Cold temperatures, warm fellowship!

This year we were able to run our children’s winter camp in a town called Divnogorsk, 1000 kilometres away from the city of Novosibirsk. Divnogorsk is a pretty town surrounded by hills, which for those of us from Novosibirsk where there are no mountains, was very beautiful and unusual.

There were 18 young teenagers altogether and four of these were from non-Christian families. These teenagers have not experienced love and acceptance from their parents, who are mostly alcoholics. There was one boy called Nikita, whose mother is now in the women’s drug rehabilitation centre in Novosibirsk. When Nikita was going to school one day, he found his own father dead from an drug overdose in the entrance to their block of flats.

Now Nikita has friends his own age, and he enjoys coming regularly to Sunday school. In the church he has found love that he has not experienced or felt before, and he feels like he is wanted and among friends.

Our goal for this camp was to befriend the Christian teenagers so that they would trust us and come to us in the future for advice and help. We prayed a lot for the weather, and God blessed us with temperatures of minus 40! This is cold even for us Siberians! However, thanks to this very cold weather, we spent a lot of time inside, and the teenagers became very good friends and we had some very good conversations with them - our goal was accomplished!