Summer Camps are partnered with either Christian schools in Ukraine or in partnership with Church congregations in Ukraine, Hungary, and Croatia. We looked forward to hopefully adding a church partnered camp in Romania this coming summer as well. These week long camps that are partnered with churches are an outreach to the people of the local community which the church serves. We praise God for this opportunity and we thank God for these weeks spending time with hundreds of young people teaching English to them, but more importantly having an opportunity to share our faith and the Gospel of Jesus Christ with many young people. Here is a look back at last summer’s four camps that took place in cooperation with churches.
I. Beregszasz – Over the last four years, a university student named Nikolett has attended our university English classes. We have enjoyed getting to know her over the past years and have been encouraged by her strong faith and devotion to Christ. She has attended or helped us in some of our summer English camps and has been an active participant in some of our Bible Retreat weekends. This past year she invited us to visit her church a couple of times and after hearing about our summer English/Outreach camps, the church invited us to partner with their small Presbyterian church in Beregszasz, Ukraine for a week-long camp. 
This was not a school camp, but a church camp. Children as young as seven years old and as old as high school age from the church and local community attended from 9am-3pm for devotions, singing, English classes, and games. God blessed this week. The church was happy and excited to have such a week of Gospel outreach and relationship building, and it was a pleasure for us to be of service to them and their local church. Follow the link below for more photos of this camp. https://iccdabroad.org/photo-galleries/2017-beregszasz-english-camp/
II. Vachartyan is an old village, near the storied Danube Bend region of Hungary. Vachartyan and the neighboring town of Erdokertes, sister congregations led by the same pastor, Barnabas Gergely, are both bedroom communities of Budapest due to their proximity of being within 45 miles of the capital city. In Vachartyan we have been working with pastor Barnabas and his wife Livia for 10 years conducting an English outreach camp for local middle school and high school students of their church and community during the first week of July.
We are always welcomed with generous hospitality and we have enjoyed over the last decade getting to know many people in these communities. We and our volunteers stay with host families from the both the Vachartyan and Erdokertes congregations helping us get to know many families over the past years.
We also enjoy working with David and Grace McBrier, American missionaries living in the nearby city of Vac. They have many interesting outreach programs including a softball/baseball ministry, women’s retreats, and as Grace is an excellent cook and baker they are often hosting people at their home. David is also a carpenter and every year David and Grace lead the students at the Vachartyan camp in a week long building/craft project with a Gospel theme. At the end of the week all of the students have built a souvenir to take home with them.
Another interesting side note to our Vachartyan camp is that it is the home town of our volunteer David Guba’s grandparents. He first heard about us and the camp through a google search while researching his ancestors home village. This past year during the camp he lived with cousins who still live in Vachartyan.
We are also excited every year to work along side Orsi Gelle, a dear friend and English teacher from Vac. Orsi’s experience teaching children and her genuine faith and friendship are such a blessing to the camp. We are thankful each and every year to be a part of this camp in Vachartyan. Follow the link below for more pictures from the camp. https://iccdabroad.org/photo-galleries/2017-vachartyan-english-camp/
III. Tiszaujvaros is also a small city on the Eastern end of Hungary. Tiszaujvaros has a very different history and very different settings today than Vachartyan. Tiszaujvaros is a very new city, having been created in farm fields along the Tisza river in the 1950’s as a model communist industrial city. Due to its history and recent creation, the city never had a church until the late 1990’s. We have been working with the Tiszaujvaros congregation in a similar fashion for only the past three years.
We can see the LORD’s providence at work in how we came know the Church and Congregation in Tiszaujvaros. Four years ago, on a dark February night, while traveling with a group of students, our Volkswagen van broke down near their church and their subsequent kindness, care, and aid met our unfortunate predicament. They welcomed us that evening with such hospitality. They had been praying for a way to start an English camp ministry and we were an answer to that prayer, stranded on the side of the highway that cold dark snowy night.
We have enjoyed partnering with Aranka and Laci and their ministry in Tiszaujvaros and like many other places, we have enjoyed meeting many people in the church community. We are blessed to be serving these churches and their ministry to their communities through helping them organize these summer Gospel outreach/English camps.
Because these are church outreach weeks and not school camps, we follow a model of having students come from 9am until 3-4pm, returning home in the evenings. Days are filled with alternating hours of devotions & singing, games, and creative English lessons. Over 50 middle school and high school students attended the Vachartyan camp and around half that number came to the Tiszaujvaros camp. We praise God for these opportunities. We are thankful to God for the opportunity to work beside so many godly people in this community who labor intensively for the sake of the Gospel. https://iccdabroad.org/photo-galleries/2017-tiszaujvaros-english-camp/
IV. Vorosmart – Our week-long camp in Vorosmart is unique to us. It is not an English camp and it is our only camp to date that happens outside of the borders of Hungary or Ukraine. Vorosmart is a small ethnic Hungarian town in north eastern Croatia. The camp is a Bible camp in a Vacation Bible School format. Middle school and high school students attend from 9am until 3pm for periods of devotions and singing, small group discussions, and games and crafts.
The other unique aspect of this camp for us, is that the camp is mostly led by university students that we take from Ukraine. We help organize it and provide the logistics and we and other native English volunteers help lead the devotions and help with games, but by in large the camp is run by Hungarian university students from Ukraine. It is truly amazing to see God at work, using these young people to reach out and share the Gospel with others. We are always welcomed and hosted by Pastor Gyorgy Varga and the congregation. This past year we enjoyed delicious dinners every evening made by ladies in the congregation.
God Blessed these camps this past summer and we are excited to once again plan for these camps this coming summer. Please pray for these camps and outreach opportunities now during the planning process and this summer when they will be underway. To God be the glory! https://iccdabroad.org/photo-galleries/2017-vorosmart-summer-camp/
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