Camp Pictures & Update

The view from our camp site:


A mother-child afternoon activity:


Pr. Dan and Pr. Ilya catching up:


The worship team getting a little help from an aspiring musician:


Our evening campfire & part of our circle:


Well, we're briefly back in our apartment in Ekaterinburg after an interesting week at camp. It was full of both wonderful and terrible experiences! Among the highlights (and lowlights):

* We shared our camp site with a number of snakes, both venomous and otherwise. One woman was bitten and had to spend a few days in the hospital. A couple of others were bitten but only by garden snakes.

* The mosquito population at this camp site is significantly higher than the place we were at last year, which made our evenings especially challenging. It was almost humorous each night looking around the circle of folks constantly swatting themselves and their neighbors as Dan valiantly tried to preach effectively. He now has a new record for number of bugs swallowed during a sermon.

* Lucy had cases of both heatstroke and food poisoning. If there is anything more miserable than food poisoning itself, it's food poisoning in the middle of a wilderness filled with mosquitoes and snakes and without clean water or a conventional toilet. Enough said.

* Once again, we had some fantastic conversations and opportunities to build significant relationships. We continued relationships with folks who need encouragement, prayer and just a compassionate friend to talk to. Believe it or not, this makes up for everything above!

* This may seems particularly hard to believe, but the spot we are camping in this year is truly beautiful and restful and there were some times of real joy as we relaxing with the people from Heaven's Open Church, who have so little chance to enjoy the outdoors or spend so much recreational time together during the rest of the year.

We had originally planned to come home for a week in between this camp and the national student conference (at the same camp site) but were talked into staying a little late and going back early (yes - we are just that crazy!) to be a part of the student evangelistic camp going on now. We came back to Ekaterinburg Monday afternoon and will return to the campsite Thursday or Friday. Please pray for us this week that our bodies, minds and souls will recover in this short time at home. Also pray for those at the camp still this week - especially for the non-Christian students taking part in the camp - which has a Lord of the Rings theme - to hear, understand and receive the gospel. There is also a team from a church in London there to help for the week. Pray for them as few of them speak Russian or have been to Russia before. Several of them also had food poisoning.

For more pictures from camp, check out our Picasa Web Album. Thanks for your prayers!