SUMMER CAMP IN LOUBATAIEVKA – August 2-6

In July, our summer mission team began to meet and make preparations for our camp in the village. The team members were Margarita, Ilina, Lena, Natasha, Oleg, Bajenna and me. Margarita, Lena and Ilina are students who attend my Bible studies and who I have been discipling for many years. What a joy for me to be able to do ministry together with them!

We also needed two young people to help us in our skits. Bajenna, our pastor’s daughter, and Oleg, one of the brothers in our church, agreed to join our team. We immediately had unity and everyone seemed to understand what their role would be for the week. We prepared songs, skits, games, crafts and Bible lessons and looked forward with great anticipation for the opportunity God was giving us to serve the precious children in Loubataievka.

Praise the Lord for the 48 children that attended our camp each day. We had 100 degree weather every day of the camp and there was no running water. Our brother, Rooslan, had to transport water in a huge barrel for drinking water, washing hands and food preparation. Our team was absolutely amazing! We had great unity and worked well as a team in spite of the extremely hot weather.

The children were also amazing! My teammates agreed that the children were like angels the whole week. We didn’t have any fighting or arguing. The last day of the camp, when we started our program, the electricity in the village was turned off. At first we were told that it may be only temporary, but it turned out that there was no electricity for the remainder of the camp. This didn’t stop our team or program. We needed electricity in order to perform our skit, so what could we do? I drove my car into the driveway of the church and put the disc in my CD player and turned up the volume as loud as it would go and the show went on!

On the last day, we presented a children’s Bible to each one of the children who attended the camp. Our team would like to thank the Calvary Church ladies in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for sending us crafts, gifts and treats for the children for our camp. Thank you to all of you who prayed for us.

Please continue to pray that God will use the things that were taught during the week of the camp to ultimately bring the children to a saving knowledge of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Margarita is already asking, “What are our plans for next summer?”

More photos of camp on my Flickr Page