Siberia (MNN) – Summer camps across 13 countries are kicking off in a network of 6,000 churches this month. Eric Mock with Slavic Gospel Association says host churches are uniquely equipped to serve their own children.
Drenched with technology yet thirsty for in-person communication, Mock says kids attending the camps find an oasis from their social deserts.
“They are actually having a relationship with other kids and with leaders who actually care a lot about them,” he says.
Many of these kids come from difficult home lives. Some are orphans; others are unwanted. At the summer camps, they find camaraderie in their peers and Christ-focused generosity in their leaders.
One Siberian child, Lena, has been placed in an orphanage by her mother, an alcoholic. Because she still has a living parent, adoption out of the situation is not an option, yet her own parents are not present in her life. Her situation is representative of many other children.
“SGA is helping the churches minister to 84% of the kids who really will never get adopted and have a broken future: to show them something more than what they’ve experienced,” Mock says.
He calls her background a choir of chaos; yet she found an SGA summer camp to be a turning point. On the last day of a tent camp in her region, she gave her life to Christ.
“But her world doesn’t change, and so these faithful people know that even though a decision is made in a summer camp, there is ongoing discipleship year-round through these various churches that continue to minister to these kids,” Mock points out.
Camps start as early as May and run through August. Churches often run several camps each summer. Mock says no one camp is the same.
“What you do when you’re on the border of Iran and you’re in Azerbaijan or Armenia and you’re doing a camp along the border, it’s going to look different than up in Yakutia above the Arctic Circle in Russia, which is going to look different than a war zone,” he says. “Even in a war zone, sometimes the air raid siren goes off, and the kids run into the basement and continue their games in the basement until there is an all clear.”
The eternal hope of our Father in Heaven is central to every camp.
“Food, comfort, better family: these are transient things,” Mock says. “What we need in this world is to tell people of the hope we have in Jesus, because this is a hope that can never be taken away from these children.”
Please pray for the upcoming summer camps. Pray for salvation among the children attending, and pray for wisdom, joy, patience, and discernment for the leaders.
Featured images courtesy of Pexels
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