To the glory of God, we have completed the first day of our first children's camp here in Ukraine. We had a wonderful turn out, we are exhausted, but we are excited about the rest of the week.
Yesterday, we had a wonderful church service at the local Baptist church here in the Gorodische village. There were two services, one in the morning beginning at 10am and the other one in the evening beginning at 5pm. Both church services lasted two hours each. All five of us guys preached and were did a variety of special music. Vocal solos, flute solos, vocal duet, poetry as a group and individual, and singing all together. The people were very welcoming and blessed us with their attention and kind remarks. We had the opportunity to eat lunch with many of the young people right after the morning service. Also, we walked to town and did some evangelical singing for people at the center park. We gathered about 50 individuals all together in the middle of the park till past sunset! It was a wonderful time.
Today, we had an early start to prepare and head out the church for the first day of children's camp. The camp began promptly at 9am. For the first 45 minutes, we had large group with all the children together. We introduced ourselves and those who were helping us run the camp, introduced our theme for the day, and sang some songs together. After large group, we divided the children into two groups by ages. One group consisted of 34 children ages 5 to 8. The other group had 37 kids ranging from 9 to 12 years old. Yes, we had a total of 71 children for our first day!!! A wonderful turn out! We were expecting around 50, so we were very surprised to have such a large turn out. The day included Bible lessons, Scripture memory, learning songs in Ukrainian and English, playing games, and a variety of sports. We also had lunch provided by several of the ladies from the church. The camp ran from 9am to 4pm. By the time we got home, all six of us were sunburned and exhausted. However, we praised the Lord for such a wonderful turn out and fabulous first day. We are expecting a lot more children to show up the next couple of days. So please keep praying. We are sharing the Gospel in chronological order beginning from Creation to the Cross. So, Wednesday's lesson will be the big one as it will include an invitation for children to get saved!
Ilya and I cooked dinner tonight for the team. We had a great time and we all enjoyed having a fairly American meal again. :) Also, we got together with the youth of the church this evening for a few hours to play volleyball, sing around a campfire, and share testimonies. I shared mine thanks to Yuriy who translated. Which leads me to speak about my language progress. Well, ever since I got to Ukraine, I have been immersed in the language since I hear it left and right. Everywhere I turn, I am faced with people who only speak Ukrainian and Russian. So, besides my five American teammates, I have had to be very creative in order to communicate with the people and children here. Olenka and Konstantin have been my main translators (Yuriy translated my sermon on Sunday) and I am quickly learning a lot of Ukrainian vocabulary. Sometimes I am told too many words at once so I get them all mixed up. The interesting thing is how much I get laughed at when I try to speak with such a bad accent. The people and children are very kind and I feel very blessed by their willingness to help me communicate with them!
Well, there's another update! Again, we greatly appreciate all your prayers and support! Please keep this first children's camp in your prayers this week and for our traveling to back to Kiev on Friday. I am still unable to load up pictures, so I guess they will have to wait till this weekend when I am back in Kiev. God bless you all!
