[ Welcome Mat ] [ Special Messages For Us ] [ Past Missions Trips ] [ What is going on in the Portland area now? ]

---

Short Term English Camp Trip to Russia, July 20 to August 3, 2002

by Glenn Laubaugh

Above: From Left to Right: Moscow Kremlin's Ivan the Great Bell Tower, Kremlin Wall Towers: Constantine and Helen Tower, Tocsin Tower, Tsar Tower, Saviour Tower. At right is St. Basil's Cathedral ( Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat ). Ivan the Terrible was so impressed by St. Basil's ( 1555-1561 ) that he had the architect's eyes put out in order to make sure that a duplicate of the building could never be produced. Before the trip to Russia, it was easy to concentrate on the difficulty of what was ahead of us.

One great opportunity we had was to visit some of the families of our new friends. After the home visits, we waited in one of the plazas for other members of our group to join us.

Some years back, on several occasions, when there was an opportunity for me to go on short term trips, I was able to come up with convenient excuses as to why not to go on these trips. Yet, after the team's return, and hearing of their great report and how God used the situations they ran into to help them grow spiritually, I regretted not going.

There is a wonderful opportunity in Russia right now to serve our fellow Christian believers, and help the church in Russia grow. This great opportunity for ministry there will not be there forever, and it is best to step through the open door now rather than have regrets later about not helping our brothers and sisters in Christ in Russia when they needed it most.

Therefore, during the Valley View Missions Conference earlier this year, when Frank Gorsline asked me "How would you like to go on a team to Russia?" could I really say "no"? For me, the question was more a matter of "If God does not want me to go, then he will close the door," rather than waiting for God to give an invitation to step through the door that He has opened.

At Left: Russurection Gate and the Chapel of Our Lady of Iberia. This is mostly a restoration effort. The original gate and chapel structure was largely torn down by Stalin, in order to allow large military vehicles to enter Red Square from the north.

The Russian people have a very intimidating history. Reading the CoMission introduction to the Russian people and culture made me wonder just what I had gotten myself into. Suffering, murder, and persecution have been a part of life in Russia for centuries, and has been particularly bad in recent memory. Before I left I had to ask myself just how, exactly, was I going to minister to a people with such a difficult history. It was a question that God himself answered, for he provided everything that was necessary.

The trip to Russia was actually fairly uneventful. The few of us coming from Oregon arrived at the airport around 4:00 in the morning for a 6:15 departure, which left on time for New York. At the same gate, we got back on the same airplane and went to Moscow, again on time. I expected a very severe problem adjusting to the time difference between Moscow and Portland ( it is 11 hours during the summer - counting Daylight Savings time pretty much the other side of the globe ). However, the long hours on the airplane created an atmosphere in which my body didn't know what time zone it was on, and adjustment to Moscow time seemed to be fairly rapid. Most of the other English speakers seemed to adjust fairly well also. To be certain, we were tired, but I never woke up wide awake at 3 in the morning, for example, because my body wanted to be on some other time zone that wasn't quite Portland but wasn't quite Moscow either. This rapid adjustment to the time difference was a blessing.

The OMS English Camps in Russia are operated in cooperation with local churches in various cities. This year, teams were sent to Yaroslavl, Arkhangel'sk, Borovichi, and Ivanova*. I was assigned to the Ivanova* team. The Ivanova team consisted of two people from Oregon, one from Australia, and seven people from a church in Ohio, including that church's pastor, Jeff Kephart. The oldest person was in their 60s, and the youngest was 17. It was wonderful to watch how God brought us together as a ministry team in a very short time. In Ivanova, we had the benefit of working with Pastor Dima Chkheidze, who speaks and understands English very well. He has been the only Christian in his family for a long time. He also served as interpreter for such complicated material as most of the testimonies of the members of our team, plus Jeff's sermons and Bible lessons.

Because of the importance of making close relationships during the camp, and the ability for friendship evangelism, the ratio of Russians to native English speakers is kept low, with a goal of about 2 Russians per English speaker. Thus, the number of people who participate in the team directly affects the number of Russians accepted into the camp. If I had not gone, two Russians would not have been able to participate.

The settings for the camps are at vacation spots known as "sanatoriums", which were originally intended for vacationers to contemplate the joys of communism and return refreshed to their labors. They continue to be centers of recreational activity. All sanatoriums were not created equal, however. For example, the Arkhangel'sk facility only had ground hole toilets and lacked running water. The facility at Ivanova was obviously designed for a higher rank of citizen, as it had hot and cold water, a dining hall where all our meals were prepared, a bar, and a wonderful lake and beach. Outside our group, there appeared to be several hundred other people at the facility.

A typical day was something like this: at 9:00 am, the English team would meet, have a devotional time together, and pray about the upcoming activities. At 9:30, all of the camp participants would go to breakfast together, and as much as possible intermix so that no tables were left with only Russians. At 10:00, there would be a worship time (sometimes with a few Russian worship songs) followed by Pastor Jeff giving a message in English, with Russian translation by Pastor Dima. This also involved discussion groups. By 11:15 or so, that would be finished, and we would have free time to enjoy our surroundings with our new-found Russian friends until lunch, at 2:00. Our free time continued until 4:30, when there would be a Bible study predominantly in Russian, led by members of the ministry team in the local church. At 7:00 we would have an organized hour of English instruction, with dinner at 8:00 pm. On many evenings, there were special activities at 9:00. For example, one night there was a talent show, on two other occasions there was a camp fire, and one evening a treasure hunt. All activities were designed to point to discussions about the teachings of Christ in some way or another.

What would be a camp without singing around a camp fire?

We also introduced many Russians to the art of making s'mores. Here, they are experimenting with cooking marshmallows.

At the Russian camps they actually do some sermons in English ( with Russian translation ). My first impression was that this would certainly cause trouble at the English camps in Ivanova, because of the large number of non-Christians that came, and that these people seemed like they would be hostile to such things at the English camp. Yet, after a few days of camp, when they were asked about what their favorite part of the camp was, many of them actually said it was the "lectures". Also, they had the opportunity, if they wanted to, to skip that part of the camp and go find some other thing to do. Yet, they did not do this, and in fact the daily sermons had nearly 100% attendance (and slightly more than that if you count one or two people that wandered in from other parts of the camp to listen on one or two days), while the daily English lessons had somewhat less than that.

Jeff Kephart leads worship songs in English. Leaders from the church in Ivanova also led a few songs in Russian, so that those with no background n English would feel more welcome.

Remember, God was officially thrown out of Russian society when the communists took over, so that many of these people have not heard much about God or the Bible. Therefore they are interested in hearing about them. It is a very interesting opportunity for ministry that exists in Russia right now, and will not always be there.

We had 11 English speakers come to the Ivanova camp: 7 from Ohio, 2 from Oregon, 1 from Australia, and 1 that is OMS missionary staff in Moscow. The desire to keep the ratio of Russians to English speakers low resulted in 20 Russians being accepted at the camp. About eight of those appeared to be from the local church in Ivanova, so that there were only about 12 or so non-Christians there.

Yet, at least 5 of those non-Christians prayed to receive Christ at the camp.

Our conversation group, from left to right: Anna, Tim, myself, Nastya, Cindy, Marina, and Kostya. Three of the five who came to Christ were in our group.

Kostya was my roommate. He had little exposure to Christianity before the camp. Many times, when asked about what his thoughts were on the "lectures" being discussed at the camp, or about having Christ in his life, he said that he was very close to wanting to become a Christian, but had more questions. On the last day of camp, he made the decision. Not only him, but also his sister Nastya decided to become a Christian, so that neither will be the only Christian in their family. Also, they are distant relatives of Pastor Dima ( Dima's brother is married to Kostya's aunt ) so that now Dima will not be the only Christian in his family. A very close family friend to all of them, Anna, also made a commitment to follow Christ at the camp. Pastor Dima had told us that all of these people would be difficult to reach due to their life style and family history, yet all three of them, as well as two others, found Christ at our camp.

As well as helping evangelism efforts in Russia, our camp also helped encourage the believers. On Sunday, July 28 we had a baptism service in the lake. At first, only one person was going to be baptized, but four other Christians decided that it was time for them to be baptized. Under the current circumstances it is very difficult for Christians to be baptized in Russia. This is because they are normally baptized when they are infants as part of the Russian Orthodox church. If someone makes the commitment to be baptized again as a declaration of being part of the body of Christ, many times it is assumed that they are enemies of the Russian Orthodox church and therefore they may be persecuted by other people, many times their own family members. Also, because these infant baptisms are part of family heritage, sometimes the family views a new baptism as rejecting family heritage. Yet, even considering all those problems, we had five people at camp give their testimonies as to how God has changed their lives, and why they decided to get baptized.

It was an amazing trip in many ways. It was great to see how God is working in Russia and in the churches that were persecuted for so long in so many different ways, and in some ways continue to experience some persecution. It is exciting to see how many people God is touching there and how quickly the church is growing.

I don't think that this missions trip would have been anywhere near as successful had I not had the prayer support of people back home, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation with me in this ministry.

* Apparently Ivanova is usually transcribed from the Russian alphabet as Ivanovo on English language maps. It is approximately 5 hours to the southeast of Moscow. However, as Ivanova is much closer to a phonetic spelling of the actual pronounciation, and because it is the spelling used on the paperwork I first saw informing me of my assignment to that camp, it is therefore the spelling I have used here.

Our new Russian friends joined us on a trip to Souzdal, which is an old capital city. This is a bell tower there, which features regular bell ringing demonstrations. These bell ringing celebrations were not often welcome under the communist rule, and it is therefore only recently that these have become much more common.

Here is a close-up look at the people ringing the bells, and the extensive rope system that allows only a few people to ring a number of bells..

This spoon and bowl was a gift from Kostya and his family. It is a beautiful example of Russian craftsmanship that is practiced even to this day.

The Return Trip

Subject: Return from Russia
Date: 1:09 PM 8-4-2002

About an hour ago I arrived home from Russia. The trip back was a bit exhausting:

Flight arrived in Moscow from the USA 4 hours late due to storms in the New York area. Therefore, we left Moscow late. We were supposed to have left at 1:30 Moscow time, but instead it was 5 pm, Moscow time, August 3.

Arriving in New York, we were put on a special New York - JFK to Atlanta flight that was done almost entirely for passengers from Moscow so that the airline could get them to Atlanta and fly them in all different directions. All of the flights out of New York had left by that time.

The truck that empties the toilets from the airplane backed into part of the wing, and no other airplanes were available to go to Atlanta. Therefore, we waited for several hours while they inspected the plane to make sure everything still worked the way it should.

We then arrived in Atlanta at 3 in the morning - 11 in the morning Moscow time, the next day - with just enough time to get to the hotel that we were assigned for the night, shower, nap, and return to the airport for our assorted departures at around 8 in the morning - 4 in the afternoon Moscow time.

Arrived here in Portland around 10:30 am Pacific Daylight time, or 9:30 at night Moscow time, August 4. Therefore, the whole of two days were spent in the hands of airlines, airports, and their related hotels. Yet, as I type this it is just now 1 pm here, so there is still a lot of day left.

The only time zone I am on right now is very tired.

Thank you all for your support and prayers, and I hope to get more information to you later about the trip to Russia.

-Glenn

The close-up of the painted wooden bowl that was given to me by Kostya shows the skill and quality of the artists in Russia, even today.

Other Web Sites: