Slava Boga

September, 2006

by: Jay Underwood

“Slava Boga” means “Praise God” in Russian and that’s exactly what Team Samara 2006 is doing, praising God! We are praising God for a safe, challenging yet awesome, Spirit-filled trip to Samara, Russia. The reason for our going? The Great Commission, of course, from Matthew 28:19-20. But more specifically, to be a part of an evangelistic youth camp for college/university age students. You see, the youth program of the Church of Transfiguration (a Baptist church of a thousand people) is still only about three years old. When a team of us went a couple of years ago, the emphasis was on the junior and senior high program but now that that has been firmly established, the next step was to focus on the college/university students. Putting on a camp of this kind was a first and the culmination of a years worth of work on the part of the youth leaders. The idea: to encourage the students who are professing believers to invite their unbelieving friends to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was needed as witnessing in the university system just doesn’t happen. Here’s where the challenges began…

Certainly this was an exercise for this junior high pastor in being out of his comfort zone. What a new appreciation I’ve found for the Jr. High Ministry! Trusting and depending on God was a must (not that its ever not). The three things that created the biggest challenges were the fact that these students were older and more set in the ways of thinking, some of them definitely did not care about the spiritual aspects of the camp (although who can blame them, they’re unbelievers who may have just been looking for a cheap holiday) and the language barrier (although we did have translators). Of course there we’re many other challenges that I won’t be able to share here in this article, you’ll just have to ask.

But let’s talk spiritual matters. This is where trusting in and depending on God needed to be paramount in the team’s hearts and minds. Many times in my seminars I sat in front of blank stares, indifferent attitudes or sleep deprived youths. We all had different stories of how the students were reacting to our interactive, Gospel presentations which were comprised of believers and non-believers. Some groups asked all kinds of questions and we’re very lively which stimulated discussions. My group was not one of those groups, but rather it was half who participated and half who looked like they would rather be in a Siberian prison during the wintertime. In fact, my best day came when I walked them down to the snack shop, bought them a refreshment and continued our “discussion” outside in the park. I told them that I was purposely bribing them so they would feel guilty if they didn’t participate. Things perked up a little that afternoon. As well, most groups had at least one or two who were actually antagonistic, even trying to make fun of and derail the messages. We kept saying to ourselves, “Lord we’re sowing seeds, please help us to be faithful to this end and not worry about results. We know you are sovereign and in control.”

To be fair, there were awesome breakthrough moments as well where God allowed us to see the fruits of the camp. One young man of 14 (the youngest of the camp) named Dima, expressed early on how happy he was to be at a Christian camp. He grew up occasionally going to the Russian Orthodox Church (a dead, works-based religion similar to Catholicism) and said his parents had sent him to many secular camps where the kids did many bad things and were unkind. By the end of the week, we were able to have a long one-on-one conversation about Dima’s sin and his need for a savior (Adrian and Jenny Martinez and Ruth Fish all had similar opportunities, be sure to ask them about them). I sense that his heart was very soft and he expressed how genuinely touched he was by the attention paid towards his spiritual life. I prayed for him and now I ask that you would too. Please continue to pray for all the kids at the camp, even though you don’t know their names. Pray that God would water and grow these seeds that have been planted and that much praise and glory would come to His name because of this camp. Thank you to all of you who supported and prayed for this mission. For all the challenges, I am convinced of God’s hand upon it. Slava Boga!