Peter and Sam came home safely from their trip to Kazakhstan.
Details: Joined with a team from Pennsylvania, they were able to conduct a total of:
– 8 Day Camps
– with the participation of approximately 370 kids
– visit 20 families in need,
– visitation of a Center for Disabled
Highlights:
In one of the villages, on the first day, we were flooded with teens, mostly ages 12-14. There were about 35 teenagers and we didn’t have enough leaders to split them up into our normal small groups of 7-8. So the groups had to be a lot larger. There were plenty of troublemakers in these groups, but God gave strength and patience. Surprisingly, on the second day, the “troublemakers” came and were able to recite the previous day’s memory verse by heart! They also remembered the previous day’s Bible lesson very well. In the end, there were several that accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior! Praise God!
In another village, there were a lot of native Kazakhs who spoke Kazakh well, but only knew a little bit of Russian. There were quite a few kids that came who wanted to be a part of the day camps and didn’t let the language barrier stop them from participating. There was one boy in particular who the leaders had a tough time with because he knew so little Russian. But he did still come every day, participated in the games and crafts, and listened with great interest! On the last day in that village, the leader of this boys’ group offered a Chupa-Chups(lollipop) to every kid in the group who remembered all the memory verses from each day. To everyone’s surprise, this little boy was the first one to recite by memory all of the verses! God works in mysterious ways!
One of the best time we had was on the last days with the parents. We prepared a set of questions about each child, and we let the kids fill in the answers during the time of the day camps. On the last day, when the parents came to participate in the farewell ceremony, we’d play a little game with them. The parents would, one by one, be asked the same questions their child answered about themselves. The goal of this game was to see how well the parents know their child. In the end, each parent that participated received some sort of gift. The parents’ hearts’ were touched as they saw how happy their children were, and especially when they heard the Gospel! You could see how some of the parents teared up when they heard about what Jesus did for His creation!The most important thing is that all of these people, orphans without their heavenly Father, heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The seed was planted by missionaries, it will be watered by the local churches, and give it time, there will be fruit!
Thank you so much to everyone who prays and supports this ministry!