© Photo from Anna Bergeson’s personal archive
Why not? Because the dream was to live in Latvia for a year. In reality, the Bergesons ended up settling here for good.
What made an American family fall in love with Latvia enough to build a life here?
When Anna first applied for missionary service at her church, she intended to stay in the USA. She hadn’t envisioned traveling to another country for 18–24 months, let alone learning a new language.
Then, she got assigned to a mission in Latvia.
“As soon as I got the assignment, there was something in my heart that just turned on,” she recalls.
Listening to her talking about her family’s journey, it seems that something has only been expanding ever since.
“I had six months of my own preparation before I left. So I jumped in to try and learn the language. I was researching everything I could about Latvia and trying to figure out their culture. And everything I found confirmed, ‘This is my country.’”
As a singer, musician, and a folk dancer practicing traditional dance from all over the world, Anna was fascinated by how close singing and dancing encapsulated Latvian culture.
“By the time I finally got here, I truly felt I was meant to be here. This is just like a second home,’” she remembers.
Although she loved her 18-month mission in Latvia, at this point, that was all it was supposed to be. “You did your service, and now you’re home.” But destiny, God, her inner voice, and, perhaps, the plot of her Latvian love story had other plans for Anna.
The first curious thing upon returning to her hometown in Idaho was that people kept asking Anna if she would like to go back and live in Latvia.
“You don’t usually ask returned missionaries if they’re going to go back to the country they served in. But I had so many people [ask that], and I feel like that opened my mind to the idea of, ‘why not?’”
When she met her husband, Garrett, at the language training center where they were both teaching, he was on board with the idea of returning to Latvia. As their family grew to include two children, the dream didn’t end. It just meant they had more planning and saving up to do.
Their idea of going to Latvia kept shifting and growing with the family.
First, Anna and Garrett tested it together with an internship in Latvia in 2018. After that, they planned to return for the 2023 Song and Dance Festival. That visit was supposed to take six weeks, but the couple had also started to discuss spending a year in Latvia around 2025.
“When you get to know Latvians, you look at them and think, ‘How did I ever think you were reserved?’”
In 2022, after Anna had already booked vacation rentals for the family’s 2023 trip to the Song and Dance Festival, her mom touched upon something Anna hadn’t realized herself yet.
“She said: ‘You’re not really happy where you’re at. You’re okay. It’s not bad. But you’re not really happy. What’s holding you back from going to Latvia right now?’ And so all those vacation rentals that I booked for us became our landing pad.”
What was supposed to be a visit turned into a move. Over the next six months, the family sold their house and car, bought a home in Latvia, and left the USA with just 10 suitcases.
The Bergesons arrived in Latvia with a dilapidated house to renovate, a new language to navigate, and two preschoolers to care for.
“In the first two and a half years, and especially for that first year, we questioned all the time: ‘Do we really want to stay? Are we really going to do this?’” Anna recalls.
One of the things that helped the family settle was the support they found in Liepāja. Their church community was the first source of support. Then they discovered the local kindergarten, which gave Anna both practical relief and a sense of normalcy.
“Moving here, people and I alike thought my mental health would probably get worse ‘cause it’s gonna get dark, cold, and we’re gonna be alone. But I actually found it got better because even though I’d moved away from family support, I had more [community] support here than I’d had in America.”
The family continues to make a point of staying active and open to the local community. And some connections have happened entirely on their own.
“One time, our neighbor comes and leans over the fence, and says, ‘Do you want a berry bush?’ And they just handed it over. It was one of those small moments of connection that we’ve slowly seen our community grow from.”
Building her Instagram account became another source of connection—this one across international borders. “I feel like people are watching out for me, whether or not they’re in my immediate vicinity,” she says. It’s a different kind of belonging that has helped ease the sense of isolation she initially felt.
Eventually, the question of whether they would stay began to fade. The family finally felt settled.
“I felt a little like a germinating seed for those first three years. Let’s stay quiet, let’s stay dark, just focus on making it through and stretching in ways I can. Then within the last six months, I’ve really seen myself grow and blossom. I’m excited to see what the next years add because it’s been beautiful, and the change I’ve seen in myself and in my family is inspiring.”
Anna doesn’t see their story and the choice to stay as an isolated one, though.
“I look and I see all the other stories of people who have also chosen to stay, all the Latvians who have chosen to stay and make it beautiful here. It’s beautiful that you have hundreds of thousands of Latvians here in their country saying, ‘We see all the problems and we still choose to stay, and we choose to make it better.’”
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