Primitive Camping and Music Festival

Our family and about 10 kids involved in our college age ministry spent last week at the beach in Crimea, Ukraine camping and attending a Christian Music Festival called "White Nights." The camping was quite primitive and the mosquitoes were terrible, but we all had a great time despite the things that we did not like so much. Our favorite band was "Unbelievable" and the three band members are active in our campus ministry. The music was good and our group spent a lot of time together, encouraging each other and getting to know one another better. Many of the students also attended the teen retreat in Berdyansk a few weeks ago. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Teen Retreat in Berdyansk

Last week we were in the seaside city of Berdyansk with our teens for our second annual retreat. Our theme was "Be Happy - Living the Blessed Life" and we studied the beatitudes. There were twenty five of us and everyone had a great time. We had a couple of classes each day along with an evening devotional around the campfire, craft time (which is always a hit), good meals, morning and evening games, annual talent show (with a loose definition of talent), and a lot of beach time. As a special treat we rented a Sea-Doo for a couple of hours and let the kids ride - it was their first time riding one. We are so thankful to have such a good youth group.

ABC Update

Today we bought and delivered Pampers and supplies for the children at the Baby Hospital. Although we arrived at nap-time I was still able to get some good pictures of the kids.

We had a nice visit with the head nurse who told us about one of the children who was adopted from the baby hospital about 8 years ago by a Ukrainian family. The family is interested in adopting another child and they recently visited the baby hospital. The little girl was so overwhelmed by the precious children that she told her mother, "We just have to take one of these children home!" This girl, who is now about 10, does not know that she is adopted (many Ukrainians think it is better for adopted children not to know about their adoption). It was almost overwhelming for the head nurse to see the strong emotion and desire to help from a child who herself was in the same situation not too many years ago. It reminded me that we are all blessed so that we will become a blessing for others.

Thanks to all our sponsors who make it possible to bless these precious children.

Service Project

For our service project two weeks ago on Friday Fun Day we recovered chairs in the worship room. The kids took the chairs apart, washed them, covered them with new material and then reassembled them. They also worked on their scrapbooks for the summer. We are truly blessed with a great youth group.