Does your light shine brighter in the darkness or the light?

As we went through this week, day by day, it was obvious to see that our light, which is the light of Jesus, shines much brighter in the darkness than it does in the light. When we are in our Christian school, our families, or in our churches, our light still needs to shine bright, but when we are in the darkness-out in the world-our light shines bright for God. That is what He calls us to do; to be a light in the darkness. We cannot do that without going into the darkness to be that light.

Spending time with these kids, in their world, has been emotional and draining, but it has been worth every bit of sacrifice of time and energy. Being the hands and feet of Jesus cannot be done without the supernatural power of God Himself. What an awesome opportunity to be used by Him in such an incredible way. We praise Him and give Him all the glory for all that has been done this past week.

God opened the door for us to go to Fontanka every morning. We presented Bible stories about Joseph in the Old Testiment and also stories of Jesus and tied them together with a spiritual message that they could apply to their lives today. Little did we know that these boys knew their Bible stories as well, if not better, than we did. When we had our small group time and showed pictures from the stories, they couldn't wait to describe what was taking place in each scene. Each craft was done with care. Many crafts were given to us as gifts because they wanted to give back and had nothing to give. On the day of the Salvation message every group had several boys receive Jesus in to their hearts. The boys were beaming. Please pray for a boy named Dima who was in Carol's group. At only 12 years old, he feels God cannot forgive him for what he has done. Carol's heart was broken as she was describing to us how he looked as he confessed what he felt from his soul at such a young age. We pray that this week made a difference that gave him some hope that, yes, God can forgive him and that God does love him.

It was a challenge to be able to teach at Camp Viktoria every day, but we did get some stories and small group times in. Some days they had a program and we taught afterwards. One day they went to the Sea, so we went to the Sea to play with them. We also came back in the evenings and went to their disco time and spent time playing ball, making bracelets, doing sidewalk chalk, or just sat and talk. We firmly believe that the "hanging out" time is crucial to building the relationships that help these children trust us and grow to trust and believe in God.

On our Salvation message day, each group had about 8 kids who prayed to receive Jesus as their Savior. WOW! We were so excited! We did not have a lot of teaching time there, yet God still worked in their hearts in a mighty way.

One of our main concerns is that there is not much in the way of follow up with the children. There are some local churches and we are praying that some will get more involved with helping out in that area. Some of our translators do work with the orphans through out the year so they are not left alone the rest of the time. What we would also really love to see is for them to be in a Christian church full time.

We hated saying good-bye to our kids last night. It's always so hard. It breaks our hearts to leave them behind. Hopefully some will be adopted; there is no life for them once they graduate. Just more to pray about! :)