Day Two of the Baltic Academy!

Today was our first and only full day altogether at the Academy conference and it was a lot of fun! Our morning began with a main session - including video clips matching the theme, a game that involved a relay where teams put on a poncho, mittens and a shower cap, and ran to drink their can of coke, worship, a devotion, and a main talk on goal setting. 

We also had two workshop slots today. In the first slot I led a workshop on camp follow up and explained and released a tool I've created that will hopefully help youth groups track the students who come to camp, and help them as they plan to continue to connect with those students and challenge them to follow Christ.

Teams also had time together to discuss what they've been learning this weekend - because we don't want them to just hear this teaching but to really apply it to their lives and ministries. So they were discussing their own personal goals and also their ministries and what goals they believe God is asking them to make.

And, because we believe in celebrating these wonderful youth leaders and their faithfulness, tonight we sent people out in their teams to have dinner together in Riga. Those of us who had travelled up from Czech together went out together to a restaurant one of our co-workers recommended called The Angry Dog.

The food was good, the company amazing, and the highlight was when we asked if Shelby, who is an incredible pianist, could play the piano in the place. The waitress took a little convincing but even she admitted one or two songs in that she is a great musician. Such a fun memory!

We all met back at the hotel/conference centre for dessert and spent a lot of time chatting and laughing - especially once we started talking about silly laws in all the countries we're attached to (this is what happens when you have a Scot, an American, two Czechs, two Latvians, and a Northern Irish at the table). 

It has been so good to be here for this conference. It has been such a delight to sit down with people over meals or dessert or coffee and chat and hear their stories, the stories of this country, the stories of what God has done and is doing in this place, and their dreams of what He will do here.

We finish up tomorrow at lunch time and I'm excited to see what the morning will hold!