After living in Lithuania for 6 years, it's easy for us to forget that many people have either lost track what we do here, while some new friends may have never had a very good picture of it in the first place!
The following series of blog posts are categorized topically, allowing you to read what interests you most.
Life in Lithuania 1 gives a general overview of how we came to live here, links to specific information about LCC's mission & history, where we've lived, how our family has grown & a little about our lifestyle .
Life in Lithuania 2 is more specifically about our ministry roles at LCC and how our jobs have evolved over the past 6 years.
Life in Lithuania 3 gives you a taste of our economy here - what things cost and how that has changed during the past 6 years as well.
Life in Lithuania 4 specifically outlines the details of how our funding process works. If you're feeling led to donate to our ministry, please see that post for information for how to do it online or via snail mail.
Life in Lithuania 5 tells you about our church history over the past 6 years while we've lived here and some of the things we've learned about "doing church" on the mission field.
These will give you a brief taste of our lives here...if there is some other aspect of our lives that you're interested in hearing more about, please let us know!
Monday, April 14, 2008
Life in Lithuania 1: an overview from 01-08
In December 2001, we were told about a Christian College in Lithuania that develops leaders in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. We were intrigued & upon further research, discovered much more about this unique place called Lithuania Christian College. In 1991, months after the country of Lithuania gained its' independence from the Soviet Union, LCC was founded at the request of the national ministry of education. To read more basic facts & figures about LCC, click here.
In August 2002, we sold virtually everything we owned, let people borrow the rest & moved from Newberg, Oregon to Klaipeda, Lithuania to work for LCC. Andrew was 26 years old & Kim was 27. We had been married two years. Andrew was hired to be the Sports & Recreation and Student Orientation Coordinator, and Kim to be the Director of Leadership & Service. In 2002, LCC had approximately 500 students and only approximately 20 of them were international students (not counting students from neighboring Latvia).
We had to raise $19,000 for our first year here. The value of one US dollar was 3.54 Lithuanian Lita (LTL). For every $100 that was donated to us, we got 354 LTL - it was a great deal! As I write today, April 6, 2008 we currently get 2.2 LTL to every US dollar. This year we need to raise $37,000 to cover our living expenses. To read more of our perspectives about the changing economy in Lithuania, click here.
From 2002-2003 we lived on the 5th floor of a red brick Soviet-bloc apartment building that looked identical to the 50 other buildings in our neighborhood - some were 12 story while some (like ours) were only 5. There were 3 apartments on every floor. Our apartment had two bedrooms as well as a two-room bathroom (tub, sink & washer in one, toilet in the other) & a small balcony. We didn't own cell phones. Or a car.
In the spring of 2003 we moved to the 3rd floor of a small German house on a quaint, tree-lined cobblestone street named Vilties Gatve (Hope Street). It houses an Oil company office on the 1st floor, a family with 3 kids on the 2nd & us at the top. Our apartment has two bedrooms & the room for the toilet is inside the larger bathroom in this one. We have a nice big balcony, but no bathtub. We got cell phones, but not a car.
In the fall of 2003 we acquired our first baby, Astorijus the cat. A colleague heard him crying in her parking lot when he was only 3 week old & rescued him. She didn't want a cat, but knew we did. We thought she was a girl, so we named her Astorija (Astoria) to remind us of the beautiful city in Oregon, but with a Lithuanian spelling. As she grew bigger she grew parts that only boy cats have, and since Lithuanian names can easily be converted to the opposite gender, we changed his name to Astorijus (A-story-oos). We call him Asti. He comes when we call & is always waiting at the door when we come home. He loves to play, but never uses his claws on people - only the furniture.
In September of 2005, Ieva Kirstine was born in the Baltic American Clinic in our capital city of Vilnius. If you want to read more or see photos, go back to our earlier blogs here. She has been the highlight of our lives since the day she was born!
Now in 2008, we're nearly finished with our 6th academic year at LCC. The school has changed its' name to LCC International University. Andrew is now the Athletic Director & Kim the Director of Community Life. The president who has served for the vast majority of LCC's 17- year life, Jim Mininger, is about to retire after 14 years of service. Our student population has grown to 600 students, nearly half of whom are internationals.
We've lived in our little house in the trees (as my dear Aunt Shelley calls it) for 5 years and have started our family here. We still don't have a bathtub or a car (despite our temptations to purchase both), and Kim still uses the same cell phone she bought in 2003 (who needs new technology??) Andrew is now 31 & Kim 33 years old. We just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary last month & adore playing with our 2-1/2 year old daughter. We've lived in Lithuania for approximately 65% of our married life and have worked at LCC longer than either of us have worked any other job.
This is Lithuania: our home.
In August 2002, we sold virtually everything we owned, let people borrow the rest & moved from Newberg, Oregon to Klaipeda, Lithuania to work for LCC. Andrew was 26 years old & Kim was 27. We had been married two years. Andrew was hired to be the Sports & Recreation and Student Orientation Coordinator, and Kim to be the Director of Leadership & Service. In 2002, LCC had approximately 500 students and only approximately 20 of them were international students (not counting students from neighboring Latvia).
We had to raise $19,000 for our first year here. The value of one US dollar was 3.54 Lithuanian Lita (LTL). For every $100 that was donated to us, we got 354 LTL - it was a great deal! As I write today, April 6, 2008 we currently get 2.2 LTL to every US dollar. This year we need to raise $37,000 to cover our living expenses. To read more of our perspectives about the changing economy in Lithuania, click here.
From 2002-2003 we lived on the 5th floor of a red brick Soviet-bloc apartment building that looked identical to the 50 other buildings in our neighborhood - some were 12 story while some (like ours) were only 5. There were 3 apartments on every floor. Our apartment had two bedrooms as well as a two-room bathroom (tub, sink & washer in one, toilet in the other) & a small balcony. We didn't own cell phones. Or a car.
In the spring of 2003 we moved to the 3rd floor of a small German house on a quaint, tree-lined cobblestone street named Vilties Gatve (Hope Street). It houses an Oil company office on the 1st floor, a family with 3 kids on the 2nd & us at the top. Our apartment has two bedrooms & the room for the toilet is inside the larger bathroom in this one. We have a nice big balcony, but no bathtub. We got cell phones, but not a car.
In the fall of 2003 we acquired our first baby, Astorijus the cat. A colleague heard him crying in her parking lot when he was only 3 week old & rescued him. She didn't want a cat, but knew we did. We thought she was a girl, so we named her Astorija (Astoria) to remind us of the beautiful city in Oregon, but with a Lithuanian spelling. As she grew bigger she grew parts that only boy cats have, and since Lithuanian names can easily be converted to the opposite gender, we changed his name to Astorijus (A-story-oos). We call him Asti. He comes when we call & is always waiting at the door when we come home. He loves to play, but never uses his claws on people - only the furniture.
In September of 2005, Ieva Kirstine was born in the Baltic American Clinic in our capital city of Vilnius. If you want to read more or see photos, go back to our earlier blogs here. She has been the highlight of our lives since the day she was born!
Now in 2008, we're nearly finished with our 6th academic year at LCC. The school has changed its' name to LCC International University. Andrew is now the Athletic Director & Kim the Director of Community Life. The president who has served for the vast majority of LCC's 17- year life, Jim Mininger, is about to retire after 14 years of service. Our student population has grown to 600 students, nearly half of whom are internationals.
We've lived in our little house in the trees (as my dear Aunt Shelley calls it) for 5 years and have started our family here. We still don't have a bathtub or a car (despite our temptations to purchase both), and Kim still uses the same cell phone she bought in 2003 (who needs new technology??) Andrew is now 31 & Kim 33 years old. We just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary last month & adore playing with our 2-1/2 year old daughter. We've lived in Lithuania for approximately 65% of our married life and have worked at LCC longer than either of us have worked any other job.
This is Lithuania: our home.
Life in Lithuania 2: What we do
In 2002, we were both hired to work in LCC's 3-year old Student Life division: Andrew as the Sports & Recreation and Student Orientation Coordinator & Kim as the Director of Leadership.
In the 5 years Andrew had this role he supervised a 3-student sports & rec staff who planned & facilitated sport tournaments. Back in 2002 we didn't have a gym, so he organized ping-pong, pool & chess matches. Since there was an outdoor basketball court behind our student dormitory (a 30-minute walk from the main campus), they would occasionally organize a basketball or floor hockey tournament there. Since the completion of the Michealsen Center in 2003, he's increased his sporting events to include intramural basketball, volleyball & football (American soccer) tournaments, as well as introduce badminton and indoor floor hockey to the LCC student athletes. With the new gym came a beautiful weight room and a 5-person fitness center staff whom he also supervises. He also helped coach the LCC men's basketball league team in that time. On the Orientation side of things, he supervised a 12-student staff to plan freshman orientation events and taught a first year seminar class (then called LIFE group).
In August of 2007 along with the inception of a serious men's basketball program (including a recruited coaching staff & recruited players), Andrew was promoted to Athletic Director. Beginning in the fall of 2008, he'll pass the orientation baton to someone else to focus fully on developing LCC's growing athletic programs.
Quickly after being recruited for the Director of Leadership role, Kim received notification that the position she was REALLY interested in at LCC became available and she transitioned into the Director of Community Life (which was where her real passions lay all along). In 2002 she supervised a 3-person staff of Resident Directors (RDs), all of whom lived & worked in LCC's one dormitory, Karklu Hall. Each RD had a side responsibility supervising another, smaller student program: student activities, student health & international students. In 2003 Kim's staff shrank to 2 as we decreased the RD staff, but in 2004 it went back up to 3 as we saw the need for a more comprehensive educational program for our rapidly increasing international student population and developed the Intercultural Student Program.
During the 2006-2007 academic year, Kim's role took on a whole new vision as she worked on the planning team of a new on-campus residence hall. Due to this new facility opening it's doors in August 2007, her RD staff increased back up to 3 again. At the same time, with our international student population continuing to sky-rocket, we saw the need for a second staff member working on the Intercultural Team and Kim's overall staff increased to 5.
Kim has also been given a myriad of additional responsibilities throughout the past 6 years as a sort of "second in command" within the LCC Student Life Division. Whenever our VP is away, Kim is acting VP. For the past few years she has managed the Student Life staff recruitment process and serves as the primary judicial affairs officer (disciplinarian) for the campus. She has run the Student Life programming each July for the Summer Language Institute (SLI) and has been given a slew of other random responsibilities ranging from editing the Student Handbook to organizing the "bag of chips" staff award.
Both of us stay very BUSY...but both of us love what we've been called to do. Andrew has been able to work with LCC's athletic demographic to teach & model sportsmanship & has had countless opportunities to engage in meaningful discussions with these students. Kim has worked closely with LCC's residential population & has really enjoyed the conversations that largely result from disciplinary situations, as it's there that she can dig deep about the real issues in students' lives.
In the 5 years Andrew had this role he supervised a 3-student sports & rec staff who planned & facilitated sport tournaments. Back in 2002 we didn't have a gym, so he organized ping-pong, pool & chess matches. Since there was an outdoor basketball court behind our student dormitory (a 30-minute walk from the main campus), they would occasionally organize a basketball or floor hockey tournament there. Since the completion of the Michealsen Center in 2003, he's increased his sporting events to include intramural basketball, volleyball & football (American soccer) tournaments, as well as introduce badminton and indoor floor hockey to the LCC student athletes. With the new gym came a beautiful weight room and a 5-person fitness center staff whom he also supervises. He also helped coach the LCC men's basketball league team in that time. On the Orientation side of things, he supervised a 12-student staff to plan freshman orientation events and taught a first year seminar class (then called LIFE group).
In August of 2007 along with the inception of a serious men's basketball program (including a recruited coaching staff & recruited players), Andrew was promoted to Athletic Director. Beginning in the fall of 2008, he'll pass the orientation baton to someone else to focus fully on developing LCC's growing athletic programs.
Quickly after being recruited for the Director of Leadership role, Kim received notification that the position she was REALLY interested in at LCC became available and she transitioned into the Director of Community Life (which was where her real passions lay all along). In 2002 she supervised a 3-person staff of Resident Directors (RDs), all of whom lived & worked in LCC's one dormitory, Karklu Hall. Each RD had a side responsibility supervising another, smaller student program: student activities, student health & international students. In 2003 Kim's staff shrank to 2 as we decreased the RD staff, but in 2004 it went back up to 3 as we saw the need for a more comprehensive educational program for our rapidly increasing international student population and developed the Intercultural Student Program.
During the 2006-2007 academic year, Kim's role took on a whole new vision as she worked on the planning team of a new on-campus residence hall. Due to this new facility opening it's doors in August 2007, her RD staff increased back up to 3 again. At the same time, with our international student population continuing to sky-rocket, we saw the need for a second staff member working on the Intercultural Team and Kim's overall staff increased to 5.
Kim has also been given a myriad of additional responsibilities throughout the past 6 years as a sort of "second in command" within the LCC Student Life Division. Whenever our VP is away, Kim is acting VP. For the past few years she has managed the Student Life staff recruitment process and serves as the primary judicial affairs officer (disciplinarian) for the campus. She has run the Student Life programming each July for the Summer Language Institute (SLI) and has been given a slew of other random responsibilities ranging from editing the Student Handbook to organizing the "bag of chips" staff award.
Both of us stay very BUSY...but both of us love what we've been called to do. Andrew has been able to work with LCC's athletic demographic to teach & model sportsmanship & has had countless opportunities to engage in meaningful discussions with these students. Kim has worked closely with LCC's residential population & has really enjoyed the conversations that largely result from disciplinary situations, as it's there that she can dig deep about the real issues in students' lives.
Life in Lithuania 3: The Wallet
When we arrived in Lithuania, one of the first things that hit us was how cheap everything was: groceries, eating out, going to movies, transportation, etc. Our first day in Klaipeda, a colleague took us to a restaurant and we ate dinner for 12 litas ($3.40 US) including a full meal and coke.
We would routinely get groceries, filling up two large bags with food and household products for around 50 litas ($14.15 US) and be on our merry way. Getting around town was easy as a bus ticket from one end of town to the other (purchased in advance) cost .80 centas ($0.23 US). A taxi ride from our house to LCC was 4 litas ($1.13 US) , including a small tip for the driver.
On the occasion that we wanted a good dose of Americana we would go to the local cinema and see an American movie in English with Lithuanian subtitles. On cheap movie Mondays, the viewing cost us 6 litas ($1.69 US) or the full price on other days was 10 litas ($2.82 US). Dinner and a movie could be had for the two of us for 50 litas ($14.15 US) resulting in two well-fed and well-entertained foreigners.
As we slowly watched the value of the US dollar decline in relationship to the Euro, (the Lita is attached to the value of the Euro: if it goes up, so does the Lita) we watched as things started to slowly get more expensive. Today's US dollar buys 2.19 litas, a drop of 39% of its value 6 years ago. This combined with the double digit inflation that we are experiencing lately has caused a large increase in the costs that we are having to bear.
That same dinner we had on our first day in town is now 21 litas ($9.58 US), the same movie costs 13 litas ($5.93 US). The grocery store now only gives us one bag full of groceries for our 50 litas ($22.83 US).
Getting around town just went up last month as the pre-purchased bus ticket is now 1.50 litas ($0.68 US) and the same taxi ride is now 8 litas ($3.65 US). It is good, however, not to have a car as gas prices here are outrageous: 3.30 litas per liter or 13.20 litas per gallon ($6.02 US) up from 2.20 litas per liter, 8.80 per gallon. ($2.48 US).
While everything overall has become somewhat more expensive, the place where our wallets really feel the pinch is in our housing costs. When we arrived, monthly rent for our first apartment was 1000 litas with an average utility bill of 250 litas (1250 litas = $353 US) Our apartment now costs 1100 litas per month with an average utility bill of closer to 400 litas. (1500 litas =$684.93 US) In the winter months with heating prices increasing, our highest month was nearly 1700 litas ($776.26 US). Ouch!
Even the postage that we use to send our thank you notes, Christmas cards and prayer letters has risen dramatically. Recently we bought 20 international stamps for 2.90 litas apiece ($1.32 US). Prior to 2007, international stamps cost 1.70 litas each ($0.58 US).
As you can see, what used to be the quaint and inexpensive land of Eastern Europe has rapidly become much more like Western Europe: the place that we joke about not being able to afford to visit.
We would routinely get groceries, filling up two large bags with food and household products for around 50 litas ($14.15 US) and be on our merry way. Getting around town was easy as a bus ticket from one end of town to the other (purchased in advance) cost .80 centas ($0.23 US). A taxi ride from our house to LCC was 4 litas ($1.13 US) , including a small tip for the driver.
On the occasion that we wanted a good dose of Americana we would go to the local cinema and see an American movie in English with Lithuanian subtitles. On cheap movie Mondays, the viewing cost us 6 litas ($1.69 US) or the full price on other days was 10 litas ($2.82 US). Dinner and a movie could be had for the two of us for 50 litas ($14.15 US) resulting in two well-fed and well-entertained foreigners.
As we slowly watched the value of the US dollar decline in relationship to the Euro, (the Lita is attached to the value of the Euro: if it goes up, so does the Lita) we watched as things started to slowly get more expensive. Today's US dollar buys 2.19 litas, a drop of 39% of its value 6 years ago. This combined with the double digit inflation that we are experiencing lately has caused a large increase in the costs that we are having to bear.
That same dinner we had on our first day in town is now 21 litas ($9.58 US), the same movie costs 13 litas ($5.93 US). The grocery store now only gives us one bag full of groceries for our 50 litas ($22.83 US).
Getting around town just went up last month as the pre-purchased bus ticket is now 1.50 litas ($0.68 US) and the same taxi ride is now 8 litas ($3.65 US). It is good, however, not to have a car as gas prices here are outrageous: 3.30 litas per liter or 13.20 litas per gallon ($6.02 US) up from 2.20 litas per liter, 8.80 per gallon. ($2.48 US).
While everything overall has become somewhat more expensive, the place where our wallets really feel the pinch is in our housing costs. When we arrived, monthly rent for our first apartment was 1000 litas with an average utility bill of 250 litas (1250 litas = $353 US) Our apartment now costs 1100 litas per month with an average utility bill of closer to 400 litas. (1500 litas =$684.93 US) In the winter months with heating prices increasing, our highest month was nearly 1700 litas ($776.26 US). Ouch!
Even the postage that we use to send our thank you notes, Christmas cards and prayer letters has risen dramatically. Recently we bought 20 international stamps for 2.90 litas apiece ($1.32 US). Prior to 2007, international stamps cost 1.70 litas each ($0.58 US).
As you can see, what used to be the quaint and inexpensive land of Eastern Europe has rapidly become much more like Western Europe: the place that we joke about not being able to afford to visit.
Life in Lithuania 4: How we're funded
Let's start in the very beginning... (a very good place to start!)
When we first learned about LCC and our chance to be a part of it, the reality of raising our own support was a daunting task. Kim had raised support for a number of short team projects but as far as long term, full time support raising, neither of us had much experience with it.
We clung to the promise that God's finger would never point where His hand would not provide and proceeded to send out more then 400 letters to friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues and anyone else that we could think of that might be interested in partnering with us in this journey God was taking us on.
We received an abundance of responses to our letter, many one time gifts, many words of encouragement, commitments of prayer and approximately 30 commitments to monthly funding. With a good percentage of our first year's annual need (around $19,000) raised in one time gifts, a huge garage sale and early monthly gifts, we moved our life to Lithuania in August of 2002.
How our funding works...
Individuals and/or churches send monthly, annual or one-time checks to LCC's North American Charity office in Harrisonburg, Virginia where an LCC employee logs the checks, ensures that the money is credited to the right LCC employee and deposits a predetermined monthly amount into our checking account. This same amount is deposited whether or not we receive the actual sum total needed that month, which means LCC pays for us in advance (to ensure we have what we need each month) and the funds that come in for us pay LCC back.
Each LCC employee operates within a recommended budget amount that is based on a number of variables (number of family members, educational loans, childcare, etc). Our budget includes lines for:
Different strokes for different folks...
North American volunteers at LCC are funded from a variety of sources. Some are sent by their mission agency fully funded, some are sent by mission agencies only partially funded & have to raise the rest. Others are funded fully by churches while others are self-funded. One set of friends are actually funded by one individual who hires them on as employees and pays them to teach at LCC.
There are several of us for whom LCC acts as our mission agency, which means we have to work individually to raise all our funding, but the donations are channeled through & organized by LCC. We've been told by the LCC charity office that in LCC's 17-year history, we have had the broadest range of individual donors of any expat volunteer. That donor group includes approximately 30 consistently-giving individuals or families, three consistently-giving churches and a large number of individuals who have given one-time gifts.
Set-backs...
This system has worked fairly well for us (our needs have essentially been met each year), but since our costs have doubled during our 6 years here, it's getting more difficult to continue living off the same monthly gift amounts that were established in 2002. This means we have to keep working at finding new monthly donors and pray that God would continue to lay us on the hearts of those who have the resources to give us a significant one-time gift.
As our time in Lithuania has gone on, we've been amazed by the faithfulness of many of our long term, consistent givers. We've also had a number of amazing surprises, people who gave one-time gifts that shocked and humbled us. Over the past six years we have truly experienced the love & support of a long-distance community who give so faithfully.
This year...
Over the years we've also lost a large number of supporters; people who pledged to give and for whatever reason, have dropped off our lists. While we have continued to speak in churches, make new contacts and communicate the vision and ministry of what we are doing in Lithuania, this year's funding has been much poorer than in past years. Aside from our shifting support base, some other suspected reasons are Lithuania's recent inflation, the incredibly weak US dollar, and six years of being further from only being in people's minds through e-newsletters, blogs and notes.
Ultimately however, it's the declining dollar and rising prices that have most impacted our costs. A $50 per month gift in 2002 resulted in 3% of our total annual need. That same gift today in 2008 meets only 1.5 % of our annual need. In 2002 dollars, it bought us 177 litas. Today it buys us 109.5. This means that we either need to have more people giving the same amounts or the same people giving larger amounts or some combination of both to meet our needs.
You can either donate a tax-deductible gift online here, or send a check made out to LCC INTERNATIONAL FUND to LCC International Fund, 39 Southgate Court, Suite 202, Harrisonburg, VA 22801. Please put our names on the memo line so the funds go to our account. Thank you!
When we first learned about LCC and our chance to be a part of it, the reality of raising our own support was a daunting task. Kim had raised support for a number of short team projects but as far as long term, full time support raising, neither of us had much experience with it.
We clung to the promise that God's finger would never point where His hand would not provide and proceeded to send out more then 400 letters to friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues and anyone else that we could think of that might be interested in partnering with us in this journey God was taking us on.
We received an abundance of responses to our letter, many one time gifts, many words of encouragement, commitments of prayer and approximately 30 commitments to monthly funding. With a good percentage of our first year's annual need (around $19,000) raised in one time gifts, a huge garage sale and early monthly gifts, we moved our life to Lithuania in August of 2002.
How our funding works...
Individuals and/or churches send monthly, annual or one-time checks to LCC's North American Charity office in Harrisonburg, Virginia where an LCC employee logs the checks, ensures that the money is credited to the right LCC employee and deposits a predetermined monthly amount into our checking account. This same amount is deposited whether or not we receive the actual sum total needed that month, which means LCC pays for us in advance (to ensure we have what we need each month) and the funds that come in for us pay LCC back.
Each LCC employee operates within a recommended budget amount that is based on a number of variables (number of family members, educational loans, childcare, etc). Our budget includes lines for:
- Travel to and from the States (1x/year for fundraising)
- Housing
- Living expenses
- Visa and residency permits
- Medical insurance
- Child care,
- Graduate school loans
- Discretionary travel
- And in our final year, there will be a resettlement allotment
Different strokes for different folks...
North American volunteers at LCC are funded from a variety of sources. Some are sent by their mission agency fully funded, some are sent by mission agencies only partially funded & have to raise the rest. Others are funded fully by churches while others are self-funded. One set of friends are actually funded by one individual who hires them on as employees and pays them to teach at LCC.
There are several of us for whom LCC acts as our mission agency, which means we have to work individually to raise all our funding, but the donations are channeled through & organized by LCC. We've been told by the LCC charity office that in LCC's 17-year history, we have had the broadest range of individual donors of any expat volunteer. That donor group includes approximately 30 consistently-giving individuals or families, three consistently-giving churches and a large number of individuals who have given one-time gifts.
Set-backs...
This system has worked fairly well for us (our needs have essentially been met each year), but since our costs have doubled during our 6 years here, it's getting more difficult to continue living off the same monthly gift amounts that were established in 2002. This means we have to keep working at finding new monthly donors and pray that God would continue to lay us on the hearts of those who have the resources to give us a significant one-time gift.
As our time in Lithuania has gone on, we've been amazed by the faithfulness of many of our long term, consistent givers. We've also had a number of amazing surprises, people who gave one-time gifts that shocked and humbled us. Over the past six years we have truly experienced the love & support of a long-distance community who give so faithfully.
This year...
Over the years we've also lost a large number of supporters; people who pledged to give and for whatever reason, have dropped off our lists. While we have continued to speak in churches, make new contacts and communicate the vision and ministry of what we are doing in Lithuania, this year's funding has been much poorer than in past years. Aside from our shifting support base, some other suspected reasons are Lithuania's recent inflation, the incredibly weak US dollar, and six years of being further from only being in people's minds through e-newsletters, blogs and notes.
Ultimately however, it's the declining dollar and rising prices that have most impacted our costs. A $50 per month gift in 2002 resulted in 3% of our total annual need. That same gift today in 2008 meets only 1.5 % of our annual need. In 2002 dollars, it bought us 177 litas. Today it buys us 109.5. This means that we either need to have more people giving the same amounts or the same people giving larger amounts or some combination of both to meet our needs.
Will you prayerfully consider joining our funding family?
You can either donate a tax-deductible gift online here, or send a check made out to LCC INTERNATIONAL FUND to LCC International Fund, 39 Southgate Court, Suite 202, Harrisonburg, VA 22801. Please put our names on the memo line so the funds go to our account. Thank you!
Life in Lithuania 5: Our church
Many people wonder how we "do church" while living in Lithuania. It's certainly been an interesting process, but we're so thankful for how God has provided us with a church home that truly has become the body of Christ to us.
From 2002-2005 we attended St. John's English-speaking Anglican church. Services were in the evening so we could rent building space from the Evangelical Lutheran church. Our pastor was an English Anglican Minister married to a wonderfully sweet Dutch woman. Toward the end of 2004, the British dioceses decided that St. John's was not a self-sustaining congregation & needed to close its' doors. In other words, the congregation couldn't pay to keep the church going. But the congregation was made up of missionaries & students -- go figure!!
Since the majority of our congregation was made up of LCC staff, faculty & students, we made a decision to go through a period of discernment to seek the Lord's leading on what was next for us. At the end of it all, we felt led to begin our own body - International Christian Fellowship (ICF). We partnered with the local Salvation Army ministry, as they have a large facility that is perfect for our needs & our rent helps them fund their work with the local homeless & street kid population. Partnering with them also gives us opportunities to join in their ministries, which has been a tremendous blessing for our congregation!
It used to be difficult to worship with the same people every Sunday that we saw at work every day. But the longer we're there, the greater sense of community we feel within that specific group. Not everyone at LCC attends ICF. There is also an evangelical Christian Lithuanian church called City Church that meets at LCC each week where many colleagues go. It tends to have more upbeat & modern worship and there is translation from Lithuanian into English for non-Lithuanian speakers. We've attended at times, but have consistently felt led to stay at ICF and worship and engage with God in the language of our hearts.
ICF is yet to have a full-time pastor & the leadership is still searching for someone to fill that role. We currently have a leadership team of 2 elders, 2 deacons & a couple who are both ordained pastors serving in part time pastoral roles. Their leadership has been a gift this year.
At the time Ieva was born, she was the only baby at ICF and the only other 2 kids were about 3 & 6. About a year later those kids left & Ieva was alone until another baby was born to the congregation. The two babies had about 8 months as the only ICF kids until the 2nd baby left and in August of 2007 4 new kids came!!! Having 5 kids in the congregation has allowed us to have children's sermons (which Ieva has just recently begun sitting in on), a Living Nativity Christmas program and it also means that she won't be alone playing with the babysitter in the kid's room. We don't have any organized children's church yet, but are hoping that will come. We hear there are a couple more families coming to work at LCC this fall and we're hoping they'll decide to come to ICF to keep our children's population up!
We're so thankful for the many ways God has blessed us through the church. Kim learned a lot while serving on the leadership team a couple years ago and both of us have enjoyed the variety of spiritual expressions we've encountered while ministering within such a broadly ecumenical body. It's a rich place to be!
From 2002-2005 we attended St. John's English-speaking Anglican church. Services were in the evening so we could rent building space from the Evangelical Lutheran church. Our pastor was an English Anglican Minister married to a wonderfully sweet Dutch woman. Toward the end of 2004, the British dioceses decided that St. John's was not a self-sustaining congregation & needed to close its' doors. In other words, the congregation couldn't pay to keep the church going. But the congregation was made up of missionaries & students -- go figure!!
Since the majority of our congregation was made up of LCC staff, faculty & students, we made a decision to go through a period of discernment to seek the Lord's leading on what was next for us. At the end of it all, we felt led to begin our own body - International Christian Fellowship (ICF). We partnered with the local Salvation Army ministry, as they have a large facility that is perfect for our needs & our rent helps them fund their work with the local homeless & street kid population. Partnering with them also gives us opportunities to join in their ministries, which has been a tremendous blessing for our congregation!
It used to be difficult to worship with the same people every Sunday that we saw at work every day. But the longer we're there, the greater sense of community we feel within that specific group. Not everyone at LCC attends ICF. There is also an evangelical Christian Lithuanian church called City Church that meets at LCC each week where many colleagues go. It tends to have more upbeat & modern worship and there is translation from Lithuanian into English for non-Lithuanian speakers. We've attended at times, but have consistently felt led to stay at ICF and worship and engage with God in the language of our hearts.
ICF is yet to have a full-time pastor & the leadership is still searching for someone to fill that role. We currently have a leadership team of 2 elders, 2 deacons & a couple who are both ordained pastors serving in part time pastoral roles. Their leadership has been a gift this year.
At the time Ieva was born, she was the only baby at ICF and the only other 2 kids were about 3 & 6. About a year later those kids left & Ieva was alone until another baby was born to the congregation. The two babies had about 8 months as the only ICF kids until the 2nd baby left and in August of 2007 4 new kids came!!! Having 5 kids in the congregation has allowed us to have children's sermons (which Ieva has just recently begun sitting in on), a Living Nativity Christmas program and it also means that she won't be alone playing with the babysitter in the kid's room. We don't have any organized children's church yet, but are hoping that will come. We hear there are a couple more families coming to work at LCC this fall and we're hoping they'll decide to come to ICF to keep our children's population up!
We're so thankful for the many ways God has blessed us through the church. Kim learned a lot while serving on the leadership team a couple years ago and both of us have enjoyed the variety of spiritual expressions we've encountered while ministering within such a broadly ecumenical body. It's a rich place to be!
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