2002 Mission Trip to Camp Vorhozdenya – Northern RussiaI was reading this morning that God created man because he loves stories. This summer, we were part of one. Cathy and I along with our children Drew, Sydney & Claire and 11 others from San Antonio joined 12 Russians (our interpreter teammates) on a 16 day adventure at Camp Vorhozdenya, deep in the Russian forest an hour north of St. Petersburg. Our mission was to take Jesus’ love to Russian children in the camp, many of whom are orphaned.

The Short Version
For those who like short stories….During our two weeks in camp we continually felt God’s presence and guidance, made many friends, had a string of great times, think we planted some spiritual seeds and watered others, were blessed by the generous hospitality of the Russians, came back healthy and strongly recommend the trip to anyone who thinks, even a little bit, that they are being called.

For those who want the longer version…read on.

Our Journey
We loaded what seemed mountains of huge duffle bags full of basic clothing, medicines, and sports equipment onto the plane for the long journey. At the end of a 24 hour journey we arrive at camp, greeted by a crowd of smiling faces who formed a luggage parade to our dorms.

The Camp
The camp was built in the early 50’s at the end of Stalin’s reign of terror. It was used as a "Pioneer" camp for decades. Here Soviet youth were molded into communists. Several similar camps, now abandoned ruins, surrounded ours. The quarters were spare but clean. The washroom was thirty feet from our dorm, the toilet hut another thirty feet beyond them. Showers were a five minute walk. We quickly realized the importance of the camp wood chopper. He fed the camp boiler with wood to heat water for our scheduled, 10 pm showers. After a couple of cold showers, we found that supplying him with a couple of daily beers resulted in hot showers.

Our latitude was so near the arctic circle that it never got completely dark. The Russians take full advantage of this brief season of light before their long, very dark winter. Though the campers would go to bed at 11:00, the camp was buzzing with activity until 1:00 – 2:00 in the morning many nights.

The Campers
Camp Vorhorzdenya had about 200 campers. Of these, the largest group were 65 orphans from Orphanage #8 and #32 in St. Petersberg. The other campers included the "Sportsmen" a group of gymnasts, a dance troupe, a five person band and individual kids (with parents) from St. Petersberg.

The orphans were the first to accept us. We spent most of our time and made most of our friendships with them. Other kids from each of the groups eventually joined in with us and became friends too. The hardest to connect with were the male counselors. Their early opposition to our presence was progressively softened as we engaged them in sports. By the end of camp, more were smiling than frowning and several had become friends.

Earning the Right to Be Heard
Our job for two weeks was to try to be Jesus to the kids and to each other. We had interpreters for our specific conversations with the kids. Even so, most of our communications had to be through actions – not words. We had crafts, skits, a 4th of July Parade (complete with fireworks in broad daylight) and informal outdoor bible stories and visits. But most of our time was spent just hanging out and playing with them in the area fronting our dorm. At any moment, three to five clusters, each with one or two of us and a group of kids, were tossing a Frisbee, sitting on a bench reading stories, hitting plastic baseballs with a huge plastic bat to outfielders disbursed among the forest of trees , blowing soap bubbles….. We got to know each other best this way…through hours and hours of play. It was apparent they were hungry for simple attention.

I have never hugged and been given so many hugs as I did over these 16 days. Wherever we walked, we had little companions, there hands holding ours. Whenever we sat, we had a friend sitting beside us or on our lap. Though were starved for affection, they were not pushy. Whatever we gave them came back to us in greater quantity. I think we could have filled the whole time just hugging and holding kids. I came back with my affection needs filled to overflowing.

Generous Dignified Poverty
By US standards, most Russian’s are living in poverty. Most of the kids, and even a few of our interpreters had little more than one set of clothes. But you have to look closely because the Russians (kids and adults) have a wonderful dignity in their poverty. And their generosity of spirit and possessions were a powerful ministry to us. For two weeks we were liberated…from concern about our possessions, our status, our ambitions, our agendas, whatever. Cathy felt that God was showing us the real definition of hospitality.

Liberating Attitudes
We understood that our credibility, and the attractiveness of Jesus, hinged on what the Russians saw in our attitudes. We agreed to a few simple disciplines like not complaining about anything ( IE the food) , not using sarcasm even with each other (the Russians might take us literally). We agreed to choose to gratitude for whatever the circumstance before us and say "yes" (out loud or in our hearts) to the opportunities before us.
It amazed me how each teammate responded, especially the teenagers on our team. Everyone took the work seriously but with light hearts and with joy. I think that our commitment these things made the work freeing and fun in every sense. It was rewarding watch each other in action. ….. we experience the truth of "my yoke is easy and my burden light"

As the days passed, we grew close to many and our visits became deeper and more open about Jesus. We shared that God had sent us to meet them specifically to tell them that that he loved them and would like to be their father, like he is ours. We let them know they could be part of our family forever by following Jesus wit together with us. We gave Bibles to those who had none and had the privilege to explain it as holding the treasures of Life. We encouraged them that God would show himself to them through its words. We even found some roommates among the orphans that we chanllenged to walk together in their search.

Staying in Touch
Before we left we set up ways to stay in contact with the kids. Many of the interpreters have become believers through this work and have begun to volunteer in the orphanages. Several of them committed to helping us continue to build our relationship with the kids through e-mail.

Winding Down
The last three days were like an extended goodbye…many smiles… and hugs…and tears…and special gifts… and important parting visits…. about our friendship, about God watching over them, about how God would knit our hearts closer together if we would continuing to follow Jesus together…

…….Misha, Lyosha, Tonya, Lyonya, Masha, Marat, Sasha, Antone, Dima, Boris, Valeri, Anatasia, Murad, Vasa, Roma, Vova, Viera, Vladimir, Ilonya, Lousha, Paulina, Zhenya, Andrie, Julie, Kyrill, Stass, ….. they are in God’s hands now as they always have been.

Thank you
Thank you for your prayers and support. We felt protected and energized by them while we were there. I hope you can go do this sometime…somewhere. It is one of the greatest experiences and blessings available in this lifetime. The hardest thing for us was the very first step of saying yes. From "yes", God took over and proved himself, once again, the great leader of adventures and creator of stories.