Precious Life Ministries

Helping Heal Hurting Hearts

P. J. Elkins
Precious Life Ministries, Inc.
Lacplesa iela 37
Riga, LV-1011
Latvia
Office 011-371-6722-3052
407 403-6751 (no international charge)

April 30, 2008 - Request from PJ

The abortion prevention center in Latvia is growing and we need more volunteers from the U.S.A. who have a heart for this ministry. A person must have at least some of these qualifications:  Christian counseling, to do excel is a very big need, publication work, formatting, Corel, web page, lecture in high schools, universities, internal schools (children mostly without parents), teenage orphanages, facilitate 10 week classes for post abortion trauma women and men, teach English as a second language, learn the Latvian language, etc. Besides your calling you must be willing to take turns to do menial jobs like carry water to the office, filing, cleaning, help with humanitarian aid chores, visiting families to know their needs, ordering Bibles and materials, stamping materials, etc.
 
Need:  One of my two laptop computers crashed in February. We desperately need at least one more rebuilt laptop computer. New ones here in Latvia are $1,800.00 to $2,000 dollars and they are at least half of that price in the U.S.A. I am coming home May 2nd for my grandson's open heart surgery (please pray for him) and I could bring the computer back with me to Latvia when I return.
 
Need: I have 24 square meters for my office/center. That includes an entrance way and WC (toilet). We need at least twice this much space. There is a room available with 53 square meters but the price is 300.00 Lats divided by 0.44 = $681.81 per month plus 18%tax. Or we need to buy a building or build a facility. We have plans to reach out and help many suffering people but w do not have the space. Feel free to e-mail me at pjelkins@latnet.lv regardless of whether I am in Latvia or the U.S.A. for more detailed information.
 
Personal request:  Maybe someone knows somebody who has the capability to copy a video to a CD. Ruth Wall has a video of my daughter, Denise, singing. My daughter passed last July 28, 2007 and my other 3 children and I would love to have this memory. We would be very grateful.
 
Serving together,
P. J. Elkins
Precious Life Ministries, Inc.
Fonds Misija Dzivibas vertiba
Lacplesa iela 37
Riga, LV-1011
Office 011-371-6722-3052
407-403-6751 (no international charge)
After May 2 I will be in U.S.A. 304 776-1496 until May 24th.

May 24th please call 304 262-4439

February/March 2008 Newsletter

Greetings in the name of our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It has taken this long to get to the point that I can write to you since my daughter, Denise Benear’s death this past July 28th. So many people reached out so warmly and willingly to help during this valley and trial in my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your gifts for my expenses to fly home and at the University of Virginia and many other thoughtful deeds. Thank you also for flowers, food, cards, and for being present at the viewing and funeral and crying with me, and thank you for your prayers. For those of you who don’t know, Denise woke up with a high fever July 5th and three weeks later died July 28th. The autopsy report said T-Cell Lymphonma/Liekemia. The scripture, ‘We have no promise of tomorrow’ takes on a new meaning for me. I know that Jesus wants me to complete the work that He started in me and I feel the calling just as strong as ever. I work a while, laugh a while and cry a bit. I only have to think about her, and the tears flow. But we know that grieving is healthy and Jesus is with me and He is my strength.

The former also helps me to remember that being without a place to live and sleeping on the examining bed at the center, is not the worse thing in the world. Inflation here in Latvia has skyrocketed in the past year. People are trying to sell their apartments while the price is high so they don’t want to rent it. Those who are renting are asking astronomical prices. I have had nationals looking for me a place to live because when the owner finds out it is an American, they raise the price from 300 lats (600.00 dollars) to 450.00 lats (900.00) and does not include utilities and most of the flats are not renovated which means they are soviet style and very bad condition.

Christmas season is a special time to put great emphasis and illuminate Jesus and I am so very thankful that God gives us this unique opportunity to share the gospel more openly. Week before Christmas, I went to Liepaja, as I do once every week, for the post abortion trauma Bible study with several ladies. One of my former students in Riga called the office and gave Ilona (my director) a name of a gynecologist in Liepaja who wanted some of my materials about pro-life because she doesn’t believe in abortions. She is not a Christian so I took some of the candy canes with the story about Jesus. I gave all of them away on the mini bus except one that I saved for her. When I arrived, since she did not speak very good English, she called her English instructor to interpret for us. The doctor and I had a good rapport right away but there was not an opportunity to share with her about Jesus. We finished our conversation and the doctor needs to see a patient and the English instructor says she will take me to her learning center until my mini bus comes to pick me up. She has a young student that she needs to teach right at that time and she wants her to listen to me speak English. The instructor says that after the students have learned a while, she encourages them to go to listen to the Mormons who teach English for free, so the students can hear another dialect. Astonished, I said, “No, you don’t!” Of course, I shouldn’t have said that, but it came out of my mouth so quickly and automatically. She said, “Maybe it is not good, but I have been doing it for some time and we have never joined. It is against the law to talk about religion while teaching a subject.” I said, “Yes, but the Mormons make friends and then meet them after class and talk about their false religion.” She said, “I guess I am an atheist.” I said, “You mean you don’t believe there is a God?” She said, “I believe there is a God but I don’t know anything about Him.” I said, “I have a little gift for you when we go to the bus.” She agreed. She went on with her student and when it was time for my bus, she went with me. I gave her the candy cane (that I had planned to give to the gynecologist earlier) and told her about Jesus and what He has done for her. I also, told her that we have no promise of tomorrow and shared about my daughter dieing this past July in three weeks time. Very concerned, she said, “How old was she.” I said, “only 42 years old.” She was shocked and said, “That’s how old I am.” I think it made an impact on her. What a coincidence that she was exactly the same age… or was it Jesus. She promised to meet me again. By the way, the bus came and left while we were standing there talking and we didn’t notice it. When I realized it was 10 minutes past the time for the bus, we called the driver and he came back and picked me up☺ This was important to me because I would have to wait 3 hours for the next bus and would not have gotten home until 11:30 P.M. Regarding the PAT ladies in Liepaja; two of them really received a lot of healing and we are working together to start a new center in Liepaja. PTL!!!

Another Christmas event we organized our youth pastor Kaspars to speak at a high school that was having an ‘end of the semester’ celebration, but we made it a Christmas event with our short program right at the beginning of their ‘celebration’. Pastor Kaspars spoke for about 20 minutes about Jesus and the reason for Christmas and introducing the Bible Club that we were going to start in 2008. (For those of you who don’t know, Dana Spence, a colleague from WV has been to Latvia twice now and it seems that the Latvian people have stolen, at least, a part of his heart. Before he arrived in October, I had made arrangements for him to speak at one school. We got off to a terrible start. The weather was bad and the interpreter was terribly late and then the taxi was terribly late, which made us terribly late arriving at the school. We got started late and before he was near finished, I had to give him the signal that he only had 5 minutes before the bell. Of course, Dana didn’t get to complete his lecture but had to sum it up and therefore, felt like he did a bad job. Afterwards, the assistant director and coordinator of activities invited us to have some tea and a gracious serving of sweets. He presented the idea of the Bible Club to be held after school hours. The assistant director did not hesitate one minute but immediately said we could do it. When you think you are doing God’s will and everything seems to go wrong, God can still be in the midst of it.

Post Abortion Trauma in Liepaja: The week before Christmas, I completed an 11-week Bible study for post abortion trauma ladies in Liepaja. As you know, these classes are very emotional and heart-breaking but the rewards are experiencing forgiveness in different areas of their lives and the healing of their broken hearts by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Afterwards, we had a Christmas party with gifts furnished by a lady from Florida who has cancer of the breast that she has been fighting for 5 years. For the last four years, I have been given beautifully wrapped Christmas presents, especially for these women who are hurting so much, by one who is hurting herself with this terrible disease. Even though this disease has traveled to different parts of her body for the last 5 years, she still thinks of others who are hurting as well. Sacrificing her time as she goes for chemo treatments to stop along the way and carefully choose gifts for people she doesn’t even know. Her mother, who is 80 years young, has been by her side every step of the way and sharing in the real meaning of love. Her father, also has his share of health problems, but has a sense of humor to keep the family motivated. She does not want any glory at all for what she is doing, but I tell you this story that you might be burden to pray for the healing of her body, for my dear sister in Christ, Ellen. Jeremiah 32:27 Behold, I am the Lord; the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?

Christmas, December 24th, we organized the teen orphans to come to a Christmas concert at our church. The leaders were very excited about our invitation. Afterwards, we met with the leader and 10 teenagers to encourage them to come to church and join in activities in the youth group. This may not happen so quickly but at least we are starting to build a relationship with them since our earlier lectures October and November.

A later evangelistic event will be for a social house. This is a soviet style building with poor families who live in one room with their entire family regardless of how many children they have. One young lady, who works at the Christian radio station in the same building as I, came into my office. I learned that her husband is an orphan and he was given a room by the government and this is where they live. We still plan to take advantage of this divine opportunity. We know it is the Devil’s territory. Please pray that we will touch many hearts with the Word of Jesus. Please pray for God’s protection around us.

From December 4th to January 15th, I did not have time to even look for a place to live, so I lived in the center and slept on the examining bed. It turns out that the hard bed was very good for my back☺ but there were some disadvantages like no washing machine. At Christmas time, there are more opportunities to share the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and when Jesus opens doors we must be faithful to not let any obstacles get in the way. I know that society has its standards, but God has His priorities. It is not to say that I didn’t need a place to live, but in God’s time.

January 15th, I found a place to live for $532.00 including utilities. It is 250.00 lats at the rate of 0.47. I hope that the dollar doesn’t go down any more. It has really hurt my budget in Latvia. When I came to Latvia in 1996, I could get 70.00 lats for $100.00. Now I get 47.00 lats for your $100.00. One draw back is that it is 35 minutes by trolley and 25 minutes walk time. I am very grateful for this place but the landlord does intend to sell it and somebody is coming to look at it this next week. So pray for me a closer place to my office. Another praise is that the winter has not been so bad so far.

Speaking engagements: In January, Ilona and I were honored to be invited to speak at the two -day teachers' conference. The final count was a little over 291 teachers from all over Latvia. It was my 4th time to speak and Ilona's first. It is organized for teachers for the purpose of intergrading Christianity into the schools. Ilona has a Masters in social work for Families and has a big heart for helping to restore the breakdown of the families. I have turned a lot of the speaking engagements over to her. Ilona spoke on Christian Radio twice this past month; one invitation was for me and another invitation for her.

Bible Club: Pastor Kaspars had a camp in January so we did not organize the Bible Club at the Ezerkraustu High school until February 5. Ilona went with him and it was a great success. It was for the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. However, while they were having so much fun, the fifth grade teacher came to see what all of the excitement was about and said, “I am a Christian and I need something like this for my fifth and sixth grades…please do something for us. So we have an appointment this week to get some child evangelism materials for this age group. The excitement of the Lord is contagious.

Post Abortion Trauma classes in Riga: How do we get our clients -One lady called and said she wanted to volunteer in our center because she has a heart for women who have had an abortion. So when she arrived, we invited her to have some tea and begin to tell her all of the outreach programs we have in this center. Then she began to ask concentrated questions about the post abortion trauma ministry. I explained to her that nobody can work with clients until they have gone through Christian counseling training. Then she shared with us that she has had an abortion and she wanted to attend the post abortion trauma classes. Although we have already started the classes, she has begged us to take the classes so I will help her to catch up a couple of classes. God has given her many talents and will be ant asset to His work. Second lady: I met this petite lady at church last Easter but did not see her again until Christmas. I learned she only came twice a year. However, she started coming more and would look me up to sit with after church for coffee. A couple of Sunday ago, she wanted me to tell her what all I do in the center. I told about all things and then about the post abortion trauma classes. She got very quite and since I never ask anybody if they have had an abortion, I said, “You can take these classes if you would like.” She said, “Yes, I want to, I’ve had an abortion.” She and her husband own a restaurant. Third lady: One young lady kept visiting my office. She speaks English so after her work, she would just drop in. She was good about giving me information about places she knew would want me to speak. Finally, one day in her tiny little voice, she said she had a question. She said she took the morning after pill and the baby did not abort but just laid in the fallopian tube and because of great complications, she had to have surgery. She is not really sure exactly what happened but because she knows what her intentions were, she feels guilty and ashamed of her choice. She works and is tenderhearted caring person. Fourth lady: She walked into my office one day and said she wanted to take these classes. She was terribly mistreated as a child and needs a lot of compassion and empathy. She is a chaplain. Fifth lady: She is a doctor and has interpreted for me for post abortion trauma classes previously. She said the classes helped her very much and this is a way that she can help others is by interpreting for me for this group. Needless to say, she will received even more healing from the Word.

English and Computer classes: English has now blossomed from the first level to the third level. It is so unique how Jesus supplies our every need. We did not have a first level teacher but had 10 people signed up to take the class. Then one day Ilona thought of a lady who had participated in one of our ‘relationship seminars’ who spoke very good English. She not only agreed to teach, but will not take any money for it. She said it is her contribution to our center. Even greater Blessing is that she is a professional and the class has grown to 21 students in two weeks. Jesus continues to Bless our efforts in our willingness to serve Him. These classes gives us more contacts to share a few minutes before or after the class and give some materials that will help them or someone they know. Today, one lady shared with me that the booklet, “Help for Victims of Spouse Abuse” brought her out of her depression. She thought she was the worse woman in the world because her husband said she was. Computer classes are three times a week and all 6 computers are full. These computers belong to the Baptist College here in this building and I rent them for a small fee. We could easily fill 15 to 20 computers but 6 antiques Windows 98 are all they have.

Humanitarian Aid Day: Continues to be a great Blessing for us as well as the participants. Ilona and Rasa counsel with them and trying to make a difference in their lifestyle. Three people, in particular, want to know more about Jesus and they will follow up with them next week. One is a gypsy.

“Oh Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” Isaiah 25:1

I invite you to make a commitment. Would you join with me as a partner in ministry by pledging prayer and financial support for P. J. Elkins’ ministry in Latvia? The Christian Center for Society includes:

• Ultrasound Project - Helping women make the healthy and Biblical choice to have their babies after Christian counseling and/or ultrasound screening.
• Post Abortion Trauma.Recovery Assistance Bible-based classes
• Conferences in high schools - Value and sanctity of life, helping the victim of sexual abuse, etc., from Biblical, psychological and medical research perspectives.
• English and computer classes for school drop-outs, social department clients, orphans, to motivate in an effort to help them get a job.
• Expenses include Bibles, ultrasound machine supplies, etc., booklets, text books, translation, interpreters, videos, travel, food, office rent, utilities, telephone, and salaries.