Working with Radooga Orphan Camps

Working with institutionally reared kids is especially difficult because they put up big walls. To even have a normal small-talk conversation is a struggle. They have all been through and seen things that most of us wouldn't begin to know how to handle. Their tough exterior is part of the way they handle it. My friend Val, who was with us on the trip, explains it this way: these kids don't have material possessions to show off to one another or talents that have been developed, so they use their toughness. It's all they've got.

Last year, it took days for us to get comfortable with them; it was very tense at first and only at the very end did we feel like we were becoming friends. After we left last year, so many of us had the sense that we needed to go back - that showing them that commitment would open up a lot of doors with them. I am blessed to say that we were right.

From the moment we stepped off the bus it was like we picked up right where we left off. The comfort level that the kids had with us and that we had with them was so much greater, and made it so much easier to connect. It also really served the members of our team who had never been there before - they could immediately begin engaging with them. In the words of team member Kelly Wendel, the camp was decidedly "a softer place." Walls seem to come down much faster than last year, and we were able to have so much more fun with them over the course of the week.

But all of that made leaving that much harder. You don't really get a sense of how much you mean to these children until you leave, and how much of an impact you have had. Seeing one of the "tough guys" broken down into tears because we were going - absolutely heartbreaking. One of the girls from my group last year, whom I had spent a bit more time with this week but not a whole lot, said to me as I was leaving, "It is so good to have a friend like you." Another child told me "Jesus loves you" in Russian as I was getting on the bus.

The experience of having to leave these kids makes you reevaluate a lot of things. Mostly it convicts you that "looking after orphans in their distress" (James 1:27) is not something that you do for a week, go home and pat yourself on the back. These kids have seen too many people come in and out of their life. They need more consistency than that. Returning next summer is a foregone conclusion. We're now looking seriously into taking a trip in January to visit them.

The truth is that these kids have so many needs and so much pain that all you can do for them is be with them and love them. It is frustrating that we can't do more; that we can't change their circumstances or outlooks in such a short time. But at the same time it is strangely freeing. Because isn't that what the Lord did with us, ultimately, through Jesus? He didn't come to change our circumstances to make us happy. He didn't come to give us everything we'd ever dreamed of and meet all of our expectations to what our life should look like. He just came to be with us... and to love us.

If that's all that I can do for these kids, I consider it a blessing. Please pray that the circumstances, finances, and everything else would continue to fall into place to allow it to happen.

SOZO - Bringing Reconciliation to Europe

SOZO Celebration of the Nations, led by Randall Morgan of MDI (pictured right), will be held for the second year at Red Hill Christian Centre in Snitterfield, England. The festival begins July 7 and continues through July 11.

The Nashville SOZO staff team leaves July 4 for England and will return to the states after the festival on July 13. The team is made up of people from six different Nashville area churches. Marti Scudder, Steve Lorenz, and Russell Anderson of MDI will also be traveling to England to work with Randall and SOZO staff and to attend the festival.

SOZO festivals are all about working towards reconciliation -- between races, nations, generations and denominations -- through worship, prayer, fellowship and learning. Last year's festival in England proved to be a great encouragement to Christians in Europe, who are dealing with an influx of immigrants from the Muslim world which is creating new racial tensions, as well as a broader culture that is becoming more secularized and intolerant of religion.

This year's celebration should be even bigger and better than last. Please pray for SOZO, that it truly would inspire reconciliation among the people groups of Europe, and encourage more and more believers in the faith that will sustain them through all sorts of trials.