News and Updates
We're now onto one-day daycamps for the Roma, where we visit individual Roma camps and host a single VBS session of crafts, music, witnessing and food!Playing the Prodigal Son, spending all his money, at the Roma Camp for Andrew, Misha, and Sasha.
Bin sharing his testimony with Roma Kids
Late, but only because of uploading difficulties. Many thanks to Tomson, Lisa, and Bin; Tomson mostly for editing, everyone else for their support with the blog!It was at the campfire on day 4 that we did the altar call. Eight to ten kids came to accept the Lord that day, and we also did a re-commitment for kids that came last year and that returned this year.
We decided to keep day 5 casual and familiar, so we took them out for a hike to a nearby lake.
Hiking prep. Everybody needs water, and the Ukranian diet prefers lots of sugary snacks!
The lakeside around which we hiked. Unfortunately, we don't have many other clear shots, because there are so many trees and bushes along the trail.
We encounter on our hike an actual goat herder; further emphasis on the agricultural focus of the local region.
We in North America don't touch fruit or berry bushes/trees because of potential pesticides that might be sprayed on them, or because they might belong to somebody. In Ukraine, public services pretty much never spray pesticides, and owners are very lax about fruits and berries being picked and eaten by passer-bys. Our kids demolish a blackberry bush's offspring that we encountered during the walk.
After the hike, we performed a closing ceremony with some final words from the leaders and translators. We also gave some gifts both in general to everybody and to best performing kids who listened, lead, performed as groups, kept clean rooms, etc.
Bin catches the kids attention with a magic trick before the closing ceremony begins.
Now that we cleaned up the hut and are leaving it, it feels kinda lonely looking.
You will have seen the Day 4 photos by now, but there is unfortunately one event that morning that marred an otherwise perfect day.Note that the below is related to us in a first person view from the kids involved in it themselves. It is the final "revision" that we counselors have agreed to accept as what actually happened, but we only arrived at it after several people involved in it changed what they said. And there is obvious disagreement between the people involved on account accuracy.
One of our younger participants felt that another older one had been disrespectful to one of his family members; it is unclear whether he means one of his sisters/relatives attending the camp with him, or another relative that he or his brother shared about at bedside on Wednesday night. He confronted the older participant Thursday morning in the elder's room, while all the camp leaders and translators were doing devotions. The younger asked the older participant to take back what he had said or done. The older one refused.
At this point, we do not know who pushed who first, but there was a physical confrontation. The younger participant's neighbor heard the commotion and rushed to defend him; the older participant's two friends, who came from the same Roma camp as him, also noticed what was going on and did likewise, escalating the confrontation until the younger participant and his neighbor left the room.
We would not receive word about this incident until breakfast time, when three boys refused to show up at breakfast.
This has been heavy news on the entire Roma team. I personally have fellowship with the three older boys at the same table everyday, every meal, and am a role model for them; the other leaders have similar or deeper levels of relationships with all five boys.
We have asked the younger participant to apologize to the older one for fighting with him, and asked the older one to apologize for disrespecting the younger's female relatives. Both have complied. But the older one has refused to accept the younger one's apology, and when asked, also refused to apologize to the younger one for fighting with him. He instead asked to leave; to call his camp to provide a ride for him. When Lisa tried to convince him to stay, he declared he would walk if he had to, so he could return to his camp. His two friends also asked to leave after he did so.
In the end, we granted the requests of all three boys. But it is with burdened hearts that we do so.
Upon hearing about this after the Roma camp, Vasya himself noted that the outcome of the confrontation was to be expected. Despite having much of their culture, their identity, and their very dignity as human beings stripped away, the Roma remain fiercely prideful. In fact, their pride forms a mental protection and coping mechanism for dealing with how unfair the world deigns to treat them; but this same invulnerable shield is a terrible wall that blocks out forgiveness, mercy, grace, and the immense love that comes from the saving message of Christ's resurrection.
It is a tragedy, that pride is one of the few things that the present Roma share in common with other humans. And where it concerns missions, they would be better served without it if they are to willingly and sincerely come to Christ and mature in His character.
I don't intend to sound like I'm pontificating or self-righteous. If I am, I apologize. But I am all too familiar with pride, and it's destructive results to both the self and to everyone around it. To see it here, with only trivial differences between it and my past experiences, has saddened me, angered me, and put me on my guard. My fellow teammates also had strong reactions to this, though I will respect their thoughts and not attempt to detail them here.
On Monday, we will be visiting the camp that the three elder boys came from, to host a day camp. We expect the pastor of that camp will ask us why those three will be sent back, and we will have to recount our story. Though my fellow team members may have some idea of what will come, I have no clue what kind of fallout the confrontation will create, or if we will even get a chance to communicate with those boys, who need our prayer and intervention by the Holy Spirit.
Please pray for us, as we battle with our emotions and our reactions to this storm. Please pray for the continued mission to the Roma, that God will work boldly through it to bring his children back into his family. But most importantly, please pray for the Roma themselves.
Pray specifically for the five boys who fought each other, and pray for the Roma as a whole, that humility would become a virtue, and not a vice to them.
Pray that the godliness that Christ and the servants of God show become a role model for young and old Roma alike, displacing their old, prideful sin nature.
Thank you, for your time in reading this, and in what care and thought you might have for our progress.
You want a real campfire? Come to Ukraine.We Canadians have sissy campfires that only come up to our hips at best. Ukrainian campfires though...
That kid in the background is Zhenya, the smallest kid at the camp coming up to no higher than my shoulder - so four and some feet? Whatever. Big Brother Campfire looms over him.
Uncle Tomson isn't in the picture, but he and Sasha have just stepped back from lighting it. The branches piled in the campfire come up to their heads easily. Here's Sasha checking the tinder before the campfire gets lit:
And once the fire gets going?
Firebird Suite time; heh heh heh...
Here, have some more pictures of us preparing and enjoying the campfire.
Presentations were incredible. In addition to music presentations, we also had skits about the Prodigal Son and about the Passion.
A crazy fourth day. That's what I have so far off the top of my head.It's like the kids themselves have realized internally that everything is about to end, and they are putting everything into it. They're more talkative, rowdy, inquisitive, and sometimes even a bit more naughty. But they are also more energetic in worship and incredibly active in crafts and lessons - even more so than in previous days. In the end, our altar calls for confession after presentations and for re-commitment after campfire night was incredible.
Even as I pray for our fellow House of Mercy colleagues, my mind also comes back to our kids at the Roma Camp, and I feel the need to pray for them as well. May God keep their minds on love, and their hearts on His word. May God protect them from the aggression of others, and shield them from their own pride and the self-centered sinful nature that infects all mankind.
We are all ultimately equal in God's eyes, but some of us need His grace more often, and in larger quantities - especially when they themselves don't realize it. And so I pray, as yet another day ends.
Saul's men and David's men confront each other, as Uncle Tomson teaches
Today's bible verse in Ukrainian (and Russian/Hungarian? Gotta ask Mark again)
Lunch with our neighbour Hungarians!
Worship at the end of the day! (Thank you Aunty Lisa for taking the pictures!)
He doesn't always play the part of Goliath...
But when he does, he'll do it while knitting.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
In addition to our lessons on the life of David, we want to give the kids a chance to be leaders, so we've been training them for drama and music. The opportunity comes this week and next - the kids will be performing skits and worship music to each other, and then to their camps. And we hope that when we're done, they can do this without us guiding them, making them true leaders and heroes.Under the tutelage of Bin and Tomson, the groups have been making progress doing skits about the Prodigal Son parable and on the Passion of Christ. Uncle Tomson can tell you more about how they are doing so far.
With Aunty Lisa and I, we've been training the kids to be worship leaders. Retaining the theory (really, just principals of worship leadership) has been a bit harder than expected, but the practical aspects of actually singing and presenting music to others has been much easier. These guys have been surprising me with how quickly they get better with music - and how much energy and fun they have from worship. Rowdiness is more a feature than a disadvantage with them.
On a great side-note, thanks to our interpreters being our go-between with the kids and us, we've had the side effect of also training our interpreters into becoming great dramatists and worship leaders as well - complete without expecting or planning for it at all. To me, it's just another little way that God is moving in the short term mission He's assigned to us, producing more good than even we expected, and rewarding both his servants and those who receive his message incredibly.
...And now I have to go. I think the kids are running around in towels and little else after their evening shower. Discipline in the camp is great, but only after we talk to them about the "rrrrrrrrrrrules!"
Thank you Uncle Tomson for clarifying what was going on yesterday!You may or may not know by now, but our lessons focus on the life of David spread out over the camp's week, using him as an example to inspire our kids to be leaders and heroes in their own Roma communities.
Day 1 was going over how David was chosen to be king of Israel through the prophet Samuel, and how God's gifts to us help us become heroes.
Day 2 - which was where those pictures with no explanation were - was the duel between David and Goliath, telling us how heroes trust in God. (Bin looks like he's having so much fun, by the way, showing how David's sling struck down "Goliath"-Sasha)
Day 3, today's lesson, will focus on how David chose not to kill King Saul when David was fleeing for his life, and how heroes know what the right thing to do is because they listen to God's word.
Wow, it's almost 2 over here! That means carpentry for boys and knitting for girls is about to start! I'll best be leaving now, before I arrive late and have to do push ups!
Look forward to pictures and more logs tonight!
Image dump time! I'll talk about the contexts of these pictures later tonight, when it isn't so rushed!
So this is the hotel that we'll be using for this year's Roma camp? Wow.
According to Lisa and Tomson, it was also last year's location for the Roma camp. I'm impressed.
This year we'll be using the outside tented patio for our meeting and worship area.
And if you walk along the right hand side through the parking area...
...you'll see the tennis courts which we can use for outdoor games and sports!
