A teacher of mine once told me: “Evelyn, you are a practician, not a theoretician. You would rather act than write about it.” This seems to apply even now, because a long time has passed since the last personal newsletter.
So I will write about everything briefly, but you can see more pictures or read extra information about almost all of the topics mentioned. Most of the photos are taken by me and although I’m still learning, it’s good to know that I’m back in the world of photography.
EDN (European Disability Network)
In October, the whole W4W team was in Austria 
at the EDN conference. This was a good time to get to know the work and the partners of EDN and also to show our team that it doesn’t matter in which country we live – the basic problems of people with disabilities are the same everywhere. Kaspar and I combined work and vacation and drove to Vienna by car. Thanks to that, we could see a bit of the Czech Republic and visit the Tatra mountains in Slovakia. You can read more about our trip here and see the pictures from the conference here.
Wings for Wheels
By now, the W4W team is big enough for us to have had the chance to organise many different events to coax people with mobile disabilities out of their homes and raise awareness about people with disabilities in the Latvian society.
In September we held the second Christian seminar “Let’s reach out a hand!“ and in May, the third one will take place. This is a good chance to invite different speakers, listen to good music, ask questions and have fellowship. The focus of the third seminar is the physical and mental health of people with disabilities. You can see the pictures from the autumn seminar here.
Since there are creative people among us, we have twice held a ‘creative afternoon’ where one could listen to Russian poems read by the author, marvel at (and buy) paintings and listen to good music. Those two evenings gave us the idea to do the same on a larger scale, so on 8 and 9 March we had
an art exhibition in the Latvian National Library. On the last evening there was a chance to meet the artists, listen to poetry and good music and spend time together. 
The photos from the creative afternoon are here and the ones from the exhibition are here.
On 21 June we plan to present a Russian poetry book by Nadezda Kuzmina. At the moment, we are working on publishing the book.
A good way of getting people with disabilities out of their homes is offering them a meal. With the help of sponsors, we had the opportunity of inviting 50 people to a nice restaurant in the Latvian National Library on 2 December to organise an excursion, offer good food, music, word and gifts. While the first banquet was tinted with the celebration of Christmas and the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the one held at Lido in March hinted at celebrating Easter. The photos from the National Library banquet are here and the photos from the Lido banquet are here.
Pentecostal church Ceriba (Hope) in Riga has decided to help W4W buy a wheelchair accessible bus. Since the church itself is small and doesn’t have the necessary resources, they have held two fundraising concerts for us – the first one in September with the help of the Riga Gospel Choir (2200€ was 
raised) and another one at Easter with different Christian musicians participating (1790€ was raised). Seeing all that W4W has managed to do in less than a year already, it is clear why we badly need a bus for transporting people in wheelchairs. Kaspar also explains this in a video (in Latvian with English subtitles). Our bus project also made it to the three contest finalists that can be voted for until 8 April in the “Otra elpa“ (Second breath) charity stores. If our project turns out to be the buyers’ favourite, 3000€ will be handed over to us. Here’s the video.
This year, Kaspar and I did not take part in the evangelical mercy ministry outreach, this time held in Ogre. We did send some people from the W4W team there who organised the annual meeting for people with mobile disabilities. Our family went there only for the meeting, where Kaspar did the introduction and I took pictures. The photos are here. It’s so good to understand that W4W does not depend on us only, but we can delegate a lot of responsibilities. This means our dream of bringing Rasmus to Estonia for a school year can come true at one point.
Upcoming events
On 9 April, Kaspar (and W4W) has the opportunity to speak about people with disabilities at the Latvian Mission Day. The topic of the day is “Who is my neighbour?“ and in addition to people with disabilities, thoughts about work with refugees, Roma people and victims of human trafficking will be shared.
On 14 May we are organising the “Let’s reach out a hand!“ seminar mentioned above.
From 4 to 18 June a Mini Discipleship Training School for people with disabilities takes place.
From 27 June to 4 July the Challenge 9 summer camp takes place.
Wings for Wheels’ foreign branches
It’s great to see our vision spread. In August last year, the first Challenge camp was held in Armenia (you can read more here.) and in October, a similar camp in Togo (look for the country on the map of Africa 🙂 ).
Finances
As for today, we are raising money for the following goals:
1. Handicap-equipped van (10 000 needed, we have 4284)
2. Nadya’s poetry book (1500 needed, we have about 400)
3. Mini DTS (13 000 needed, we have/know that we will have 3000)
4. Challenge 9 (10 000 needed and we theoretically have all we need, as a Latvian governmental fund decided to support us, but in reality this money has not reached our bank account yet. The spending of money is determined by them, which makes organising the Extreme Day more difficult, for example.)
5. Regular supporters (as you can see, W4W is not confined to just camps anymore and every event needs finances)
Would you like to support us?
Personal life
Finally (good job for reading this far 🙂 ), some personal news.
• Our house made it through the winter and thanks to the new heating system, we weren’t cold. The only problem is still the leaking roof. We have “had rain” in several rooms and at the moment, the attic is filled with bowls and buckets. We spoke to the owner and he would gladly change the roof, provided he had enough money. 😀 If we could raise at least a part of the money needed for changing the roof, we would be charged that amount less in rent and the owner would borrow the rest from the bank.
• Rasmus turns 7 this summer and right now, he’s in his last year of kindergarten. He’s been going to school once a month this year and in the autumn, he goes to first grade at the Estonian School in Riga.
• Hopefully during this year (until next March) 
a 1-2-year-old little girl will join our family. We have been waiting for a long time already and now there’s hope for meeting her soon. If you wish to know more about this process and prayer requests, please write to us and we will happily answer.
• You won’t have to wait another six months for the next letter – it will be about the Mini DTS and the next one about the summer camp. We will try to write another personal letter in autumn. This summer, we are hoping to get a bit longer of a vacation, spending half of July and most of August in Hiiumaa, Estonia.
Wishing you blessings,
Evelyn, Kaspars, Rasmus