Support Ephraim Smits to attend the Lausanne Movement Conference in Seoul, Korea, September 2024

The ministry of reconciliation in the Baltics will not end with a shipment to Latvia, but rather mark only the beginning of an amazing work that God is doing and will do!

More about the Salvation Temple

My history with the Salvation Temple goes back to when my father, Pastor Janis A. Smits recovered the building from the new government in 1991 for the purposes of God. The Salvation Temple was my father’s childhood church, although at that time already, the Soviets had pushed the congregation into the basement, and eventually outed them completely. My parents had been exiled from Latvia with their 10 children because my father did not compromise his faith and obedience to God. Many times the KGB interrogated, threatened, and even offered him high paying salaries if he would only stop preaching, but because he would not falter or give in to them, they finally told him, “you will go to prison,” to which my father replied, “prisons needs pastors too.”

My history with the Salvation Temple goes back to when my father, Pastor Janis A. Smits recovered the building from the new government in 1991 for the purposes of God. The Salvation Temple was my father’s childhood church, although at that time already, the Soviets had pushed the congregation into the basement, and eventually outed them completely. My parents had been exiled from Latvia with their 10 children because my father did not compromise his faith and obedience to God. Many times the KGB interrogated, threatened, and even offered him high paying salaries if he would only stop preaching, but because he would not falter or give in to them, they finally told him, “you will go to prison,” to which my father replied, “prisons needs pastors too.”

Because of much pressure from friends in the West, my father and his family were exiled. That’s when I came in. Born in 1984 in Canada, I became my parent’s 16th and last child, and when the cold war was over, I traveled with them on their return to Latvia to serve in rebuilding and restoring the Salvation Temple and its congregations. The building itself was in terrible condition and everything needed to be renovated. For 10 years between 1996-2006 my father worked to rebuild it, and completed most of the major work, except for the stage and choir loft. This is something He had said, “needed vision.”

The Salvation Temple today

After graduating SUMMIT in May 2022, I returned to Latvia on faith. I had no job waiting for me, but I know what I heard from God. So here I am, barely 2 months later, writing from an apartment in the heart of the Salvation Temple’s neighborhood, at His complete disposal and in His service. This is only the beginning of many wonderful things to see and witness as there are many more ministries now that are developing. The Russian-speaking congregation that meets in the mornings is led by a Ukrainian Pastor Zvirid who I knew as the church’s youth pastor when I was young. When I met him and the church again, it was like a reunion and I felt the love of all the old familiar faces and many new ones. The Latvian-speaking congregation has decreased in numbers and does not have yet a full-time pastor, yet what inspires me is to see is that the congregation is attended by those living in this community and their eagerness to participate in new ministries and outreach. As a Latvian myself, knowing my language and my people, I know that I am called to walk and work among the poor, the addicted, the distraught and hopeless peoples in this vicinity, and to share the light of Christ with them and also to help them and their families to stand up and walk again. This is not work that can be done alone, and so I have been praying for fellow laborers, and many have also made their acquaintance with me. Now is the time of waiting for God to put it all together.

More Information

William Fetler Museum https://www.bible.lv/en/about-lbc/new-vision-future/viljams-fetlers.html
David Wilkerson’s Baltic Prophecy in 2004 (video) youtube link (here)
Ephraim Smits’ testimony at the TSC Worldwide Prayer Meeting (April 2022) youtube link (here)