Your support helped reach orphans at a lakeside Summer Bible Camp

Vyacheslav P.
SGA-Supported Orphans Reborn Team in Far East Russia

Greetings, dear brothers and sisters! Over the summer, we spent a wonderful week at the Baptist Union campsite on Haka Lake. This time we chose a simple theme of a royal game, bringing the children into the setting of kingdoms, knights and dames—to their delight. In total, we had 41 children, with 19 of them coming from orphanages.

The storyline moved easily from the king of the camp legend to the True King—Jesus—as well as from camp events to biblical truths. As always, the children enjoyed it all and were upset that they had to leave. Already on the third day the kids were begging, “Let’s stay here for good!”, especially those from the orphanages.

They appreciated that in the camp, they were not yelled at, that they are loved, and were just happy together with all the children. For us it was hard to realize once again, what a horrible reality these kids have to live in.

The last time I wrote that we were praying and thinking about taking more children into our family. I prayed for God to show His will in the near future. On this day, God truly visited us. We were asked to take in six children who were left without custody as their caregivers had divorced. Four of them are siblings. We learned from the children that the previous custodian had severely beaten them all, and the two older girls told my wife of worse abuse. The kids seemed to be almost completely neglected and kept at home permanently. With us, they were swimming and bathing at the lake for the first time, as well as going to the park and many other activities that we did together. For all of them, it was all for the first time.

We pray for God to direct us in what to do in the long term, while experts say that in our neighborhood it would not be possible. But we know that nothing is impossible for our God. We know that God is in control and He will see things out, though we are not fully convinced that God is directing us to take these children into our family. Thank you for your continued prayerful and financial support! Please pray also for these six children.