It was in 1995 that I had an opportunity to travel across the sea's to the small country Latvia, part of the former soviet union, in the Baltic states.   For six months twenty students and I prepared to go to Latvia on a "missions" trip to hand out Bibles in the schools.  What I thought the country would be like and what it was different.  In this paper we will look at some differences. 

            It started out like any trip we all met at the school, we left at 5:00 in the morning, on the way to JFK in New York the bus broke down, we now were running a half an hour late.  When we arrived at the air port, it was different than going to another state where you can just walk on the plane, we had to have our passports stamped.  The teacher who held everyone's passport did not have mine.   He called the college and they said that Washington had called and said my passport was ready.  But it was in Washington D.C.  The teacher came up to me and told me the bad news that I might have to stay home.  I was upset, but then he said they would fly the passport via, air mail from a flight that was arriving ten minutes before ours.  The airline was all the way across the other side of the airport.  He told me I would have to take a shuttle wait for the plane get the package and run back to the Finn-air terminal.  I did not expect to have this much trouble going overseas.  If I missed the flight I would have to catch the next flight the next morning.  I did not want to do that.  Well the plane with my passport on it was 5 minuets late.  I ran across the airport and watched as my flight to Finland and then to Latvia departed without me.  I did not expect this. 

            So here I am in the airport with two heavy suitcases and a flight the next day.  I asked the airline people if I could leave my luggage in the airport till morning, they said, OK, then I took a bus, to a subway, to Penn. Station New York City, there I just made the train to Huntington, Long Island.  I showed up at my grandma's steps at 9:00 that night. 

            The next day, I boarded flight 134 to Helsinki Finland.  I did not expect to travel by my self and I was upset.  I made it to Finland eight hours later.  I had learned about jet lag but had no idea it would be that bad.  I arrived at the airport.  It was not like American airports.  I then boarded a little single engine plane to the capital of Latvia, Riga.  When I arrived at the airport, I was shocked.  I had to get off the plane in the middle of what I thought was the runway and walk to a little shack they called the airport. 

            They didn't tell us much about what the city looked like.  I had pictured a small town in the middle of nowhere.  I was indeed wrong, it was a city that looked like it came out of a forties movie.  The streets had cable cars, there were no lines on the road, the street signs resembled nothing from America. 

            The top of huge church's could be seen from anywhere in the city.  It had an erie feeling like something out of the mid-evil period.  The people were different than I expected.  I paid close attention to there body gestures.  One thing I noticed that I never figured out why they do is, almost all the people had there hands in there pockets when walking down the street.  They told up we might face culture shock but this was the only thing that really bugged me.  Why do they all walk with there hands in there pockets. 

            Another area that was different that what I expected was the schools,  The children were the same, however the principle welcomed and even cried when we asked to had out the Bibles.  For years they had not even seen one because of communism.   This was a greater joy than we all expected.  Hundreds of people came to our nightly crusades.   When we left in three weeks we had a national pastor and seventy people attending the church we planted and thousand of people with the Bibles we handed out.

            In conclusion going overseas was a great experience, there are many differences between America and Latvia.  What I expected and what I left with was different too.  I did not realize how much of an effect it would have on me and it still does when I think about it.

 

 

 

 

Lackawanna Junior College

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compare/Contrast Paper

 

 

 

 

 

 

David T Gross

Mr. John J Gogard

College Writing

December 7, 1999