leadingforlife.net

Igors Rautmanis, Main Speaker

Igors will join 'Leading for Life 2008' as a main speaker. In 2007, he shared the platform with Jason Lane in an interview about his leadership experience <read report here>. He holds a university degree in pedagogy, studied theology in London, and is currently working on a MA at Fuller Theological Seminary (California, USA) in their Intercultural Studies programme, focusing on leadership.

Igors is a 36-year-old Latvian leader. When he was a high school student, he started thinking about the meaning of life and asking himself questions nobody had answers to. A year later, he was on barricades in the capital city, Riga, standing together with other unarmed students to demonstrate they were ready to defend the newly-gained freedom of their country. Somebody was passing out leaflets with the Lord’s Prayer, giving Igors a clue about how to pray. Using this as an example, he started praying, specifically asking God to send somebody who could tell him who God was and what He could do in his life.

This prayer was answered six months later when Igors entered the Sports Academy. Reading a poster advertising an outreach event, he knew he had to be there without even knowing what it was about. It was at this event that he heard the Gospel clearly explained for the first time. When people were invited to give their lives to Christ, he didn’t have any doubt that it was God who had been working in his life for a while and had brought him to that event. It was the beginning of his new life with Christ.

Igors became member of a Christian student group. This group later became LKSB, the Latvian IFES student movement. Igors was elected as the leader of the Riga group and later appointed as the National Director.

After 14 years as the National Director of LKSB, Igors will continue in student ministry as one of IFES Europe's regional staff, supporting student ministries in a number of European countries.

Igors married Nora in 2000. Together, they have three children: Robert—4, Evelina—1-1/2, and Ruta—6 months.