Latvians who have ended up in other parts of the world, either voluntarily or involuntarily have more often than not established their communities with the focal point being the church. In many cities the church community has founded Latvian schools, camps, folk dancing groups and other organizations. Over the years the role of the church as the hub may have changed slightly but its primary role—as the place for Latvians to be able to go and worship God in the style that they are accustomed to—has remained to this day. Even if congregation numbers are dwindling, the communities will still do their utmost to support a pastor and ensure that regular services are offered to those who wish to attend.

Dozens of Latvian churches are scattered around the world and a sizeable proportion of them have a Web site informing congregation members and the wider community of their work. Quickly skimming through the sites you get a good insight into what each community values and deems important informationwise. But it is important to bear in mind that the flashiest or most professionally designed and structured church Web site does not necessarily mean the congregation is a more caring community and the pastor is far better than others. It just may mean the congregation has steered its funds towards other service-oriented priorities. By the same token, a site that takes pride in mentioning recent christenings, shows plenty of photos featuring happy occasions in the church calendar and provides directions on how to get to the church may be a more outreach-focused church than one that focuses on the history and origins of the congregation. Each bit of information is important but in a balanced way. Nor does it necessarily mean that if the information on a particular church is in English and Latvian that the church is less focused on the Latvian language in services.

Here’s a quick summary of features on some church Web sites. By no means have we tried to list every bit of information available—or every site. Most of the sites are in Latvian, but some provide English content as well.

In Australia, the Web site of the Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church in Sydney provides Bible quotes for certain times of need, as well as a downloadable church newsletter. The site also notes all sermons are recorded on compact disc and can be ordered from the pastor.  The Church of the Holy Cross in Melbourne also has both its newsletter and monthly bulletin available for downloading and informs of the latest events and service calendar.

In Canada, St. Andrew’s Congregation in Toronto, has a few newsletters available for download as well as a video of the African Childrens Choir that recently performed at the church. We experienced some difficulty viewing and downloading these files because we were not using a Windows computer and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

In the United Kingdom, visit the Web site of the United London Latvian Lutheran Church and you won’t have an excuse for missing the next service: A popup message reminds visitors. The site allows vistors to download the latest newsletter and MP3 files of sermons and songs. A link takes visitors to a forum where they can discuss church-related and broader Latvian issues.

In the United States, the New York Latvian Ev. Lutheran Congregation takes pride in its various church properties as well as the summer camp in the Catskill Mountains. The church Web site provides information and photographs of these properties. The site also has MP3 audio files of various services by various pastors in 2007. Visitors also can download a membership application form and a donation form.

The Web site of the Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church of Washington D.C. is in English and Latvian and has instructions on how to get to the church. The local Latvian school founded by the church also gets a mention.

St. John’s Latvian Lutheran Church in Philadelphia wins hands down as the Web site with the most colorful introduction. The site has a service and events calendar followed by the school calendar, showing that school events are coordinated with the church calendar.

We tracked down the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran United Church of Kalamazoo within www.saites.org, a portal for Latvians in Michigan. We found the church pages to be very limited informationwise. The Saginaw Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church had more news but it unfortunately was slightly outdated. The site contains an invitation to pay church dues and to donate money to the congregation’s sister church in Latvia.

The Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church of Indianapolis, which is included in the Indylatvians.com portal, has a brief paragraph informing of its location and services.

The biggest surprise was hearing a Latvian worship song and seeing a scrolling announcement at the top of the site of the Chicago Latvian Zion Ev. Lutheran Church. The availability on the site of the church bulletin, the annual report and dozens of photos of church events all show that this is a community with many helping hands.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church has a well-structured and visually appealing site with information on the church and its school, choir, folk dancing group, ladies auxiliary, library and more. The site also has a personal touch: announcements of latest christenings.

The Boston Latvian Ev. Lutheran “Trimda” Congregation site has plenty of photos of members at various functions and events, showing the community is a fairly active one. The structure and design of the site are easy on the eye. This is the only site that informs visitors how to reach the church by public transport.

Three more broad sites are worth a mention:

• The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (LELBA) is the umbrella organization for all the previously mentioned churches in the United States. LELBA puts out two publications, the magazine Ceļa biedrs and the newsletter LELBA Ziņas. Tables of contents and summaries are available online for Ceļa biedrs, while the newsletter is available as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. LELBA’s Web site also lists the various divisions of the board and the work each division is involved in.
• The recently unveiled Union of Latvian Baptists in America site provides brief information on the various Latvian Baptist churches in this region.
• The Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church in Germany site has a church and pastor list and service calendar for the various churches scattered throughout central Europe, including Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

If you are planning a trip to Latvia—or are already in Latvia—do you have an interest to be at one with nature? Where can you turn to find out the best picnic and fishing spots, childrens’  nature activity parks and other outdoor recreation areas? Mammadaba.lv, a literal translation of the term Mother Nature, is an initiative created by Latvijas valsts meži (Latvian State Forests, www.lvm.lv) that encourages travel to the countryside.

By countryside this state institution means the forests, the rivers, the lakes—not just the towns. The hope here is that locals as well as tourists will find these trips to the countryside enjoyable and will return and pass this information on to others. The Web site is great for ideas for the best spots for all kinds of activities, from the local Latvian favorites of berry picking, mushrooming, fishing, bird-watching and hunting to cycling routes, orienteering and nordic walking routes. So far there are around 300 areas of state-owned forest territory under the stewardship of Latvijas valsts meži that have been cleared for recreational public use.

If you’ve headed out to the woods but want to stay longer than just one day your best bet for accommodation options is Atputa laukos. The Web site is created by the country tourism association Lauku ceļotājs, which also publishes brochures that can be purchased in most bookstores. For more sites on the environment and various options for outdoor recreation have a look at the links page.

Latvijas valsts meži has also for the past two years been involved in a campaign to increase public awareness of the dumping of rubbish in Latvian forests. Cūkmens is the public face of this campaign, a litterer-turned-pig in a superman-style pink pig costume actively urging the public to clean up its act: “Nemēslo mežā! Par cuku pārvērtīsies!” (Don’t dump your rubbish in the forest! You’ll turn into a pig!). This year the campaign has focused on coastal rubbish dumping. Cūkmens has visited local school in coastal regions, educating the children as well as getting the public involved in cleaning up the coastline. Jāņi was another perfect target for a Cūkmens intervention; with so many people heading to the woods to celebrate, there has always been a tendency to leave the post-Jāņi waste behind. Learn more about the Cūkmens campaign and see video and listen to audio from the campaign at www.cukmens.lv.

School-aged children can learn more about the forests of Latvia by taking part in a program, Izzini mezu, a joint initiative of Latvian State Forests, the Foundation for Environmental Education and the Forest Development Fund. The patron of this program is Latvian writer and poet Imants Ziedonis. The aim is to teach kids the importance of the forest habitat from an ecological and cultural perspective in the early years to more complex concepts in the later years of their school life.

Thousands of Latvians (according to latest Irish census statistics, officially around 14,000) have voted with their feet since Latvia joined the European Union in 2004 and have moved to Ireland, a prosperous nation with numerous opportunities. Many have moved with the intent to only stay for a short while and earn enough for a specific purpose, others are fed up with their life in Latvia and do not plan to return.

The Latvians who have moved to the “Emerald Isle” are scattered throughout the whole of Ireland, with a large proportion now living in Dublin and its surrounds. With such a large number of Latvians living in Ireland it comes as no surprise that they have started to form Latvian organisations and various interest groups—and even have several Web sites. Even though the percentage of Latvians interested in such organised activities is quite minimal, the hope is that the Latvian saying “kur ir, tur rodas” (loosely translated: the more the merrier) will apply in future.

The first Web site worth mentioning is that of the Embassy of Latvia. This would seem the first logical port of call for Latvians in Ireland. But the embassy’s role is purely to represent Latvia in Ireland, so the Web site doesn’t have any further information about Latvian activities in Ireland or offer any further information for those who are planning to relocate there.

Three Latvian societies have been founded in Ireland in the past few years. The first one, founded in 2005, is Latviešu Biedrība Īrijā (Latvian Society in Ireland). LBI’s statutes state that among it’s main aims are maintaining the culture, language and ethnic identity of Latvians living in Ireland. The society’s Web site also acts as an information source for those who need help with relocation to Ireland with a list of links to Irish government information brochures and sites. This is not all the site is concerned with. Visitors also can find out what the newly formed Latvian organisations are up to. Among these are the Latvian mixed choir, the Latvian folk-dance group “Jampadracis,” the Latvian School “Saulgriezīte,” Latvian church services and hockey team Latvian Hawks .

Latvians, as is their nature, are not content to stop with one society. In 2006 another society, Latviešu Apvienība Latviešiem Īrijā (Latvian Society for Latvians in Ireland), was founded in Dublin. Its aims are very similar to those of LBI. According to LALI’s Web site, the society “acts in the interests of Latvians in Ireland and deals with issues that are of interest to Latvians who are living in Ireland for a shorter or longer length of time.”

As Latvian organised activities gain momentum, the Latvians living on the western coast of Ireland (numbering around 2,000) can now also proudly say they have an organisation to represent them—the Limerick Latvian Society, founded in April. The society does not have a Web site yet but news of the organisation’s aims and future plans can be found on the new Baltic Ireland site.

Baltic Ireland, just launched at the beginning of May, wants to incorporate all Latvian activities, not discriminating among those hosted by one society or another. In its introductory comments the Web site states that it is created for “…Latvians in Ireland and their relatives, friends and acquaintances in Latvia. The main aim of the portal is to provide information on what is happening in Ireland…We hope, with your assistance, to create a portal that ‘rocks’ and dispel the myth that all Latvians in Ireland are ‘mushroom-pickers.’”

Latvians in Ireland also have a paper-based source of news and information. The weekly newspaper Sveiks can be purchased in Russian and Polish grocery stores in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Sligo and other towns. The paper is edited in Rīga but printed and distributed by the Russian-language newspaper Nasha Gazeta in Dublin.