|
|
MAIN PAGE, página principal en Español,
THE CHIMES, SCHOOL NEWSLETTER, SCHOOL REGISTRATION
INFORMATION, Alumni, LWML, Scouting, Drama Ministry team, online
map, A Good Word from CAMP, links, Archives, Tuition Crediting
Program, St.
Paul Photo Albums, VBS, SERMONS |
|
December 2006—St.
Petersburg,
(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.)
СПОСОБНОСТЬ (spa-SOBE-nust):
Talent
2 Cor. 12:9 And He said to me, "My grace is
sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in
weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For several years now a trendy teaching has been infiltrating
the Church. On the surface it has much
to offer, and the motivation behind it is of the highest sort—to motivate
people to service, to encourage them to serve their Lord and the Church with
their talents. Christians are given
forms, maybe even personality profile tests, gift inventories and so forth in
an effort to assess their “spiritual gifts and talents.” Based on the results of these assessment
vehicles, then, people know their talents, and on this basis people have a
guide on how God wants them to serve.
This seems very logical to our human way of thinking—since God has
gifted us in a certain area and way, this is certainly the area and way He
wants us to serve.
As
logical as this sounds, God’s logic is not ours. Scripture, God’s Own Word, has a different
logic. God more often than not calls
people to serve in ways and areas where they do not feel talented of gifted
(look at Moses, Isaiah, Amos, other prophets and biblical personages). In fact, God most often calls us to serve
where we are weakest. This is what it
sometimes means to “deny ourselves.”
Of
course, this does not mean we should not use our talents to serve God—Jesus
teaches us this in the parable of the talents (but even here the Lord gives the
talents, not asking His servants to invest their own). We may even fall into sin if we depend on
such assessments and use them as an excuse for not serving or forcing our
service where we are not called—as in saying, “that is not my gift,” or “since
I have this talent, I must serve in this way.”
In this way such assessments focus on ME and not on my Lord, His call,
or the need of my neighbor. The call to
serve is not based on our talents, but stands alone. God’s call, our neighbor’s need and the need
of the flock are better guides for serving our Lord than any self-assessment of
our talents and gifts. Often when we
are called to serve (or our neighbor’s need calls for us to help) in ways where
we are not “gifted,” “talented” or “prepared” this is when God is able to act
the most in our lives, for at such moments we are forced to depend on Him
rather than our selves and our own talents.
At such times we realize the glory is truly His and not ours or even the
gifts which He has given us.
So we serve, prepared and
ready to serve and witness at all times, all places and in all ways—whether or
not we necessarily have the talent or gift at that moment—trusting that God
truly will provide all we need to fulfill the task at hand as it is His task He
so graciously allows us to participate in completing.
YOUTH MISSION CAMP IN YUKKI
1 Timothy 4:12 Let no one
despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in
love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
The big
event for the Missionary Committee this month was organizing the annual youth
mission camp held Yukki—a village outside of St.
Petersburg—this last week end of January (the coldest days this year so
far). This year about 30 youth from Gatchina to
Deacon Pekka Yauchianen taught about about Isaiah as a youth and Timothy, his wife Tita taught on Esther, Kia Karelianen (wife of the rector of the Ingrian
Seminary) came to and on the Virgin Mary.
All of these as models for youth of faithfulness, trust and living the
life of a believer. Pastor Tapio Karelianen taught on
witnessing, while Pastor Alexei Uiminen led the
morning and evening devotions, and I was called on to plan a Biblical “game”
and lead a discussion on the enviable theme of “What the Bible says about Youth
and Submission to Authority.” One of the
more volatile passages we discussed was Numbers 30:2-16 (along with some New Testament
passages). At least I hope it got them
thinking…
As far as the game, well, I
am not much on games—it is not my talent, but what I thought of what this: at
registration each attendee was given a character name with corresponding
Scripture passages—with these each had to come up with a riddle and what lesson
the character had to teach us today (either positive or negative). After this each character could be briefly
discussed. I came up with over 60
characters (not all of them youth, but all with lessons for youth). In this way we were able to discuss some
characters that are often not discussed in Sunday school lessons: Judah, Jephthah’s
daughter (Judges 11:30ff), Michal; Hophni and Phineas; Eutychus; Herodias’ daughter
(Matt 14:6ff); and so forth. The goal
was to get the youth to begin to apply Scripture to their lives—to begin to see
Scripture not only as a book about religious truths, but as God’s Word to them
to guide them in both faith and life.
Living by faith is much harder than simply knowing the material (but to
live by it, we do need to know it as well)!
We had also planned that
the youth would get into groups and make a short play about a biblical
character in a modern setting, but we mercifully changed that plan when we say
how worn out the youth had become (we also were rather worn out…). One casualty of the seminar was that my
guitar’s neck broke (this is the third time—I don’t know if it can be fixed
again).
Prayer
Requests
Please pray for our upcoming
documents (this will be a prayer from now until at least the middle of March);
for the youth that attended that their knowledge of Scripture, their faith and
their ability to apply the Word to their lives has grown; for the recent Ingrian Lutheran Seminary graduates (5 graduated this
January, 4 who will be pastors) as they begin or continue their service; for
our English language Worship service that more people might gather for worship
and that we can be easily found by those who might want to gather (our current
place of worship is a bit difficult to find); for Karl and Nastya
as they struggle with school; pray for Karl as he reaches his 10th
birthday; for Zhanya who has started working so she
can balance work, home and helping with our ministry here; for me that God
grant me more wisdom, faith and strength—wisdom to know His will at each step,
faith to follow, and strength to remain faithful and to finish the tasks at
hand.
Pro-Life
Planning: Amidst all the other work,
we are busy planning for a series of pro-life seminars in March. Caroline Rice, a pro-life activist who has
been working in Russia and Eastern Europe for the last several years leading Bible
studies on post-abortion healing, has agreed to donate most of the month of
March to leading seminars in Ingrian Lutheran
Parishes and so forth. She will be here
for a brief time at the beginning of February to firm up her schedule and plan
the details of the various seminars—so these last few weeks I have been very
busy talking to pastors and arranging dates and times for her to speak.
On the calendar is a seminar for the Ingrian
Lutheran Seminary Students and the Church workers at the central offices. So along with planning and scheduling
seminars, we are hoping to write and print some more brochures.
Family News: February
is a month of birthdays for us—Karl will be 10 on the 7th and I get
older at the end of the month. Of
course, the other thing this month is that our documents are due for
renewal. This is a yearly ordeal and
takes a lot of time and work—not very exciting to write about, but necessary if
we are to stay and continue to spread the Gospel here.
From the Russian Joke Bag:
a man at the airport as he is
checking his bags says to the clerk, “I would like this bag sent to
.
Come follow Me, the
Savior spake, all in My way abiding;
Deny yourselves, the world forsake, obey My call and guiding.
Oh, bear the cross, whate’er
betide, take My example for Your guide.
Hymn 421 TLH 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:
·
Two
pictures of the consecration
of the "Portable"
altar for English language Worship services now held every Sunday at the
central offices of the Church.
·
Students
and teachers at the Ingrian Lutheran Seminary at Koltushe after the graduation ceremonies--5 students
graduated this January (four as pastors).
·
Pictures
from the Youth Mission Camp--after
the games in the snow and several of the seminars.
The need for basic
teaching is so important. Those of us who grew up with Sunday
school, children's
Bibles and so forth take so much for granted (some of those attending
didn't know Ruth was a book in the Bible).
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, |
Stateside contact address: Leif and Zhanya Camp, C/O Marli Camp 902 N. 12th |
Ev. Bolshaya Konyushennaya dom 8 St. Peterburg, |
Telephone: after getting an international line by dialing 011, dial 7- 812 (our area code) 321-1508(our phone number)
Note—Between St.
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!
St. Paul
Links to sources outside this site are provided for the
convenience of members and visitors who may find them helpful or informative,
but do not imply any kind of endorsement by St.
Paul
While we strive for accuracy, we assume no responsibility
for errors on this site.
Please contact the church or school to verify information
If you see an error on the site please email the website administrator at: lynette*
*Email addresses all have the extension
@stpaulmp.org unless noted otherwise. Where an email address that does not have our
extension is used “(at symbol)” will replace the “@”. Unfortunately, it is now necessary to put
email addresses in a format that cannot be read by automated programs that
search the web looking for email addresses to spam. We apologize for the inconvenience.