The other day a friend asked me if I knew some games to play with kids. I said well, some I know…. and with that I was already signed up to run the games in a Christian kids camp in Vladivostok. No one really knew how many kids would be there – we have also never been working with that church before, so it was quite interesting. There were about 20-30 kids form the ages 5 and up. To lead games is usually my least favorite part to do in kids programs, but this time it was really fun. Masha was playing with the younger kids while I was assigned to the older ones. It was actually quite fun – kids can be so funny – I love when they don’t understand the rules and then every one plays their own way and you just stand there, observing the craziness of it all and laughing….I love to work with children - many of them are so receptive and the seed of the gospel falls on soft ground. There it has time to grow. Did you know that most of the young people that become believers have heard the gospel in their childhood first?
The second day or that two-day camp we picked up some girls in the morning. They come from a pretty poor family and most of the time they just sit home and so nothing. Sometimes we go and visit them. The eight-year-old Katya barely knows the alphabet and how to count to ten. On the way there five-year-old Svyeta got carsick and threw up – all over her clothes. Good thing we found some humanitarian aid clothes at that church and we could clean her up. When we drove the girls back, Nina yelled: “Stop- lets go back to the camp, I don’t want to go home – lets just go back!”
On the way home I went to visit Sasha* at the hospital. He just went through his 6th and last chemotherapy. He is pretty excited to get out of that hospital. We don’t really know though when he will be released – he has to go back to the orphanage, which he doesn’t like. His circumstances at home led the government to take the parental authority away from his mother, so I don’t really know what place is better for him to live. Maybe the hospital is not that bad after all…We visit Sasha 2-3 times a week and have developed a pretty close friendship. He still hesitates to give his life to Jesus, but i believe that he will come to the understanding that only God can give meaning to his life.
In about two weeks our very first DTS (Discipleship Training School) starts here in Vladivostok. Very exciting. We are still looking for a place to rent. At the moment we don’t know where we will put all the students once they arrive☺. The only thing we know is that God is faithful and he will go with us to the end – AMEN!