Baltic Church Planting

June 9-15 Next to the river Barta we had our children Christian camp, where a tent camp was carried out many years ago. We found that beautiful place already last year and carried out our camp. I wrote a little bit about the program and the preparation in my last report, so I am going to write about the results mainly in this one. There were 140 people in general at the camp. We had 7 groups of girls and 4 groups of boys, where the children were at the age of 14-18 years. Besides our workers we had people from Jelgava’s church who came to serve in our camp, we really became friends after our trip to their church last time. There was also a group form the United States of America that came to serve and help us in our camp. Their leader was Pavel Minukov. He was also our sponsor and a very dear brother in Christ Jesus. The weather was wonderful. Besides the time spent in studying the Bible the kids were able to swim, and play some really interesting sport games. We had a specially trained sport instructor whose name is Linard, so that the kids didn’t have time to be bored. We had also wonderful food, This year the team that was working in the kitchen during this camp was really helpful, and united in serving the Lord and children.

I was the leader for the group of boys. This was the eldest group at the camp, and the boys were not those easy ones. Most of the boys were from the orphanage. The last evening was particularly blessed. We had a lot of interesting games, campfire, and a wonderful holiday for the children of our camp. There were beautiful songs being sung, and the food at that evening was really interesting and the children fully enjoyed everything. The calling to accept Jesus into their hearts was also made, and the first who could come to the front were the girls. And suddenly one of the girls came to the front crying heartily, just after her two her friends crying also came to the front. Just after them several other girls started coming to the front and crying were praying to the Lord, and asking Jesus to come and enter their hearts and their lives. After that the calling to accept Christ was done for the boys. And the same thing happen, there were many boys coming to the front falling to their knees, and crying, at that moment they were so very humble before the Lord. After that a wonderful music was around, and we prayed for those children but the boys didn’t want to stand up and leave that blessed place where they received that new life from the Lord Jesus Christ. As you see the end of our camp was really amazing. The books that we had prepared for the camp for the leaders and for the children were brought away with our American friends to be used in their camps. That program was very effective for the work with teenagers. After the camp, all the children were invited to our Sunday service and afterwards also to our youth service. The children were sharing testimonies about that evening when they accepted Jesus into their lives. One girl who hadn’t believe in God at all, came to our camp from Jelgava, just to see what is what, so she gave her life to Christ, and went back to Jelgava after the camp, but she couldn’t help her ambition to come to our service on Sunday. She was sharing the testimony with us on Sunday service. We were really amazed by the work f God that He is always doing with these hearts.

Now the most important thing is not to lose them, and for this reason, we have decided to gather them at the places of their leaders for fellowship and for studying the Bible. So right now we are thinking about the topics for the Bible lessons. On July 26, 27, and 28, we had an evangelization service in our tent. Our dearest friend Vladimir Feoktistov came to help us from California, and also the Pastuhovs family from Riga came to help us with this service. During this service many Christian brochures were given to people and many Christian songs were sung, so that even those who were not in the tent were able to hear about the Lord. The preaching and the songs were very strong, and besides, those people who wanted to talk with the preachers had an opportunity to do so. Not that many people accepted Jesus, but we are very happy for those souls. There were a husband and a wife who are homeless, and their friend ho is a former boxer, and also one police officer also came to the Lord, besides the husband of our sister came to the Lord, and before that he was so very proud that he hadn’t believed in the Lord, and now he was crying as a Child and as others. We invited all of them to our Sunday service, some of them came. The month was really blessed.