{"id":1667,"date":"2012-06-19T11:49:49","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T18:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/?p=1667"},"modified":"2012-06-19T11:49:49","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T18:49:49","slug":"cbu-celebrating-birthdays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/cbu-celebrating-birthdays\/","title":{"rendered":"CBU: Celebrating birthdays!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having decided to take our Sabbath on Saturday, \"\"<\/a>we began our day by catching up on some much needed rest.\u00a0\u00a0After a late breakfast, we headed to a local souvenir market to purchase gifts for our loved ones back home (and a few for ourselves, as well).\u00a0\u00a0Our team really enjoyed bargaining with the local vendors and immersing ourselves in the culture.\u00a0\u00a0We ate dinner at our favorite Russian caf\u00e9 and enjoyed a relaxing evening of team bonding over popcorn.<\/p>\n

Sunday marked the beginning of our last week of camp, this time consisting of seven consecutive days at the Transit Center (prayers are appreciated).\u00a0\u00a0We purposefully planned this so that we could celebrate Sasha\u2019s birthday prior to her leaving for the orphanage on Monday.\u00a0\u00a0It was a bittersweet day, as many of the ladies on our team had developed a close bond with Sasha\u2014Stephanie in particular.\u00a0\u00a0At one point, while Stephanie was comforting a tearful Sasha, Sasha said she wished Stephanie was her mother.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a>This comment broke our hearts, as it seems unfathomable to us that these beautiful, intelligent, and wonderfully unique children are unwanted by their families and society.<\/p>\n

Sasha\u2019s absence was felt by all the next day, but had we cause for celebration as it was Jenya\u2019s birthday, a little boy who turned nine.\u00a0\u00a0We watched Kung Fu Panda as a group and enjoyed chips and soda\u2014a rare treat for the kids.\u00a0\u00a0It was another rainy day in St. Petersburg, so were unable to take the kids outside to the park afterwards, but we were able to play fun indoor games in the gym.\u00a0\u00a0It was funny to see many of the younger boys try to mimic kung fu moves.\u00a0\u00a0Later that evening we headed off to downtown St. Petersburg to get in some shopping at Lenta\u2014the Russian version of Walmart.\u00a0\u00a0We were able to purchase gifts for the kids, which we will be distributing on Saturday, our last day at the Center.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Today we began a new lesson topic on respect with the kiddies.\u00a0\u00a0Stephanie, Shannon, Carley, and Lauren were able to have a really good talk with the older girls about what it means to respect others and our bodies.\u00a0\u00a0We were able to share various parts of our testimonies with the girls and deep conversation (a first!) resulted.\u00a0\u00a0The experience really rejuvenated our spirits and encouraged our ministry efforts.\u00a0\u00a0As a group, we designed tie-dye shirts, using the craft as an object lesson relating to respecting the difference in others.\u00a0\u00a0The kids really took pleasure in creating their own clothing.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow we say goodbye to three more children\u2014a family of two teenage girls and a young boy who are being sent to the orphanage.\u00a0\u00a0Pray that we would be able to send them off well, and that the seeds we planted would continue to be watered in their new home environment.\u00a0\u00a0Pray for the strength and energy to finish our time here well, and that the Father would continue to break our hearts for these children.<\/p>\n

In Love, CBU Russia Team, written by Lauren and Stephanie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having decided to take our Sabbath on Saturday, we began our day by catching up on some much needed rest.\u00a0\u00a0After a late breakfast, we headed to a local souvenir market to purchase gifts for our loved ones back home (and a few for ourselves, as well).\u00a0\u00a0Our team really enjoyed bargaining with the local vendors and immersing ourselves in the culture.\u00a0\u00a0We ate dinner at our favorite Russian caf\u00e9 and enjoyed a relaxing evening of team bonding over popcorn. Sunday marked the beginning of our last week of camp, this time consisting of seven consecutive days at the Transit Center (prayers are \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,78,79],"tags":[92,10,28,32,33,38,41,51,54,57,68],"class_list":["post-1667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cbu-teams-2","category-sunergos-ministry","category-teams-2","tag-camps","tag-cbu","tag-isp","tag-ministry","tag-missions","tag-orphans","tag-russia","tag-st-petersburg","tag-street-kids","tag-sunergos","tag-transit-center"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/cbu-camp-5.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2j3in-qT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1675,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions\/1675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sunergosint.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}