This name was given to a six-day camp, which was held in the Rivne region, in the village Zalesye.
The urgency of this a camp was caused by the fact, that some people in the churches, sometimes, have a general, or rather vague idea of the nature of God. The thing is, that our wholesome idea on God, of Who He is, and why we worship Him, ultimately determines for what and how we will live and act every day, what we will appreciate, or neglect, what we will spend our energies and time for.
This time, there were 80 people in the camp, 50 – came from Sarny, 10 – from Rivne, 7 – from Novograd-Volynsky and one family came from Kiev. The other 5 people came from Vancouver (USA) to serve and participate in the camp. There were more people who also came from the United States: Brothers Samuel Hanchett and Anatoly Kroshkin, and one sister Tatyana Ivanchuk with her children. The brothers were preaching, held classes in small groups, conducted counseling, and Tatyana had classes for children, taught women in the individual and personal communications.
All the participants of the camp, were filled with gratitude to the Lord and to all those people who took part in organizing this event. After all, during this week, there were many sermons revealing the nature of God to the listeners. Each day was dedicated to one or even several attributes of God.
The introductory theme of the camp was a sermon on the authority of the Holy Scripture, from which, in fact, we draw our knowledge of the biblical God. On the second day, we spoke about God’s holiness and His distinction from a man, about sin and grace. On the third day, we meditated on God’s omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and sovereignty. The fourth day was dedicated to the theme of God’s love. On the fifth day, we heard about the essence of the gospel.
Every day we were starting with morning exercises and general worship, then a sermon and corporate glorification of God. After the meeting, all camp-participants were going to their small groups for the further fellowship. But, some specific, dedicated ministers conducted lessons for the children of all ages. After lunch, there was time for relaxation, outdoor games, and handicrafts for women and children. In the evenings, we had general meeting, which consisted of a musical worship, a small block of competitions, a testimony by someone from the camp-team, there was also photos reviews from the previous days, and at the end we had some conversations between campers.
The atmosphere in the camp was peaceful and friendly, and all camp participants were getting along and behaved themselves in a good manner. No one needed to be persuaded to attend meetings and small groups. Even those who were in the Christian camp for the first time in their life and mothers with young children were very attentive and participated in the discussions. This means, that people were concentrated on what they heard in preaching and could take a lot for themselves from what they heard.
People in the small groups were quite open, outgoing and shared their thoughts about how they viewed this or that quality of God’s character, they patiently listened to each other’s testimonies of how God has brought some of them to Himself, they asked questions about the Gospel, and talked about their lives. On the last day of the camp, the participants thanked the team that they could understand and learn a lot about God, of whom they knew nothing about before, as well as expressed their desire to come to such a camp again. People have received all necessary information, which will be helpful for further reflections about God and personal study of the Bible, as well as helpful tips for the objective interpretation of the circumstances of their lives. The organizers deliberately compiled lists of small groups of the representatives from different cities, so that people could interact with each other, share their thoughts with new people, that will help them not to get bored in their in conventional activities in communities where they live and everyone knows each other for a long time.
According to one of the mentors, who worked with the children of 6-8 years old, there were children who in general, have heard the truth about God for the first time in their life. During the first two days, it seemed that some children were present at the lessons only with their bodies there and have not understood what was happening at all. However, on the third day, when the teacher began to ask questions about what they had heard, she was amazed about how clearly all these children explained the Gospel message to her. They realized very clearly that they are sinners, although at first, they did not agree on this, but then, after hearing the Good News, everyone understood this. The Word of God is living and powerful, and no matter with whom you share it – whether children or adults. When Sister Luba told the children about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, they sat so quietly that their breath could be heard.
From the bottoms of our hearts we express our gratitude to all people who made it possible to run this camp, invested strength, prayers and participated.
Tatiana Arterchuk
