Graduation 2006.



Well another graduation has come and gone. My life has been set by the rythyms of graduation for a long time. More speeches, more awards, more flowers. Maybe that is the thing that sets Lithuanian gradiations apart the most is the flowers.





I said goodbye in the last week to a lot of students- sometimes hurriedly, sometimes in the formal of one final meeting. i think i got to farewell most of the people that i wanted to. Many of the students who just graduated, i will never see again. I can't help but wonder if LCC really changed their lives in anyway. It sure doesn't seem like it sometimes. i wonder if they ever really put together that the reason that we are doing this is because we love jesus, not to build our CVs, or because we are nice, or because we are Americans.

One thing hard about being there is that i wonder often if people see our acts that come out of serving christ and just think it is becase we are nice people, or because thats what americans do.

At the graduation party (the official one) i was feeling pretty discouraged and antisocial. There it was just a reminder to me; the copious amounts of alcohol, the varying states of inebriation, that we can never effect the change we want to see in someones life; only god can do that. Looking around that room that night i felt discouraged... no one would ever guess that these were students from a Xn college. They are even thinking of taking the name Xn out of LCC. Maybe that is a good thing. Each table (of around 4-7) students was equipped with vodka brandy cognac etc...

Students here act like it is their right and responsibility to get drunk. of course they are adults and can do that. I just cant get my head around the fact why people run so often to drunkenness when there are so many better alternatives. in a culture where alcoholism is causing such throrough and devastating problems, it seems like noone has any hesitations about throwing back some hard liquor to have a good time. It is just sad.... it doesnt make me angry... it doesnt make me hopeless.... it just makes me sad.



The contrast was brought home when i went to Skandalas afterwards with some of my latvian friends. At that table were 3 people who had become xns while at LCC beacuse of LCC. The contrast couldnt have been more great. We talked about what Gd was doing in our lives, how we fit in in the grand scheme of life, the importance of xn encouragement, and stood in a circle to pray together for each other one last time (that is until the people in the upstairs apartment started spitting on us).



Why would people ever choose Vodka over Js????