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July 2007
Index of Feature Articles |
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Camp started 2 of July. Unfortunately electricity was not yet ready and road was not made too. It was a real miracle of God that all government inspections allowed us to open this camp! So - 2 buses of kids came to us on the 2 of July. We had to stop the buses 2 km far from the camp - the road ended there and buses couldn't drive further. children went by foot these 2 km. We made our best to make these 2km-trip an interesting adventure for them. Right on the place where buses stopped 2 clowns met kids and told them that these awful old dirty barn (cow's house) is their camp! and we, clowns, are their new directors! they laughed and didn't believe us and told us that their camp should be much better - so we all together went to look for the real camp! On their way few other people in costumes met them and told them different stories and gave them tasks and puzzles to show right way to the camp! So the trip was interesting and kids didn't suffer that they had to go by foot. We had two shifts in the camp. First was 2 july-13 July and the second was 16 July - 27 July. During the first shift we had 95 kids age 6-13. 2 younger groups 6-8 years old - boys and girls - lived in the big house (we did our best to prepare rooms for them there). All other kids lived in veneer cabins too. Here in the camp we had 4 different kind of insects - and they all tried to eat us. Insects are really HUGE problem. even spray didn't help against them. we hoped that next year it would be less of them. also we had a lot of frogs on the territory of the camp. Kids enjoyed them - boys liked to make "frog-gifts" to girls! they thought it was funny! Group leaders were not so happy about it! The fact that we had
no electricity in the camp made some problems for us - we didn't
know how to save food and meat for kids without refrigerators and how to
take water from the river without electric pump. Natalya and Viktor
Slobodyan - the directors of the camp - had to pray a lot and to be very
wise to solve all these problems. But they did their job perfectly,
trusting God in everything. They had 8 year experience of the camps
already. " Tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and
experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us"
(Rom.5:3-5) We have no shower in the camp - but we had one banya (sauna). So -we had banya during the camp and kids could wash there once during 2-3 days. Some boys decided not to go to the banya - thanks God we have river and God gave us nice weather and we went to the river to swim almost every day. This year we had great blessing - one fund donated us 50 blankets and pillows! new and warm! You should see happy eyes of kids when they saw these new pillow and blankets! They slept in warm beds and were happy!
12 days of the camp were dedicated to different topics. We had camp-hero -young boy, who looked for happiness in his life. Every morning we had drama about him. He looked for happiness in wrong places all the time. So - we had days devoted to WEALTH, POWER, STRENGTH, LOVE, HEALTH and so on. Through the whole day we showed to kids that the happiness is in God! Last two days were about peace with God and glory of God. Many kids wanted to accept Jesus at that moment already. During the first shift a great team from California worked with us. They were real help and blessings for us and we managed to be one team with them. They brought a lot of stuff for crafts and they also brought a lot of blessings with them. Children loved them really much, and team behaved like heroes. They overcame all difficulties and had so much patience - in spite of all weather, insects, no electricity and shower conditions. They were great. The second shift was for teen-agers 13-17 years old. Our American team left us. But we also had Americans (International World Changers) who came to visit us almost everyday and children liked to be in contact with them really much. We had the same program of the camp than during the first shifts, but we talked with children really more seriously and tried to go deeper to some topics and to help them to solve real difficulties of their lives. We talked about what is real love and also about drugs and alcohol. But the most important is that they all had possibility to listen to the Gospel and at the end of the camp when preacher asked who wanted to repent - they all prayed and repented. May God bless them and I hope this was sincere decision in heart. Zhenya |
This
report was written in Russian and translated to English by one of the
local believers. This will help you feel as if you are almost in the
camp.