Dear friends of Hope to People!

We are glad that you continue to follow the plot that unfolds in our lives surely written by God’s hand. The summer months stood out really hot and passed quickly
in the reapers’s labor  in the field of God. During holidays and summer vacations, workers of the Lord could work, teaching and caring of many believers and unbelievers among children, adolescents, young adults and the oldest.
Thank God for this blessed time!

Day camps and playgrounds

God has blessed the IPO Hope to People Education Department, as well as the Association of Bible Missionary Churches in Ukraine to hold a budget version of  evangelistic camps – day camps or playgrounds. Activities were held without going to another place, in the premises of boarding schools, ordinary schools, churches, or directly in the courts of the city apartment buildings. Many children because of the economic situation in Ukraine can not spend summer at recreation centers. They spend most of the holidays roaming around on the street from the morning until late at night. Children willingly come to the appointed place, where for a few hours a day during the week Christian teachers and counselors play with them, sing, do crafts and conduct Bible studies. Such events are of great value, involving
children who are often left to themselves. By the grace of God and through prayer and financial support of Hope to People friends, by the forces of the Education Department and association of churches this summer there were conducted seven day camps and six playgrounds in Kiev, Rivne, White Church, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zdolbunov, and Dneprodzerzhinsk.

Train up a child… Proverbs 22:6

Serving younger generation continues to be an important ministry because at a young age most people form their spiritual beliefs once and for all. The Lord has opened the possibilities for the eight children, three teenage and seven youth camps in recreational areas in the mountains, at the seaside, in the forest, and by the river in the Carpathians, Odessa, Volyn, Dnieper, Rivne and Kyiv regions.
The camps were held in the form of large-scale events with more than a hundred participants, divided into teams, in the form of sports training, and in the form of hikes, climbs in the mountains, where only a few young people could have a close and frank dialogue with a small number of instructors. Although in recent years the organizers of the camps have become more skeptical about mass camp repentance, many young people still continue to make a decision to follow Christ through
evangelistic summer camps, where they are able to freely communicate with the believers, to study the Word quiet away from the city bustle. Such camps were carried out by Sport and Education Department of Hope to People, Association of Bible Missionary Churches in Ukraine, and friendly to us churches.

Building the church

Not only children but also adults have received the blessing to relax and at the same time to study in church and family camps of the Association, as well as in leadership seminar and retreat with the departure of the city for 2-3 days. During such a joint stay in the camps for a few days more mature members of churches and pastors could provide biblical infl uence on unapproved brothers and sisters, to cultivate young leaders to encourage and strengthen the ministers of the new small churches, to preach the gospel to unbelievers friends who were invited to the camp by church members. In the Carpathians, there was held a camp for sports
ministry leaders. In Chernivtsi, Dnieper, and Rivne regions there were nine such camps. It’s nice that most of them were held in Zalissia. Each of us is still in need of mentoring, apprenticeship, personal spiritual growth. Thanks to everyone who made these camps possible, may the Lord bless you and send the grace in abundance.

Serving teachers and students

This summer the next issue of the Christian spiritual and educational magazine Word to the Teacher saw the release. It should be noted that each new release is a result of selfl ess work of many people, the fruit of prayers and God’s miracle. The magazine’s motto: «Here is our challenge: to carry the Word of God, so that every teacher was a disciple of Christ» But the work of the Education Department is not limited to journalistic activities.
This summer evangelistic camps were held for teachers, for students and for graduates of boarding schools, it was held as socially significant meeting with the  teaching staff of one of the districts in Rivne region, where they discussed the prospects of expanding teaching «Christian ethics» subject in schools in this area.

Say among the nations: The Lord reigns! Ps. 95:10

In summer, God has provided a wonderful opportunity to the youth team together with the South-Ukrainian churches to hold on that territory several camps for the people who did not know Christ. Children and adolescents have  been very naughty, rampant, many of them grow without close parental attention. Yet, by God’s grace, some of them took seriously the Gospel, part of the older children asked to stay for another shift, some of them were even able to serve as counselors assistants for younger children. They really need our prayers throughout the year, because they have nowhere else to go except summer camps, to hear the Word, there is no Church in this nation yet…

Primorsky Krai

The brothers have completed the translation of 25 Bible stories on udygey language and they pray about going to the places of their compact residence to make a holiday in this regard for these people. During three years of work, God has done amazing things. Firstly, the translators of the Bible could witness to people about Christ, and children formed a group to study the Scriptures. But the most spectacular was the testimony of an udygey woman, one of the interpreters. At the end
of the translation, she said that will no longer pray to the spirit of the river and the forest, and she will now pray to the living God because she knows Him through translation of the Bible stories. Moreover, the interpreter said that if someone from the team stayed in the village, their families would come to the meetings with the neighbors. Two brothers from the team are now praying for that to come to this village for a year for missionary work.

Sultry Asia

It is not possible to hear the news about the first fruits of our missionaries families in Central Asia without fading heart. Although their stay there was in jeopardy, and they are once again forced to leave the country, our friends firmly believe that they will return again. So they settle not far from the nation they serve, and do not hasten to return home. Especially touching is that in their home church exactly by the example of his teacher there has grown an Asian family with the burning heart of a missionary. At the end of this month, this young couple with children, the youngest of whom is barely a month, moves to closed country to preach the gospel to the non-Christian peoples living there. Thanks to God and a great opportunity for each of us to participate in the preaching to the peoples with our prayer and funds.

Tetiana Arterchuk, Olha Denysiuk