July 1999

Dear Friends in Christ,

This summer I am not teaching at Lithuania Christian College, but I am in Klaipeda. I have been studying Lithuanian language with a tutor, trying to gain facility in this difficult language for my second year. My progress is slow but steady and I look for opportunities to use more of the language to develop more contact outside the North American community here.

A second goal for the summer is to become better acquainted with the land and the history. I have been on a couple of picnics and a Lithuanian bus tour. Both were helpful to me, but even more important have been the opportunities to have tea or lunch with a student and to have dinner with my new landlord and landlady, Vytas and Audra. At dinner I became clearer about such details of life in Klaipeda as the fact that electricity rates after 10:00 p.m. are less than one-half the daytime rates. This means that I join the many Klaipeda women who wash and iron late at night. But my talk with them is also another look at the recent history of Lithuania.

It is very moving for me to hear them talk of their experiences in Soviet times. Vytas was born in Siberia because his parents had been deported and forced to work at hard labor there. Many people died, and the health of his parents was greatly affected. Audra was born here in Klaipeda and grew up in the flat where I live. She told of holding hands across the Baltics and standing against tanks that were guarding the statue of Lenin in the square by the Klaipeda Hotel. Now I really know what the small monument there means. Audra still cries when she talks of those days and is very proud of the true understanding that she expressed as "knowing that freedom is truly more valuable than life." Audra told of trying to learn English by listening secretly to the BBC and Voice of America—both forbidden. She emphasized the difficulty of learning in this way and her determination to learn. She expressed regret that these experiences still make trusting Russia difficult, perhaps impossible. Belonging to NATO would give them some sense of safety against what they see as Russia’s desire to possess all the land to the Baltic Sea.

I mentioned to my hosts how, when I traveled through Lithuania, I didn’t see much farm machinery. They explained that Lithuania fell behind under the Soviet system because the size and type of farms was so restricted. Large individual farms were forbidden. They told me how the Soviet system destroyed the economy around an area now called Kaliningrad where, even though the land and climate are better than they are in Lithuania, much of the region’s agriculture was destroyed. Soviets even cut down cherry trees to harvest the fruit. Lithuanians were surprised at the evidence of poverty of the Russian occupation forces. The Russians were unfamiliar with many things in Lithuanian life, for example, officers’ wives, not knowing what nightgowns were, wore them to the theater. The Communist code had to be memorized.

Audra and Vytas believe that a part of the human spirit of the Lithuanians was destroyed under the Soviet system through the deportations and deaths of the smartest and best citizens. They don’t have any real hope that the present generation can recover, and they believe that only a new generation of young people will feel free to express themselves and to move forward.

Having tea with a student of Russian ethnicity, I had a view of the tensions from the other side. She shared how she and others with Russian surnames were humiliated and abused by Lithuanian teachers as the move for independence grew. The need for a Christian college to play a healing role in a student body of Russians and Lithuanians seems even more vital to me when I hear of these damaging divisions in Lithuanian society.

Surprisingly, the North American community also has volunteers coming who seek healing, understanding, and faith. It has been my opportunity to talk and share ideas with some who are questioning faith. The following is a poem I wrote after one such conversation.

Confession of the Confused

Yesterday someone said to me,
When I see all the hatred,
the pain,
the injustice
in the world,
I am not sure there is a God.
I tried to answer and now I know—
I believe in the existence of God
because there is pain, sorrow, anger
in the world,
but there is more.

There is truth
that has not been silenced by falsehood;
There is joy
that has not been extinguished by pain;
There is peace that has not been drowned by chaos;
There is love
that transcends hatred.
And in the truth and joy, the peace and love,
There is God.

And I have been given the Word.
There is nowhere I can go
And not
Hear the voice of God,
Feel the touch of God,
See the face of God.

As long as I direct my feet toward Justice,
Raise my voice to Truth,
Reach out my hand in Love,
I am with God.

I proclaim the Glory of God
Not because I am called to do so,
But because I cannot do anything else.

In Christ’s Love,

Jackie Bartz

The 1999 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 86