River of Joy base from the road

River of Joy base from the road
Picnic Patio goes to work

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

River of Joy Camp ~ July 8 - 17, 2011 NEW EDIT

This year we followed the TLOT camp at ROJ. We had only a few days to get our
camp ready, but some of the tents we just left in place. The grounds were left clean
thanks to a attentive TLOT staff.

Our ROJ camp has focused on young school age children. This formula works well for
the Christian workers from Brilliance and Dnieperderzhinks who have come in to help
us for the past three years. .


Chief among our ROJ Camping staffers from up-country 
is camp Diretor Olga. She has a great sense of humor but takes the
camping ministry seriously. She learns new methods every year
and our camps keep getting better and better.


The theme this year was, "City of Light."  On the first night
the staff dressed up and took on the roll of city officials.
We had 30 children at ROJ Camp this year.
We had planned on 33 but...


The evening meeting is a time of presentations, skits, praise and worship and testimonies. 
The weather has been hot during the first few days of the camp, but the cooler evening air 
invigorates the meeting. It is popular with ROJ campers.


Avenir leads worship. Avinir is a Bulgarian who lives in Southern Moldova.
His family became refugees in Moldova during the second Balkan War
in 1913 when Turkey took much of the Bulgarian territory and
and the lives of Christians there were endangered.


At River of Joy camp life long friendships are established.


River of Joy is a place of peace where children of all ages can get alone with
their maker, all the while enjoying God's beautiful creation. Vlada here is actually
the niece of our camp director. She had behavior problems in the first camp this year
but she repented during the ROJ camp and she has changed considerably. 
Her aggressiveness has softened in the Savior's presence.




The children learn new things, like how much God loves them and
how to smile for a photo, something unusual for a Russian child. 


The boys got a full taste of God's love for them too. Smiles
got more frequent and friendships flourished.











We learned God's Word together and worked to
learn it better than the other team did. Learning together
and working together made it work in and for us.


1 comment:

  1. The lady has a nice hart to help the camp and the kids .The little girls smile very cute!!:) It makes me smile when I see them.

    ReplyDelete