Priecīgas Lieldienas!

Happy Belated Easter everyone!  As we mentioned briefly in a previous post, we have found a really nice place to worship, the Rīgas Reformātu Draudze (Riga Reformed Church).  Sunday services are held at 4 p.m. in the Methodist Church building on Akas iela.  Although the worship services are in Latvian, many in the congregation speak excellent English and the sermons/prayers are translated for us via headsets...it's kind of like a faith-based United Nations meeting!

With lyrics projected onto a wall, the music is sung by the congregation and led by a worship team of excellent musicians (a fantastic way to work on Latvian pronunciation, by the way!).  Here's an example of their music, recorded at the Good Friday service last week (April 2 Hymns)

At the beginning of the service on Friday, the musicians performed Bob Chilcott's Peace Mass.  Click here for the Kyrie.  In addition to playing the trumpet, Bill conducted a few of the movements and sang a little, but not so loudly as to drown out the crystal-clear straight-tone singing of Anete, Liga, Kristine, Anete, and Gundega.  We had a lot of fun preparing this music.

Of course, Sarah and Leah are excited to play with some Latvian friends at the church.  We all enjoy our time there.  Many thanks to Carl and Becky Chaplin (Carl and Becky's blog) for introducing us to pastor Ungars Gulbis and the congregation of the Riga Reformed Church!

As usual, we had fun Easter morning activities with a visit from everyone's favorite hare.  We will say good-bye for now with some pictures!