September 2006 —St. Petersburg, Russia   A GOOD WORD FROM CAMP from Leif & Zhanya Camp

(Click on St. Paul Photo Albums to see photos of the Camp’s work and life.  This month’s are here.  More info at the bottom of the page.)

 

ПРИМИРИТЬ-pre-meer-reet- to reconcile

2 Corinthians 5:18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation

      God loved us so much that He sent His Son, not simply to come into the world and visit, not simply to take on a human body for a time, but to become one of us, to become Incarnate.  He was born and lived, ate, became tired, slept, suffered and died our death—a horrible, human death.  He did this to “reconcile” us back to the Father.  Reconcile is a big word for “bring back into relationship.”  We often forget this in the Church, that what we are about is relationship—first our relationship with God in Christ (the vertical relationship of faith and our justification) and then our relationship to others (the horizontal relationship of love for one another and our enemies—our Sanctification).  Because of our relationship to God through faith, we bear witness to His loving relationship to us through loving others.  This is not business, this is not a program or methodology, it is simply a way of being—God bringing us into a loving relationship with Him through His Son (by means of Word and Sacrament) and our response of loving others.

 

The Fellowship of the Saints

John 13:35 "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

      This last spring, as we were getting ready for our visit to the USA, we asked several friends and pastors if they wanted us to bring them any thing special back from America.  I expected the usual jokes like “just some small pieces of paper with pictures of American presidents on them.”  The closing of the LCMS missions here in 2003, the yearly budget cuts each year afterward (support for our partner Church and her congregations was cut even further this year), the increasing cost of living in Russia (another 10 percent already in 2006), coupled with the increased opportunities for evangelism and that the government has given some more buildings back to the Church that need repair (along with the existing building and repair projects), one would suspect finances to and the need for financial support to be foremost in pastors’ minds (and often this is the case since in Russia the pastor of a congregation is also the person who is legally responsible for seeing all the bills of the congregation are paid).  Almost to a person, however,  the answer to our question was the same, “Just come back.”  As important and pressing as the financial needs of the Church, the connection with other Christians, the “communion” of saints, our fellowship in the Lord is still the more important.  The closings of missions and budget cuts put a financial strain on the church, but more so they are perceived as separation, a distancing.  This is why it was a great pleasure when I received a phone call from a group of Lutheran tourists from the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Alaska) asking if I could show them some Lutheran sites in St. Petersburg.  They didn’t bring a satchel of cash, just themselves and a wish to fellowship and get to know their Russian Lutheran brothers and sisters.

      We had a great time, they had tea with the Bishop, got to see first hand the repairs going on at St. Michael’s and other Historical Lutheran Cathedrals in St. Petersburg.  I remember back in 1996 when my wife and I were working in Nizhniy Novgorod under LCMS World Mission, Gary Theise (one of the Mission fundraisers) came for a visit and interviewed us.  One of his questions was something like “what does the Church here in Russia need most from us?”  With out thinking, I said “people.”  As much as the Church here does need financial support, the laity and pastors need fellowship with other Christians—especially Christians who have been believers their whole lives, Christians who can share their life and faith life experiences.  Often after a pastor or ministry has been budget cut, I get a phone call from a pastor or deacon.  They all know I don’t have a lot of money, they just want to talk, some encouragement.

      This is why I have always been a supporter of short and long term volunteer missions, groups and so forth.  Hosting groups—even those who just come as tourists—does take a lot of time and effort, but when the result is forming a closer relationship and fellowship in Christ for mutual encouragement and strengthening of faith—this is what it means to be part of the body of Christ, to confess the communion of Saints.

 

Human Logic

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

      Human logic is often not logical.  I remember while studying at Seminary in St. Louis we students set up a booth at the annual “Earthday” celebration to hand out “recycled” Bibles, free water (with a sign which said “ask me about living water” and to emphasize that to celebrate the creation, we should give thanks and praise to the Creator.  One young lady came up for a drink—on the collar of her black T-shirt were two buttons.  On her left shoulder the button read, “meat is murder,” on her right shoulder was a large button reading “pro-choice.”  So, we should not kill our cows and chickens, but killing our babies is OK.

      I thought of this the other day when I was on the bus.  I heard two passengers talking in English, so I introduced myself and invited them to attend English Worship services—one was a professor, the other was a student.  The professor asked what else I was doing (seems he had done some visiting professor work in Russia before), so I told him about our pro-life work and other ministry.  I mentioned that the Russian government has recently passed laws to encourage couples to give birth, but this has had little effect on the culture.  I also mentioned that since Russian law allows a woman to put her baby into foster care for at least a year without forfeiting her right to later take that child home, abortion simply because a woman does not feel she can support a child did not make sense.  He countered that the foster conditions the child would be living in were so horrible that no one would want to live in such conditions.  He had to get off at the next stop, so that is where the conversation ended.  But it got me to thinking, according to his logic, no one should have to live in poor, sub-standard conditions, we should then simply kill all poor and suffering people for their own good.  The logic is the same.

 

     Prayer Requests

Pray for the up-coming Pro-life seminars, one for training pastors, deacons and deaconesses on counseling on pro-life questions (pre and post abortion) and one for the general public on Sanctity of Life, human sexuality and Contraception—pray for the last minute organization and that these bear fruit for the Gospel.  Pray for deacon Ivan Laptev as he organizes the youth outreach at St. Michaels.  Pray also for the congregations, deacons and pastors of the Volga district as funds for supporting their ministry have been cut, pray especially for deacon Sasoyev of Veronesh who is in the hospital with a serious back injury he received when moving, and for his wife who last I heard was going to need a caesarean (she is past due); pray for the continued remodeling at St. Michaels in St. Petersburg, pray also for the building projects in Kolpani, Nizhniy Novgorod, Veronesh, and so forth (I don’t have my list in front of me!).  Pray for Zhanya as she seeks meaningful work—it seems that she needs to show she is working for our living permits here.  Pray for Pastor Alexei Uimanen who has taken over as director of the Ingrian Lutheran Missionary Committee.  Pray for Bishop Kugappe as he tries to encourage and find support for those pastors serving missionary congregations in the areas where support has been cut, pray for our family and pray for me that God grant me wisdom, words and if possible the means to encourage, uphold and support my fellow pastors and servants here.

 

A Russian Mother-in-Law joke

For the record, my mother-in-law and I have a decent relationship, and Zhanya has a good relationship with my mother, but it seems that mothers-in-law in Russia also tend to get a bad wrap (as they do in America).  So I heard this Russian mother-in-law joke I thought I would pass on to you:  Ivan has just returned from his mother-in-law’s funeral, Igor asks, “so, Ivan, how was the funeral.”  Ivan answers, “it was great, but we wore out three accordions and broke all the strings on the balalaika.”  --as a side comment, Ivan was celebrating probably for the wrong reasons.  One of the Gospel texts in the Ingrian Lutheran reading cycle is the death and resurrection of Lazarus.  John Chrysostom (also known as St. John Chrysostom—one of the early church fathers) in a sermon he preached on this text reminded his listeners that if we truly believe in the Resurrection from the dead as we confess (and as Martha confesses in that text), then our “grieving” at funerals should be different than that of unbelievers as a testimony and fruit of our faith.  When we grieve, as Christians we do so with confidence and joy trusting our Lord and His promise.

 

Family News

Karl and Nastya are back at school, last week our documents were accepted by the local authorities—it took a lot more time and work than we expected, but God’s hand was there all the time.  As difficult as dealing with such things can be, several of the local government workers were very helpful and went beyond the call of duty on our behalf—so we are thankful to them and to our Lord.

 

 

Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love

The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above

 

TLH hymn 464

Verse 1

In Christ,

Leif & Zhanya Camp

_________________________________________________________________________

Click on St. Paul Photo Albums to see photos of the Camp’s work and life.  This month’s are here and descriptions are below:

 

The Youth discussion club organized by Deacon Ivan Laptev for St. Michaels.  I attended the planning session, not only to participate but also to invite Ivan to the pro-life training seminar.  Last year Ivan had invited me a couple of times to discussions that centered on Sanctity of life themes.  The discussion club is a youth evangelism idea where a theme that is interesting to youth is picked every week and discussed--first from a general perspective of what the world thinks, and then in light of Scripture.  The idea is that Christian youth can invite their friends to these discussions as a means of outreach.

 

St. Michael's Sunday school--tea after the Sunday school and Pastor Alexander Schmidt who is teaching the older kids. 

This year the Sunday school is being held in two groups--a younger and older group.  Nastya is in the younger group and Karl in the older group--it just works out that way.

 

A group of Lutheran tourists from Oregon and Alaska came for a visit to Russia--taking a cruise from Moscow to St. Petes.  A retired pastor in the group contacted me via email a month ago, and we arranged for some Lutheran site seeing.  Here they got to meet the bishop and ask him about the Church he shepherds.

 

A picture of me with Alexei Uimanen (I finally have learned to spell his name correctly).  Alexei is an Ingrian pastor who is now also director of the Ingrian Lutheran Missionary committee (taking over for pastor Ivan Hutter who has returned to full-time parish work).  Alexei was working as the assistant director, so we have already been working together.  He has some fresh ideas and even with the Ingrian mission budget being cut, has plans to try to expand the work of the committee.

 

CONTACT ADDRESSES Feedback, questions, whatever are most welcome.

Our Russian home address:

Leif and Zhanya Camp

18 line V. O. dom 43 Kv. 7

St. Petersburg, Russia, 199178

 

Stateside contact address:

Leif and Zhanya Camp,

C/O Marli Camp

902 N. 12th

Melrose Park, IL, 60160

Russian Lutheran Church Address:

Ev. Lutheran Church of Ingria in Russia

Bolshaya Konyushennaya dom 8

St. Peterburg, Russia, 191186

 

Telephone: after getting an international line by dialing 011, dial 7- 812 (our area code) 321-1508(our phone number)

Note—Between St. Petersburg and central US time, the difference is 9 hours.  Stateside contact telephone: 708-344-4472

 

E-MAIL:  lzkcamp(at symbol)mail.ru & leif.camp(at symbol)elci.ru.  Prolife web site with Russian materials you can down load: prolife.elci.ru.  Other websites: Lisa Stapp has set up a website which has some of our last newsletters (with their cover letters and pictures):  http://www.worthywomanpage.com/camp/index.html.  Also my mother's home congregation has our newsletters--the latest can be downloaded from: http://www.stpaulmp.org/camp/  a second site archives our past newsletters since 2002 http://www.stpaulmp.org/archives/ .   Please feel free to share this newsletter with your Church, friends, or enemies if it might help (just please do not quote things out of context or edit my words in such a way as to change their intent).  If you would like to receive a copy via e-mail, simply email me directly and ask!

 

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