Zdravstvuyte from Russia! Week Two

Zdrastya!!

I’m sitting in an internet café located on the Nevsky Prospect, the most famous street in St. Petersburg. This morning we prepared for our next mission to camp #60 and we visited the Church of the Spilled Blood in the afternoon. It’s the church that everyone thinks about when they think of Russian Orthodox Churches (the one with the bright colors and swirling domes on the top).

We got back from orphanage camp #9 on Tuesday. It was a camp that the follow-up staff here in Russia had never gone to and some of the children had never heard the gospel message before. It really was an incredible experience how God changed the hearts of the kids at that camp. They were mostly older kids who earned their keep in the orphanage by working on the farm that was attached to the camp.

One story I’d like to share is of a young girl named Anya, who is 19. She was in my small group where I had an opportunity to give the gospel message. While it was being translated, I could see that God was speaking to her heart. After our small group was over Anya approached the translator and me to ask more questions about God, Christ, and her life. I’m not sure if she accepted Christ at that point or not (most of the older kids do not open up that easily), but as we were leaving and I was just about to get on the bus, I looked over at her and she was at peace.

The kids at this camp are pretty hard and jaded. Most have lived a rough life and they’re only teenagers. Some of them had never heard of Jesus, which was really a neat for our group because the kids were so eager to hear what we had to say. When we left on Tuesday after only two days, most of them were waiting at the bus to say goodbye to us. We will be going back to orphanage #9 in about a week so please pray that we are able to connect with these kids and complete the good work that we have already started with this group. Our group really has a heart for the orphans at this camp and we can see God working in their hearts. I gotta go cause the rest of the group is waiting for.

From Russia with Love in Christ,
Ben