July 2003, A GOOD WORD FROM CAMP

DERZHEES - HOLD ON

Ephesians 4:11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Of course, our time at present is taken up with a host of moving preparations - for those who have not heard, the current round of budget shortfalls has meant that my position in Russia with the mission had to be sacrificed to maintain the ministry.  With or with out us, the work will continue and especially now needs your prayers and support.  There will be time to dwell on our leaving, but for this newsletter I will continue with my account of my trip to the villages around Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk - for this is what mission is about, not leaving and cuts, but seeing the results of the Gospel being spread.

THE SAGA CONTINUES - ON THE ROAD PART II.

Acts 9:30 When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. 31 Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.

Last month, if you recall, I spent 45 days on the road.  One of the highlights of the trip was visiting the villages around Minusisnk in an effort to recruit prospective pastors from each of the villages.  But recruiting was not all we did&. Immediately after the pastoral conference/retreat in Irkutsk, the pastors left to go back to their parishes.  All the trains for that day were full, so Probst Daniil, Grigory, his wife Elena and I had to take a train the next day.  Grigory and Elena stayed with pastor Albert (the pastor of the Irkutsk Lutheran congregation) and his family; Daniil and I were offered a place by a new Lutheran acquaintance.  Along the way I made a point of looking up the former pastor, Slava Kaptiev and his wife.  Slava is now working in a factory, he and his family are now living in their own apartment, and attending the Catholic Church (his daughter is still the organist for the Lutheran parish. We retired early.  As our train was scheduled for the evening, we decided to make the most of the next day.  First, we met up with pastor Albert to meet with the local government “director of religious affairs.”  My presence as a foreign missionary added some weight to meeting for some reason.  The local government seemed very open to Lutherans working in the area and was encouraging in that respect - this meeting showed me that with a little attention and effort, Lutheranism could make great strides in the Irkutsk area. After meeting with the government, we took a tram ride across town to the Catholic Cathedral to meet with the new bishop who was just installed.  We weren’t really sure of the way, but it was impossible not to find - the cathedral was built 3 years ago on a hill in the center of the left bank of the city and is visible from all parts of town.  The bishop was very gracious - part of this is just genuine Christian kindness, but it occurred to me that whether intentional or not, it was a good mission strategy:  be open and nice to the lonely, struggling young and energetic pastors of the protestant “separated brethren” and when they burn out, when the protestant mission support fails, he will be there to minister to them.  It made clear to me two things - the importance of our missionary presence here as mentors, advisors, and supporters and the importance of our pastoral conferences and retreats (like the one we just had).  It also made it clear that the theme for the next retreat should be a proper Lutheran view of ecumenism - but I digress.  The bishop was very gracious, very open and did invite us back for more talk.  Unfortunately we had to leave to catch our train to Krasnoyarsk.

32 hours on the train, and Daniil was home, the rest of us spent a couple of days in Krasnoyarsk before catching the over night train to Minusinsk.

While in Krasnoyarsk Daniil and I once again went over the program for the seminary.  He was most concerned about the already announced budget cuts and the mission closings and what that would mean for the program - of course at that time the word was that no staff cuts were in the offing.  I did my best to be encouraging - hence the tone of my last letter which also goes to all the Russian pastors in the area.  He was most concerned because he realized that the program did not just need financial support, but also moral and spiritual support from experienced Lutherans whose presence he greatly appreciated--in this case meaning Pastor Doug Reinders and myself.  We spent time discussing how to expand the program, he explained to me many of the other opportunities open in his area, and his frustrations over not being able to capitalize on them, and we spent a lot of time in prayer.

>From Krasnoyarsk, Grigory, his wife and I left for Minusinsk.  Our first stop was the central parish in Minusinsk, which meets at the German cultural center there.  They had also heard of the mission closing and were upset, especially since our mission was sending Grigory to study in America, and they had counted on our support through his absence.  Grigory is slated to return as the resident administrator and teacher for the seminary program in Krasnoyarsk.  The good news is that it looks as though we found a student from Minusinsk who can study and return to lead the congregation.

>From Minusinsk we left for a drive through the country side, heading for our first stop, Upper Bulanka, a small Russian village populated by about 40 people of Estonian descent.  There was a church once, but it burned down.

While there, Grigory performed 6 baptisms while I assisted - he had planned for four.  He baptized three during the regular service, which began at 7:30 in the evening (on June 29).  About 10 minutes after the service ended, two other families showed up with three more children to be baptized.  So we held three more baptisms.  Praise God.  (I have pictures, but from where I am at present, I cannot send attachments). About 15 kilometers from Upper Bulanka is a Latvian diaspora village of Lower Bulanka.  This village still has a church building (without its bell tower) that has been turned into a village club - the exact situation as was in Suatuk where the MOST ministries team helped rebuild the church this last March.  I was shown the local high school, a point of interest because the building was formerly the parish school.  We talked to the director of the school - a member of the local congregation, and she, of course, wondered why our mission had not found a way to remodel their church building as we had in Suatuk.  My response was simple- - there is a pastor in Suatuk, and then I went into my recruitment speech for the seminary.

>From Lower Bulanka we went to Cheromuka, a large village, spending time with a very influential local leader- - The last time we were there, he expressed interest in having his family baptized.  This visit the discussion continued (Grigory had visited him in the meanwhile leaving literature and material supplied by our mission and LHF).

>From there the intention was to go on to Suatuk to see the almost completed church, get first hand accounts of the number of baptisms and weddings that have taken place there since the major remodeling.  Unfortunately, Grigory’s car broke down.  As we had planned to take another trip in August (a trip that now has been cancelled because I will be busy packing), I figured we could put off the Suatuk story until “next time.”

We did manage to get his car going, and decided the safest thing was to go directly back to Minusinsk so I would not miss my train - I had promised my wife to be home in time to get my visa, and time was already running short!  On the 22 hour train ride from Minusinsk to Novosibirsk I looked out the window for hours, counting the small villages filled with unbaptized souls. And those are just the villages between Minusinsk and Novosibirsk, there are hundreds more between St. Petersburg and Moscow, Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod, Nizhniy Novogorod and Saratov, Ekaterinenburg, Omsk, on all the way to Vladivostok and back all the way to Viburg on the Finish boarder.

Prayer Requests

Obviously, pray for all those souls in all those Siberian villages.  Pray for the Thormodson family, the Reinders family, my family and all the other missionaries and staff that have been cut and are living by their faith, trusting God to get them through this difficult transition.  Pray for Daniil, the Krasnoyarks seminary program, the Siberian pastors and our partner church as a whole as it struggles with the implications of our budget cuts and mission closings.  Pray for Pastor Brent Smith and Pastor Matt Heise who will be called on to fulfill the work formerly done by 5 missionaries.  Pray for miracles that maybe some of this can be turned around!

Family News:

Anastasiya is 5 years Old today (July 29).  We had a little party with friends and Nastya’s great grandmother (Zhanya’s grandmother) outside of St. Petersburg.

A Russian Joke

A couple has two twin sons - one is an optimist and the other is a pessimist. The parents decide that they need to balance out the personalities of their twins, so on their birthday, they give the pessimist a red toy rocking horse with halter and saddle, and the optimist they give simply a toy halter with no rocking horse.   The pessimist opens his present and says, “Mommy and daddy don’t love me, they gave me a red horse when they knew I wanted a red one.”  The optimist opens his present and says, “Oh, mommy and daddy must love me a lot, they gave me a live pony, too bad it ran away.”

Hymn verse

Praise God from Whom all blessing flow

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost

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In Christ,

Leif & Zhanya Camp

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NEW ADDRESSES--Feedback, questions, whatever are most welcome.

Home Address:

For now use the LCMS World mission address

Leif & Zhanya Camp LCMS World Mission/Russia

1333 S. Kirkwood Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63122

The first address is our home address—for letters and packages we understand that for regular ground mail it takes about 2 months, the second letters are sent via courier through the State side mission office (airmail takes less time but is more expensive). The third address in the mission address here in Novosibirsk. If and when we are ever in the States, our stateside address is 902 N. 12^th, Melrose Park, IL, 60160 (my mother’s address).

Telephone: after getting an international line by dialing 011-7 then 3832 (our area code) 17-92-55 (our phone number)

Note—Between Novosibirsk and central US time, the difference is 12 hours.

E-MAIL: lzkcamp@online.nsk.su Please feel free to share this newsletter with your Church, friends, or enemies if it might help! If you would like to receive a copy via e-mail, simply email me directly and ask!

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