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A Good Word
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June 2009—St.
(Click on http://www.flickr.com/photos/stpaulmp/
to see photos of the Camp’s work and
life. These photos will not remain here
indefinitely as Flickr is no longer a free service for me. The most recent 200
БЫТЬ-
Beet—to be
John 8:58 58 Jesus said to them, "Most
assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I AM the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Sometimes the answers to many questions are actually so obvious we miss them, or pass over them and only come to them after a long search—or they come to us suddenly. For instance, often I meet people who wonder if God exists. What is the answer—Yes, He does, of course, but the answer is even more wonderful. He Exists, or He Is or “I Am” is His very Name! Is God with me in my troubles? Ask Him and He answers with His Name again—I Am. Is He really my Creator, my Father, my Lord? Again He answers, I Am. Is He near to me now? Is He the One true God Who loves me and all people? Is He really able to turn all our troubles, even our willfulness into good if we love Him? Again the answer is in His Name—He says, “Yes, I Am.”
The next time some one wonders if God really exists, if you wonder if God really exists, think of this—God knows that question, knew you would ask, knew that Israel would ask and that people through the ages would ask, and for that reason He chose His Name very carefully to answer that question: He Is the I Am, the source of all that exists and what is more loves each one of us, each one of you and knew you before you came into His existence. He calls each of us to a closer relationship with Him through His Son Jesus, a relationship that brings us true existence now and forever.
New Ingrian Lutheran Church
Plants
Acts 12:24 24 ¶
But the word of God grew and multiplied.
Two new exciting church plants are in the works for Ingria—one in Pskov, about 200 miles from St. Petes, and one a bit further in Vladikavkaz on the Russian Georgian border. These two names came up in the Bishop’s discussion with Bill Moberly as possible partner congregations for some of the US parishes Bill knows that are looking for partnership opportunities. By “coincidence”—or better to say, how interesting God works—that on the Monday after our discussion, Vladimir, the layman who is helping organize the new congregation in Vladikavkaz called to announce he was coming with a prospective seminary student, Igor, to meet with the Bishop—I was invited to the meeting and we all met the next day. Here is what I learned:
The congregation is mostly made up of diaspora Germans and Finns, but also several Russians and Georgians attend. The group currently meets in the Catholic Church building which does prevent some from attending and confuses others. The usual Sunday attendance is small, between 6-15 people, but on holidays—like on Easter—they had 70 people in attendance.
The parish has two major needs at present—a pastor (Igor
has agreed to attend seminary, so after one year he can begin to officially
lead services as a student, but this only on breaks between studies), and they
need their own place to meet and worship.
Experience with other church plants has shown that when a parish moves
from a rented by the hours space to a more permanent facility where they are
the sole tenant, attendance doubles almost immediately.
English Language Evangelism
Psalm 19:3 3 There is no speech nor language Where
their voice is not heard.
The first week of June a group from various parishes in the USA arrived in St. Petersburg and took a bus north to the city of Petrozavodsk of the Karelian region of the Russian Federation to conduct an English Language Camp to bring the Gospel to the area. After their work in Petrozavodsk several of the group stayed and joined by others to conduct a camp in a suburb of St. Petersburg.
This group was organized by the Eastern European Mission Network headed by Pastor Bill Moberly of the AALC. EEMN has been organizing English language camps and other short and long term mission work for several years. Zhanya and I have been helping organize transport, meeting people at the airport, tracing lost baggage and organizing site-seeing for the last five years, and during that time I have been organizing meetings with the EEMN leadership and the Ingrian leadership to establish a closer partnership. This year we moved much closer to that goal as EEMN held their first English Language evangelism camp at the Ingrian Parish in Koltushe. The camp was attended by over 40 children of different ages and from all accounts deemed a success—and we hope that it will serve as a model for future camps in the coming years.
Short and Long term mission
opportunities
Matthew 9:37-38 37 Then
He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the
laborers are few. 38
"Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His
harvest."
The Lutheran Church
of Ingria has many of its own evangelism programs, but working with foreign
partners has several benefits—it helps local Lutherans see themselves as part
of something larger, global, than simply their local parish, it gives both the
local Christians and the visiting group increased opportunities to witness, and
it grows everyone’s faith (I could list a lot more reasons and results, but
that is not the purpose of this piece).
Above I have written about one partnership with the Eastern European Mission Network (www.eemn.org or pastorbill@eemn.org). That is but one way for those interested in short term mission work in Russia to come over and help out. I know LCMS World Mission also occasionally organizes short term groups (they did a camp last year here), and a third way is to work directly with us at the Ingrian Lutheran Missionary Committee. Last year we also helped organize a group from a Lutheran Parish from North Carolina who held a camp in Viborg.
In any case, organizing a camp takes at least 6 months, and it is best to begin discussions even earlier. Besides English Language camps, we can organize work projects (helping remodel churches, build play grounds) and opportunities for other volunteer work. If you are interested, you can contact me for more details at lzkcamp@mail.ru to begin discussions.
Prayer Requests
Pray for all the seeds planted by the short term missionaries in both Petrozavodsk and Koltushe. Pray for my daughter Nastya who fell and broke her wrist—a small hair-line fracture. She is fine, but any such emergency in Russia causes additional stress to the family. Pray also for the church plants in Pskov and Vladikavkaz (and whether or not I should be involved and in what way). Pray for those short term missionaries returning to their home parishes, that their stories may bring glory to God and inspire others to GO. Pray for Igor as he seeks to attend seminary and for Vladimir as he continues to try to organize the congregation in Vladikavkaz. Pray for the upcoming men in mission retreat that I have been asked to help lead again this year, that my teaching will be understood and that those attending will grow in faith. Pray also for my continued work with the scouts—things are stalled more or less. Pray for my family—this is always where the devil strikes, so my wife Zhanya and I, and our children Karl and Nastya need extra prayers. Pray for me that God give me more wisdom, faith and strength to discern, follow and accomplish His will each day.
The Annual Men in Mission Ingrian Lutheran Retreat
Each year at the end of June or early July the Ingrian Missionary committee leads a Men in Mission retreat—we go fishing and try to teach men to be fishers of men. This is also an opportunity for the men to invite their unchurched male friends. This year the retreat is scheduled for the first weekend in July for somewhere in Karelia I cannot pronounce (and as I cannot pronounce it I am not going to try to spell it!). I will be traveling with Karl—Nastya will stay home with mom or grandma.
Nastya and her wrist
While attending English Language camp and having a great time, Nastya ran into the Church and tripped over a coat rack. She broke her fall with her hands and hurt her wrist. The nurse on site recommended she get an X-ray, which one doctor said showed nothing, but another said that he thought he noticed a small hairline fracture at the end of one of the bones. So, Nastya now has a cast on her hand—otherwise she is fine (and making the most of her status as an injured person to get out of work and so forth).
Holy God, We praise Thy Name, Lord of all, we bow before Thee
All on earth Thy
scepter claim, all in heav’n above adore Thee.
Infinite They vast
domain, everlasting is Thy reign.
(TLH # 250 verse
1)
In Christ,
Leif & Zhanya Camp
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Click on http://www.flickr.com/photos/stpaulmp/
to see photos of the Camp’s work and
life. These photos will not remain here
indefinitely as Flickr is no longer a free service for me. The most recent 200
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!
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