Back to the Future: CCX English Winter camp 2018

A few weeks ago we finished our biggest winter project - ‘Back To The Future’ camp and we would like to share with you our joy!

The number of students was surprisingly high and reached 70 students! Which is more than in our last summer camp. We were both happy and challenged as small groups were quite large and we always want to give opportunities to participate to everyone.

In 4 full days of camp we introduced students to God’s initial plan for their lives, the place where humanity is today, and different perspectives on the future, depending on our present choices. Raised questions like: ‘What is truly valuable?’ , ‘How my present was shaped by my actions?’,  ‘Who is your neighbour?’ and ‘What is my ultimate destiny?’. Every day one of the staff gave a talk to take students deeper into these issues and for discussion in their small groups later.

Usually the schedule is very tight because we never want to waste the time we have at camp, but this time we let students have a lot of free time during the day  in order to focus on connecting with them and not on organising more of the program.

As one of our values to help students grow in new skills and improve professionally our staff led daily seminars on video editing, financial management, relationships, English, interpretation, real life skills, hearing God’s voice, and spiritual questions.

The main camp rule is Always Have Fun! And students did!...during challenges, free time, art night, dancing Ukrainian folk dances, and performing at the talent show.

Alongside daily talks students were uncovering our camp theme through 4 Bible studies from Luke’s Gospel. All the studies are done with an inductive method that helps students to gather all the facts and observations and decide whether to believe or not for themselves.

Some students have never read the Bible before and some who come to camps over and over say that this is their favourite part of camp because there are many opportunities to read and discuss the Bible.

Every time the Gospel is going to be shared the spiritual war starts and camp wasn’t an exception. We’ve seen solid walls toward Jesus, wrong motives - But Jesus is Already Victorious and He kept all the camp safe inside and out. One of the students said: ’I am surprised that the atmosphere is so calm, peaceful, and welcoming!’ Our Lord has been changing students hearts a lot! Students who are coming over and over and still haven’t accepted Jesus were asking for more Christian songs during music time saying: ’We came to camp and want to sing them because there is not another place we will hear them.’ 

The English camp is over but the CCX English ministry keeps running! The camp is just one event in our annual program of reaching out to students with the Gospel in English. We still have English clubs, Bible studies, movie nights and, of course, our summer camp ahead of us. Please, pray for students who were interested in Bible studies to overcome the obstacles and come to small groups in their cities. Pray for students who realised that they need to make the choice to choose Jesus and for our staff and volunteers to have the right words. And of course, keep praying for the summer camp preparation.

Thank you for being with us!

CCX Winter English Camp team.