Baltic Church Planting

Before the beginning of the season of summer camps our youth, the people who were going to serve at the children camps had an opportunity to take part in a seminar that was organized by CCI. We spent five days in camp in Ropazhi. Two of our sisters were undergoing the course for the leaders of the groups at camp. This course included the methods of teaching art, generalization of ideas, drama art and many other disciplines. I, as a director of the camp was undergoing the course for the directors of camps, and I also attended the course of tourism in children’s camp. I really enjoyed this course, and I could also add that this was the first time I attended this kind of course. We were not just taught the course but also had and opportunity to work out the program for the camps, and we as children in camps were to make different performances for the evening services, and prepared different games for all the people of the camp to play. The youth form different churches of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia took part in this seminar. I was the leader of our group where were brothers from Tallinn and Latvia.  We became friends quite easy and successfully fulfilled all the tasks. Our team was very creative. I gained very useful knowledge in the field of tourism that I will apply in my work with the children of our camps. Already during the seminar I was thinking of the opportunities to apply my gained knowledge in the ministry.  The sisters that were with me were also very happy and blessed by the seminar. I am sure that everything that I got to know during the seminar will be effectively used in my ministry. I am so grateful that there are these kind of opportunities for me to study.

Just after the seminar we had our day camp in our church.  Previously I wrote that there had been problems with the finances and with the place where to feed the kids. We are so grateful that all those needs were met by God. Liepaja’ s council and the school’ s council helped us with the finances for all these needs.  Of course it was only the part of the problem, but it was also very important. We made an agreement with one company who bought lunch to our church. Children were well fed during the whole camp.

We also were very glad that there were very active parents that came and trusted their kids to us. The previous years we had problems to get the enough number of kids. This year it was different. The parents came and bought their children that last year did not even want to hear about our church. They did not let their children to come to our Sunday school, but this year they already bought their kids themselves. I met new people and made stronger relations with those whom I knew before. In the end of the camp all the parents claimed that they really enjoyed the camp, and would love to attend the camp or parents. So I started to think about it.

We gathered more than 40 children, but because of different reasons there were 40 children every day at the camp. We divided the children into three groups. I was the leader of the elder group. We made wonderful relations with the kids, and they were very attentive when I was telling them about the Lord.

At the last day of the camp 8-11 kids invited Jesus into their hearts and wanted to change their lives. I heard how they were praying also for each other. I was rejoicing that everything that we were trying to reach was reached.

Now the task was to strengthen what was reached. I organized a camp for those kids for two days.

In a week’s time we went hiking. 12 people went hiking along the sea. We managed to walk for 20 kilometers during the half of the day. It was not easy to do it. It was very hot, and we also had a lot of things to carry on us: the tents, food and water. We stopped during our trip to eat and to swim. We settled our tent camp in the forest not far from the sea. We prepared the food ourselves on the fire. I was teaching the children to make fire, and other interesting and useful things for hiking. We had a Bible study in the evening in the tent. It was heavily raining that evening but we were safe in the tent. The rain disturbed to fulfill all my plans, but I am still happy that everything was as it was.  As that was the first time I carried out that kind of activity there is nothing to compare with. After our hike I was very much busy with the preparations for the camp for teenagers. I had to plan the program and the financial base.  We were meeting with the leaders and the youth of the church “Voice of Gospel” and were planning the program of the camp day by day, lesson by lesson. We managed to work out a wonderful bible lesson plan. We also managed to think of interesting tasks for the members of the camp for every day. We had to go to that place where the camp had to be carried out with the brothers from our church. We were making all the facilities to be available for the camp. We worked a lot, but mosquitoes and the hot weather was really disturbing us.

Our church was really supporting me with prayers if not physically.

Plan for July: to carry out the camp for the teenagers, evangelization of children and teenagers, preparation for the evangelization of adults.