Our Russian team was invited to come and do a children's camp, and you can see some of the different ages of kids in this picture. There were about 60 kids that came, and they all had a great time and had opportunities to hear about our God who loves them so much! Then 15 of them came to the church service the day after our last day of camp. It will be great to hear how God uses this in the hearts and lives of these young people and their families.
This young girl attached herself to me the second day of the camp, and made it her mission to teach me Mongolian. I was thankful for her kindness in this and for having studied Buryat, but there were also times that this limited knowledge of the Buryat language just confused people because, although it is related to Mongolian, they are not the same language :). She was very sweet and gave me a photograph of herself and a picture that she drew of everyone on our team on the last day. I love how people can be so open and generous if you show them some care and love.
We were blessed with a great place for this day camp too. We were outside most of the time, but on the second day it rained and the school where we were holding the camp let us move everything inside their gym. This picture also shows the great youth leader from the Mongolian church that we worked with, as he is sharing with the kids about God. He had great passion for God and for the kids and blessed everyone at the camp.
One of the reasons that the Russian team really wanted me to come with them is that they were having an easier time finding Mongolians who knew English than Mongolians who knew Russian. So I worked together with this new friend of mine and a few others to keep communication open going from Russian to English to Mongolian and back.
Here are a few more people both from our Russian team as well as from the team of helpers from the Mongolian church. This was probably the biggest encouragement to me. They were all so ready to help and sacrifice and try to do all that they could. They really blessed us and I know that God will use them to do great things. There was even one young man helping out who had attended a camp last summer that this Russian team had put on. He gave his life to Jesus and is following Him. The church started a youth ministry following last year's camp and this young man has been very active in that. The church has also helped him through some amazingly tough times including dealing with the murder of his father. I am always amazed when I see someone who has gone through such a difficult thing, who is so filled with love and joy and is ready to move forward in life.
Finally, I wanted to show a picture of the Russian team. Actually it is missing Lena, our pastor Sasha's wife, but the rest are here. We were blessed to have two young Russians who have spent most of their lives in the USA. We had a great time explaining to people that they were Russians who lived in America, and I was an American who lived in Russia. The team did a great job, and I was so excited to see them grow in their understanding of working with people from a different culture. I think this will help even in reaching out to and understanding the other cultures that live here in Russia.
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