A big hurdle has been cleared!

Dear friends in Christ, 

Big news this month from Riga Luther Academy! Some of you may have heard by now, but the Riga Luther Academy received reaccreditation with the Latvian government for a term of six years, which is the longest accreditation the commission can grant. This is huge for the English program because the accreditation grade of “good” allows the Academy to launch the English program in an official capacity rather than as the “free” model it currently operates under. (Free here does not refer to cost but to the fact that many universities in Europe offer classes that are not connected with a particular program and are, therefore, “free.”)

The significance of this cannot be overstated. This is a big win for our Latvian partners, and it was accomplished in part due to the efforts within the English program. But some hurdles still need to be overcome before the English program is in a position to begin graduating students with full diplomas. 

These next steps must be undertaken by those within the Latvian program, as dealing with the government requires a far higher mastery of Latvian than any of our missionaries on the field here are able to muster! Thankfully, the Lord has granted us a wonderful English Program Director in the person of Mr. Jēkabs Jurdžs, who is absolutely instrumental in these communications. I have been blessed with his friendship in the last year and a half in the field, and I look forward to continuing to work with him and the rest of our faculty in the English program to see this brought to full fruition in the near future. 

Thank you so much for the support you’ve shown us and this project thus far, and we look forward to continuing to serve the Lord here in Eurasia along with all of you! Through this important work of training new pastors, we are providing the workers who will be going out into the harvest field and planting churches, bringing countless people to Christ through Word and Sacrament ministry in the years to come. 

In Christ’s Service,

Pastor Cundiff

Cundiff family updates

The main activity for the Cundiffs in February was the opportunity to visit Prague in the Czech Republic. Our dear friends and fellow missionaries, the Bombaro family, moved there around the same time that we moved to Latvia. 

During this visit, we visited with all the Prague-based LCMS missionaries and their families. We met most of them during the Missionary Retreat in Latvia last August, but we finally met Cody Mock and his family. Initially, they were meant to be deployed to Riga, Latvia, but visa woes forced them to look to the Czech Republic, at least for the time being. Cody, the new IT specialist in the region for Luther Academy in Riga, has helped Quintin and Lindsay immensely with all things technology! (Praise be to God!) We had a wonderful time with all the missionaries in Prague!

Quintin’s Ph.D. classes will continue in April at the seminary in Fort Wayne, so he is focusing more attention on the Academy here in Riga right now. He heads to Hamburg, Germany, in March for an Academy faculty meeting; they will evaluate the recent and current courses and discuss adjustments and plans for future semesters. 

Lindsay finally applied to the University of Nebraska Medical Center for RN-to-BSN studies. Her application goes to the selection board within the next month. She will begin those classes in the Fall of 2024 if all goes as planned.

We are still in the planning phases of our Home Service, which is currently scheduled for June and July 2024. We have a limited number of Sundays during that time, of course, but we may be reaching out to see if we can schedule some midweek gatherings to talk about the incredible work happening in Latvia and the rest of the region!