In a report from a summer camp in Russia, the Orphans Reborn ministry teams are making an impact on youth. Dmitri shares his experience with the ministry and tells of how God’s word is giving hope and comfort to children:

Growing up in an orphanage is a unique experience.  Not everyone can truly understand what it feels like to not have your family or your own home.  But for Dmitri, being an orphan graduate, he does truly understand.  God has opened the door for him to be able to minister to young orphans through visits to the orphanages and also through facilitating a summer camp.  The burden he feels for the orphans has been a bit relieved as he has been able to pray for and invest in some of them.  This kind of investment is seen towards the end of this story, as one young girl shares how she has been memorizing Scripture with Sergei, who regularly visits she and other children through SGA supported Orphans Reborn ministry.  Please continue to pray for Max (mentioned below as well) and all of the children who live in orphanages.  Life isn’t easy there, but God is showing Himself to these children through faithful servants from local churches and through those who have traveled their path before.  

My name is Dmitri. I’m 39 years old. I am married with two children. I work as a teacher at a technical school. Since 2011, I have been involved in organizing and conducting camps for orphans. I am also a graduate of a boarding school. God brought me to Himself 20 years ago. My soul was worried about the graduates of the boarding school. I always tried to help them in any way I could. I realized that I could visit them, talk to them about God, and pray for them. I served God as their facilitator during this session. I spoke a lot with the children and the camp staff. Every morning, we got up before everyone else, prayed for the children, and then praised God in songs. This is the second year that boarding school graduates have been working as camp counselors. They believed in God when they also were in our camps. And every year they go on a vacation to serve God in camps. Half of our team is made up of orphans. We consider it a blessing. Every evening, one of them shared their life story with the other orphans. It was incredibly touching. I saw orphans sitting in the audience reacting and asking questions. One orphaned teenager cried very often. I decided to speak with him. It turned out that his close people had left him, and he had no friends at the boarding school. He felt as if no one cared about him. I offered my friendship to him. His face immediately changed. He was always by my side during the last few days of our camp. Max is his name. His soul is wounded. Please pray for him. One day, an orphan girl ran up to me and began to recite a Bible verse. I commended her and told her that we had not studied this verse in our camp yet. She said that Sergei regularly visited the orphanage, with whom they read the New Testament and memorized Bible verses. I enjoy watching God work with orphaned children to change their lives.