Russian Teens at TeenStreet 2008

OM International

“Did you really travel four days to get here?”

This was a quite common question for the 22 participants from the Russian contingent at TeenStreet in Oldenburg this year, after this stunning piece of news was announced from the main stage one morning! For almost half our group this was really true – our eight participants from Tyumen and Yekaterinburg did indeed travel 2 days on the train to St. Petersburg where they met the other participants from there and Vyborg. Together they took the coach to Helsinki where they boarded the ferry to Rostock. After 26 hours on board the ship they took another coach to arrive finally in Oldenburg, Germany. What amazed most people, even more than the number of days they had travelled, was that they were not complaining at all about the fact that they would spend the same amount of time on the road as in Germany. One of the other leaders from Germany said: “This is amazing – our teenagers complain when they have to travel four hours!”

It was a great joy to watch our Russian teens being part of the huge event for Christian teenagers, designed to help them live a real friendship with Jesus. This was the fourth time that there was a group from Russia. Together with 3500 people (teens and staff) we looked at the theme for this year’s TeenStreet, “blind sight” – a challenge from the life of Paul, who became blind for the earthly things once he saw Jesus, to focus on the unseen, eternal things, rather then the earthly, passing things! (2. Cor. 4:18)

After just the first day of the conference, Pavel and Sasha Botsyan, two brothers from Yekaterinburg, said that this was the best conference they had ever been to and they would start saving up money once they got back in order to attend next year’s TS. In the end Pavel added that he had learnt to surrender more to God.

Touching individuals

Each of our teens came with their own unique story and God met them in one way or another. There was Andrei, who comes from St. Petersburg and has an Orthodox church background. He is a quieter character. The style of worship at TeenStreet was very different from the orthodox, yet he enjoyed it, bought a small drum and happily accompanied the songs during worship. Andrei learnt that although there are different ways of expressing worship, we all believe in One God. In his quiet way he was moved by compassion and bought a necklace with a cross, which was made by an Aids-orphan. He said that he would like to help those people!

Sveta, also from St. Petersburg, came for the second time to TeenStreet. She said in our daily feedback session just before bedtime, that she didn’t have any particularly high expectations. Therefore she was rather surprised by how the Holy Spirit touched her and changed her during the days in Germany. She said that she would go home a different person.

Masha, who came all the way from Tyumen, Siberia, probably underwent the greatest change at TeenStreet. In the beginning we perceived her as rather closed and somewhat troubled. On the second day we got to know her story: just a month prior to TeenStreet she was away with a few friends at the dacha (Russian summer cottage) when one close friend of hers fell, broke his neck and died. She was deeply grieved, shocked and questioning God about this, why had she had to go through such a thing. But God ministered to her during those days and each day she opened up more and more. In the end she said that she now understood that this event helped her to open up before God and she has peace in her heart again. Masha wants to go back and comfort her friends who also witnessed the accident. She just wants to be a blessing. Two weeks after coming back from TeenStreet we heard that she had told her mother that she would like to get more involved in Bible studies and the Alpha course, but before she does so she wants to spend time in prayer!

It is really special to see that TeenStreet is not a mere highlight and big event, but that it has a deep and lasting impact in the lives of our teenagers.

A fresh look at worship

Artem, who is also from Tyumen, is part of the AV team in his church. In his ministry he finds himself listening to the music as a professional. After the first day he said that it was great to get lost in worship. At home this is not possible, he can’t really engage with it. He also said that the best times were sharing in his fellowship group.

Almost everybody mentioned at one point or another that they enjoyed the worship, the prayer times, the fellowship and that they sensed God’s presence in all. For Gloria (Vyborg) and Yana (St. Petersburg) the prayer time was one of the highlights. A lady from the prayer team prayed for them both and while doing so had the impression that God was pointing them to be youth leaders at home. That moment left them deeply touched.

Oleg and Pasha, who were our two rappers from Tyumen, took part in the talent show and they took third place. Oleg said he really enjoyed that event, but he also mentioned that God had dealt with his pride and going to church, praying and worshiping would be different from now on.

Not just to be served

As part of the staff it was really precious to watch the teens change and grow and simply enjoy themselves. They gave everything in the TNT sponsor race and the boys saw it as their privilege to pray for people rather than taking advantage of the fact that there was a whole team there to serve them in prayer. So I found myself during one meeting surrounded by five teens fervently praying for me!

Chat rooms

Part of the programme were the so-called chat rooms – seminar-like times, where a few staff and a group of teenagers met together to talk together about issues that are relevant to life. With five of our teenagers I (Sonja) went to the “How to read my Bible” session to translate for them. It turned out that only our Russian group turned up for it and so we started to talk with Christian, who was the German translator at TeenStreet and who is a pastor in Heidelberg the rest of the year. Instead of the one hour given for that chat room, we sat two hours together talking about how to read the Bible. This time was clearly orchestrated by God. Christian is a second generation believer like a few of our teens and his testimony and how he helped them to understand parts of the Bible better was moving. Even after translating for two hours I didn’t feel tired at all – I just enjoyed how the Holy Spirit led the whole conversation. And because it was so good, we agreed to meet again the next day and the day after. A planned chat room turned into a special Bible study group for part of the Russian group!

Another special thing to see was how our Russian teenagers made friends with teens from all over the place, especially with a group of Russian-German teenagers – having a common language helped getting to know each other of course. The last day they spent most of their free time together playing games in the hallway.

An unexpected blessing

In the midst of all the excitement we had to deal with some disciplinary issues as well. After we had received a second notification that some of our participants were late for a meeting, we decided that it was time to take action. So we talked with the co-ordinator of boundary issues and agreed that we would help as a whole group on the last days to do the dishes in the morning. What was meant for discipline turned into a blessing, since the service team had shrunk in number by then, our help was very much appreciated and it was great that we had even fun doing it.

These are a few glimpses of what happened this year at TeenStreet and we are eagerly waiting to hear more about how it is still making an impact on those who came! Thank you for making it possible for this particular group to go this year and thank you for standing behind us in prayer during this time as well!

Credit: OM International
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