Saturday, August 15…

…after we moved to our next stop, the sea break wall, the expressions and feelings changed. Aleks again started talking really fast in Latvian and headed to the wall. We started walking along the wall to see the sea around us. The view was amazing, panoramic and wish I could have taken a photo of it all. It felt like I was in the center and everything was full circle around me. There was just this small, twenty foot path of cement that connected us with the land. The sea was calm on one side and really rough on the other. And in the distance at sea was a storm with rain and a water spout. It was truly an amazing view and moving to see.

It the distance Aleks pointed to an area along the land of a place where he said he had  lived before; before the shelter; before the orphanage…before a NEW beginning…

The next stop was again a place of strange yet unique architecture. We headed north up the beach line to a mound of broken cement slabs. Masses of rubbish fallen and destroyed through war and the wear of the sea. We climbed and explored for awhile and took some amazing pictures of just how massive the pieces were. 

Our last stop was just south, outside of the city. It was again much like Michigan and we stopped to have a nice lunch at a resort near by. The drive was down a dirt road and we ended at a trail. The trail headed into a wooded area and wound up a hillside. At the top was a lookout area where we gazed over tall tree tops to see another view of the Baltic Sea. It was a beautiful and majestic place. A place to escape from the everyday and just take in the power of our God. It was a different site than any of the others. A place where it felt untouched…a place to renew…