic towns and capitals. However, let me recap and say that this invitation belongs to family and friends and NOT to the world wide web community!

If you are the praying type and feel inclined to pray for us, we would greatly appreciate it! Our needs are pretty much centered around adjusting well. 

 

Prayer Considerations

1. Adjusting to our big change in the middle of a cold, dark winter.

2. Isaac will enter a Lithuanian private school. He will experience total immersion in a way that no one else in our family will have to experience. He is a brilliant kid, but it will still be a huge challenge for several months as he slowly becomes fluent in Lithuanian. Please pray for him. He is also very sad to leave his school and his best friend of 6 years (prayers for Jackson as he has to say goodbye to this friendship). Isaac has a very willing spirit, but he is still sad.


3. Wisdom for Jekabs as he tries to balance work and home. Most of you know what an incredible dad he is. He devotes hours of active play time with our kids every day, but he can still get a little carried away with the amount of work he is willing to take on.


4. Prayers for April not to have a rollercoaster of emotions, but for steady emotions as we work through all the changes and details. I am on board with this decision 100%, but we will have periods of struggles no matter how much we believe this is God's will for our family. The university  has a term for those in my shoes, "trailing wives." Those of us who come along to this new culture, but stay at home, in a non-working environment, with young kids to constantly tend to. We have been told that "trailing wives" often have the most difficult time because of isolation.

5. Blessings on Christian and Liva. They are young enough to not mourn the fact that we are moving. Christian is still young enough (4.5) that most of his world still revolves around mom and dad, and only partly on preschool and friends. Wherever we are, he will be happy and secure. Although, I do plan on finding a preschool for him soon after we arrive. That will be his opportunity to begin learning Lithuanian and getting his foot in the door for Lithuanian education. Regarding Liva, well, she will only be difficult to travel with and to get comfortable sleeping in a new environment. She will be exhausting for us!

6. We have much to sell in the next 2 weeks (cars and furniture) and much to pack. It is very overwhelming.  Also, we will need to buy a car very soon after arrival, so prayers for good provision and good decision making.  

Please feel free to stay connected through this blog, facebook, or email. We love and appreciate our friends and family and hope you enjoy reading about some of our experiences. As of now, we are planning to spend 4 or 5 days in Riga, celebrating Christmas with "omama and opops" and attending an extended family Christmas gathering with Jekabs family a few days after Christmas. Then, we will travel on to Klaipeda and settle into a temporary dorm room or guest house for approximately 20 days. We are currently working on leasing a spacious 2 story apartment with a move in date in the middle of January. We are hopeful that this apartment will be our home for the first 6 months or so. There is much for us to discover in the next couple of months. Thank you for your well wishes and prayers! We will miss you!

Sincerely,
April.....Jekabs, Isaac, Christian and Liva Rue