CBU – Novgorod: Building friendships

The past few days have been such an adventure…we haven’t even had the time to update this blog on time 🙂 On Wednesday at the orphanage, a group of musicians came to play for the children and teach them a bit about different instruments and sounds.  The children had a blast!  After the children’s dinner, we took them to a park nearby and had a group kicking around a soccer ball and a group picking flowers and making “flower crowns” for the girls.  While there, we learned a few Russian games that the children love to play. On Thursday, we … Continue reading

CBU – St Petersburg: An update from the guys!

God has been blessing us in so many ways and it has been amazing seeing it play out in everyone’s lives.  We have been doing tons of different activities with the kids and it has been thoroughly tiring, but we are all still excited to see what God has in store for us and the kids. The biggest achievement in the last couple days was the story of a three year old little boy in the Transit Center named Sasha. When we had first showed up he was so unresponsive to anything and it was really hard on the girls … Continue reading

CBU – St Petersburg: Almost done with the first week of camp

Months of planning had come down to May 14th, the first day with the kids from the transit center. Naturally nerves were there but so was the Holy Spirit. We were warned by one of our translators, Masha, that the kids would be shy and we naturally thought that they would take a while to warm up to us, but this was not the case. The day was blessed with plenty of laughter and games. In our small groups the kids really opened up about what they liked about the day.   We were so thrilled with their responses. When we … Continue reading

CBU – Novgorod: Half way through the first week of camp!

Greetings from Novgorod! Today is our 3rd full day here and what a blessing it has been! All the girls were extremely excited to get here and now, after many months of intensive training, we finally made it and the camps have begun! The purpose for our trip to Novgorod, Russia, is to do ministry through summer camps. Our camps are 2 weeks long and the camp theme is “The Olympics” — a great choice being that the Olympics are taking place this summer. While running the camps, we as a team will do ministry work through games, stories, crafts, … Continue reading

CBU – St Petersburg: First day of camp!

An update from St Petersburg team, Russia A, team leader: Yesterday was our first day working at the transit center and it exceeded our expectations! We arrived at 12:30 pm and the staff was so friendly and welcoming. It was nice to find out that our time here not only ministers to the kids, but it gives the staff members and teachers a welcomed break. We were aware of the fact that the kids might be shy the first day, but we found just the opposite! We had around 20 kids participating and they were fully engaged in the skits, … Continue reading