 
an and Katie Roth, along with their children - Jonathan, age 2 and Anna, age 4 months are returning to Latvia this fall as new BBI associate staff members. Their ministry in Latvia has been developing ever since Katie first went to Riga in 1991 and Dan to Tilza in 1998. In May this year, the BBI board voted to accept them as full time missionaries. So how did a cattle farmer from Central Oregon and a schoolteacher from London, England end up together in eastern Latvia?
Dan
Dan was born in 1968 and grew up in Sweet Home, Oregon, moving to Christmas Valley, Oregon in 1983. At the beginning of the 90s, the pastor of Christmas Valley Community Church decided to train and send out a mission team, involving as many of the young people in the church as he could. Dan was part of this group and, after his training and three months internship in Brazil, he was sent to Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East. He initially spent two years there, learning Russian, working with local churches, teaching in a public school and engaging in a variety of different ministries:
Dan returned to Khabarovsk many times during the 90s, until it seemed that his work there was done. Local pastors and national missionaries could continue the ministry. However, the experience he had gained in the Russian Far East was soon to be put to use elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.
In 1997, Jerome Kenagy, a BBI board member and Dan's second cousin, introduced him to the work of BBI in Latvia. Mike Parker, former Vice President of BBI, then visited Christmas Valley Church and shared the vision for a missionary training center in Tilza, eastern Latvia. As a result of this visit, Dan led work teams to Tilza in 1998, 1999 and 2000, working to restore buildings belonging to the Baptist church that had been confiscated under communism.
To consolidate the practical work done by these teams, Dan was sent out for the winter of '99-2000 to assist the students being trained at the Center as they were sent out to their church planting locations. Thus he found himself spending six months in the beautiful region of Latgale where a British schoolteacher had recently arrived to teach English in the local High School.
Katie
Katie Innes was born in 1972 and raised in London, England. She had become a Christian in 1989, at a camp run by the British organization, Crusaders. In 1990, she decided to go on a Crusaders Overseas Expedition (CRUSOE) and initially wanted to go to Africa to get a suntan. However, God had different plans and, when she saw the map of the USSR and heard about the trip planned to Agenskalns Baptist Church in Riga she knew at once that that was where she should go. Visa problems meant that the team didn't make it to Riga until 1991 but in August of that year, they drove across Europe with a truck load of building supplies, to work on the Agenskalns church building. They were there when Gorbachev was overthrown and for a time it seemed that there would be no more visits by foreign teams, but soon after that, the Soviet Union fell apart and CRUSOE teams continued to go to Latvia through the nineties. There was another visit to Agenskalns in '92, to Madona in '94 and then to Tilza in '96 and '97.
In addition to team expeditions, Katie went to Lativa a number of times to visit friends she had made and also to take part in evangelistic concerts. She played keyboards in the Crusaders affiliated band 'Spirit Level', which did a tour of Latvia in 1993 and also joined the Agenskalns group 'Maranata' in concerts around Latvia, including one at the old church building in Zilupe, near the Russian border:
Apart from a couple of 'baby breaks', Dan and Katie have spent the last four years working in Tilza during the school year and returning to Christmas Valley to farm in the summer. Whilst in Tilza they engage in a variety of different ministries:
Youth and Children's Work
Two years ago Dan and Katie started a Crusader style youth group, which grew rapidly from 6 to 30 young people. They also help to teach Sunday school. Another important part of their ministry to young people is their ongoing relationships with the children who come to their home in search of friendship and family. Many children in Tilza have alcoholic parents, or have had one or both parents die through alcohol related incidents. The witness of a stable Christian family living in the community is very powerful. One of these children, Gintis, now aged 13, has spent the last two summers with them in Oregon.
Teaching English
Katie has worked in the High School in Tilza for nearly five years and has got to know most people in the community this way. Her presence in the school and relationships with the children give her many opportunities to invite them to youth meetings and camps, where a number of them have become Christians.
Building Bridges From Tilza to Oregon
and Into Eastern Latvia
During the same years that Dan and Katie?s church, Christmas Valley Community Church, sent teams to Tilza to renovate buildings on the church property, and financially supported students at the missionary training center, another church was also sending mission teams and funds to Tilza. Through BBI?s efforts, Calvin Presbyterian Church in Corvallis, Oregon, began a sister-church partnership with the Tilza Baptist Church. Calvin provides funding for a full-time pastor and sends teams each summer to teach English through Bible lessons at the church?s youth camps.
In 2003, Dan and Katie initiated meetings between Christmas Valley and Calvin church members active in ministry in Tilza. As a result, members of the Tilza, Christmas Valley, and Calvin churches have joined together to create a new ministry team, the Eastern Latvia Outreach. This team is working to coordinate future ministry in eastern Latvia, especially in the areas of church planting, reaching youth for Christ, leadership training, and community development.
Dan has also assisted with the Hope For Farm Families program since its inception in 2000. The program is a joint effort of members from six Oregon churches: First Baptist of Corvallis, Monmouth Christian, Christmas Valley Community, First Baptist of Lebanon, Aurora Presbyterian, and Calvin Presbyterian. This economic development program provides sheep flocks and training to poor farmers in eastern Latvia, showing and sharing Christ?s love through this practical help.
As BBI?s new Directors of the Latgale Development Project, Katie and Dan will continue their involvement with the teams of Eastern Latvia Outreach and Hope For Farm Families.
As they get ready to return to Tilza Dan and Katie are excited to be formally associated with BBI and are looking forward to the work ahead of them.
Their goals for the coming year are:
o To establish adult evangelistic and discipleship Bible studies
in people's homes;
o To complete legal formalities relating to the church property;
o To assess the feasibility of bringing the Yellow House (part of the
church property) up to new building code requirements and thus
determine its future use;
o To continue to develop the youth work at the Baptist church,
forging deeper links with regional and national youth initiatives.
"To God be all the glory for what He has done and is doing in eastern Latvia. We are privileged to be His co-workers and love to see lives changed as His Spirit moves in a very dark and needy area." --Dan and Katie Roth
|
