Dear Friends,

The days are growing somewhat shorter, but it doesn't really feel like it, for Lithuania is having its warmest, driest, and brightest fall in many decades. My windows are still open each night, the sun shines most every day—and all day at that—and the leaves on the birch tree outside my kitchen window are just beginning to turn. I am reveling in the warmth of the days, the pleasant evenings, and the first weeks of school at Lithuania Christian College in our new building! We moved in August and are settling into a lovely, modern, and welcoming new campus about 20 minutes by foot and 12 minutes by bike from where I live.

Since my last word to you, there have been a number of significant events that have punctuated the months:

In April, I traveled with Lithuanian colleagues from the Reformed Church to Warsaw for a "Konsultation" (conference) with the Polish Reformed Church and Reformed partners from Germany. Topics ranged from the issue of forgiveness (still and ever a need for dialogue on this in Central and Eastern Europe), to human rights violations and the Church's responsibility, to how better to maintain the partnerships, dearly held but pressed by the cares of each church in its own setting. It was so good to be with friends from each of these countries and churches!

July was a slam dunk of intensive Lithuanian at Vilnius University (This is my third try at starting this beautiful but very complicated language). I lived with a friend of a friend, spent four hours a day in class, worked as diligently as I could outside of class (Vilnius itself is a learning experience!), and enjoyed getting to know co-students from all over the world. Each Saturday was a field trip to a different sight—a medieval castle, a spa town and some fortresses and churches along the way, an open-air museum with reconstructed villages from each of the regions of the country.

For two weeks in August, I was with the Reformed youth at their camp in a small town named Svobiskis. There I got a chance to try out some of my Lithuanian, hear in a fresh way the questions youth are asking in this last year of the century, and be reminded almost hourly how a ministry of presence speaks at least as loud as the right word or the correct pronunciation!

With the beginning of this school year, more and more "conversations" with students have reduced me to seek quiet and to reflect upon my "call" in this place. There is here among our students, like among students in most places, a deep and persistent hunger for truth, for belonging, for security, for hope for the future, for someone to trust, for someone to listen, for a place to ask questions and not be discounted for asking—or too quickly dismissed for not hearing— the "Christian" answer and embracing it. After two years now, it would seem a door is opening for dialogue and a kind of relationship that, in spite of cultural differences, affords both the students who cross my path and me a wonderful open space to be with each other in the asking of the questions, in the thinking out loud together about the answers, all the while not really knowing where it might be taking us. I am overwhelmed at what God does in the very act of meeting, of listening, of exchanging ideas and questions. At the same time I am convinced of the need to have time to make time, to treasure the time, and to trust, that is, have faith, that God is indeed present and at work, even when the "signs" wouldn't indicate such. I would hardly stretch this to apply to me personally, but in the Gospels we read in more than a few places that "Jesus was with the disciples." I think that is it, being with, being ready to answer or to reflect the question back, being willing to not have an answer but engage in the asking and the pain and the emptiness anyway, being open to be met by God's spirit, ministered to myself, and challenged to let God be God in my life, in my unknowing what I "should" do or say, and to somehow be astounded when a student writes a note thanking me for making her feel special and ordinary at the same time! Is that God working?

How can you pray? Think, if you will,…about one young friend, whose family is most likely being bombed in Chechnya as I write…about another who "was" a Christian but was choked by a kind of legalism that drove him far, far away from God—he's looking at it all again today…about the disillusion and depression of so many in this part of world—the economic and political golden promises of "freedom" haven't been realized (the jury is still out on this one!)…about churches and pastors scratching their heads about where to start and what to do first…pray for LCC and our continuing need for instructional staff—for one semester or longer…for me, as I teach two new courses this fall, oral communication and introduction to New Testament, and at the same time re-visit the issues of the call to stay here for several more years…pray for students struggling with their studies, struggling with their finances, wondering whether they even have a future, education or no education, trying to figure out who they are, stretching their adult wings and not being able quite yet to fly.

Well, this wasn't the kind of letter I thought I'd write, but now you really do know what is happening, maybe mostly in but also around me. I treasure your prayers and support, am thankful to God that I am part of a team here (our faculty has 40 volunteer teachers this semester) and, moreover, part of at team with you!

The first Sunday in October is Thanksgiving in many places in Europe, the day to remember God's goodness in the harvest…and I close with the words of thanksgiving from the Psalmist, which I genuinely embrace and willingly send: "The Lord is faithful in all his words, gracious in all his deeds…he upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you Lord…You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing!" Ps.145.

Grace and peace,

Jane Holslag