Lighthouse Party with Friends from England

Every year around the Easter time all of us in Stelpe School are waiting for our friends from South Yorkshire Jean and Ian Sykes, Joyce and Mick Mumford to come and be with us at least one joyful afternoon.

This year they came a little later because the Volcano had canceled the flights. But they came nevertheless when the ash cloud had cleared up a little, and they did their activity for the children who enjoyed it very much.

The guests had carefully prepared for every child a set of assembling parts for a cardboard lighthouse with an inscription in Latvian "Jesus is the Light of the World".

Pastor Mick told us a story about an English girl Grace whose memory is honored for more than two centuries because she risked her life and went in a small boat to save some sailors when there was storm in the sea.

Grace was a daughter of a lighthouse keeper. On a morning after a stormy night when the storm was still strong, she saw a few sailors standing on a rock far in the sea. They had survived a crash of their ship. Grace ran to her father and convinced him to take a boat and go to rescue those men, and she went together with him. It was really dangerous, all the more because there were a lot of underwater rocks in that place. Yet they managed to reach the sailors and save them.

The pastor reminded us also that there is another story from more than two thousand years ago when Jesus came not to risk His life but to give it to save the people.

The English friends joined the children as they were building the lighthouses, and helped the smaller ones where there a high precision was needed.

It is a settled custom to give Jean her happy birthday greetings since her birthday often coincides with the visit. Not this year, though. But we still took the opportunity while she was here.


In order to make the "party" even more enjoyable for the children, our friends had provided some dainty snacks - fruit, nuts, juices.

Some children were surprised that they were allowed to take the lighthouses home.

Everyone thanked the guests really warmly and asked them to come again next year.