I remember the first day of the camp, when we were putting up tents, trying to learn how to use the stove (it needed wood to heat and was at least 50 years old ) as we came to know that we would cook meal on it during all ten days of the camp (none of us expected that), youth, who weren’t enthusiastic and didn’t seem impressed with us at all. And we also didn’t expected that in the day the temperature would rise to 30 degrees and in the night would become so damp and cold that any number of clothes wouldn’t help to keep warm and that we wouldn’t have any possibility to wash ourselves. Later we came to know that there was the possibility, but not many of us dared to take a bath in the river, in which water was so cold that we groaned from pain after wetting only a foot.

Somewhere in the back of my mind the question appeared: “O Lord, is this exactly what you want me to do?” Because physical exhaustion and spiritual depression did its work.

And how wonderfully the situation changed for those short 10 days! At 7 o’clock in the morning to the airport to see us off came those young people who in the very beginning were not interested at all. God does perform miracles! I personally couldn’t imagine that there can be so many God’s blessings at the same time!

When 10 days of the camp were over there was no one left whose heart had not been changed. Those who were Christians went home renewed and encouraged, some unbelievers came to Christ, and those who had not repented yet began to read Bible and go to church, they do want to know God!

I remember the first thing I was praying before the camp was to glorify Jesus in all my words and deeds, not to do anything that could disgrace Him. God answered all the prayers! That sincere love that He gave me to all young people in the camp changed everything. First of all it changed me, it taught me to thank and praise the Lord any time, it taught me to accept people and love people the way they are, it taught me in every situation to see His will, His face. And, certainly, that love changed those people whom I told about Christ. God spoke through me by His Holy Spirit, gave me wisdom and words I needed to answer all the questions. Every time when I felt hopelessness He suddenly changed everything for His glory.

God is a wise teacher and He really uses every difficult situation for good. He allowed me to make mistakes so that I could later correct them, because such lessons are easy to memorize. He taught me humbleness and with peace and joy in the heart accept everything that He is giving. Everything that seemed to be difficult in the first days gave joy and satisfaction later. Every day I was wondering about those changes that God performed in me.

I couldn’t help admiring such hard to understand God’s love. Because He sent me who lives in the town, which is not even marked on every map, 3000 miles away to testify there about His love. And I really want this fire, this flame to keep on burning in my heart, so that I might oppose all the devil’s attacks, for the sake of shining everywhere, so that I might always remember that salvation is essential to any person. And I will do everything possible so that next year to go to the mission trip again. Yes, we have to serve to God on the place we live, but to go somewhere far away is much bigger sacrifice, you give away much more and lean on God much more and then give thanks for every insignificant thing.

Now when the camp is over I realize that I can live anywhere, in any conditions as long as I can give all I have to Christ, to live the way so that everything else might seem insignificant.

I want and I am prepared to follow Him everywhere, wherever he leads me and now I like Paul can confidently say: ” I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Amen.

The most important reason is that I want God to change people’s life though me. Certainly we all can work intensively here in Ukraine, but unfortunate it always turns out that we have many other things which are important for us and it’s always difficult to choose the right one to be on the first place. I personally very often find out that I am doing things which are not so important for God. And I do want to find myself in the place where I can pay attention only to God, to do things which are important for him even if it is not always nice with me, to think about what needs to be improved in me to bring more benefit to God. I want to get up in the morning thinking what else can I do for Him every next day and experience closer His support while doing His work and just to be tete-a-tete with God. Also difficulties help to find out what is our true personality. I do want to learn how to be fully obeyed to God, how it is to reject myself. I want to show God’s love in the place where I’ll be free of any worries about what my friends will think about me and to think only about what God thinks about me.

For the future life it’s important to experience how it is to be a missionary, knowing that people are waiting some special behavior from me, that what I sometimes forget in my everyday life, communicating with the same people. And I hope that this trip will teach me how to choose what has bigger significance in this life and not to be preoccupied with not important things.

I need to experience that I’m useful for God. I believe that my testimony can change somebody’s life, though it’s naive to think that I’ll be the first Christian people have ever seen there, but that would encourage me to try to be more like Christ. I’m sure that through the work of our team God can do miracles and that will influence our future life, will make of us stronger Christians. I don’t want to say later that that was the interesting trip, but I really want to say that it was full of blessings. So far this mission trip will change my spiritual personality, my attitude to things around me and probably life of my friends and relatives here.
]]> http://missionimpossible.kreativity.org/mi2_tanya_vishemeerskaya_before/feed/ 0 http://missionimpossible.kreativity.org/mi2_alexey_yemeleyanov_after/ http://missionimpossible.kreativity.org/mi2_alexey_yemeleyanov_after/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:47:56 +0000 vera http://missionimpossible.kreativity.org/?p=301 For doing this missionary trip to Siberia every member of our team was praying for a long time and were asking God to use us in every way. And even from the beginning of our mission there were many trials…

I know that in Siberia there are many people who hate Christians and probably bringing them Gospel is the real top of the unity with God. I want to go to Siberia and I think God wants me to go there also because I want to fulfill His commandments: “Go and tell to people about God and His son.” It doesn’t mean that we have to go somewhere one time and then all the rest of our life to sit at home with feeling of done work.

Sometimes I think that many people start thinking that such young guys go somewhere not to serve to God but just to see different countries. I guess they think in such way only because they are afraid of doing the same kind of work.

And there is one more thing that I want to use my youth for Father because I see that many people are getting older and older and they can’t do now many things that they could do while they were young. Time is flying and I really feel that.

I wanna serve to God in any way He wants me to serve. From my own experience I know that only our heavenly father can give us abundant life, but we can’t just sit and ask Him: “Father give us beautiful life without any needs”.

I think we have to serve to Him and to be good workers and to try to imitate Jesus.

“What would Jesus do?”

Once I decided to become a Christian just at the moment when failures were pouring on me again and again and it seemed that they would never stop coming to me. I was despaired. But He gave me the rest and peace.

I’m completely sure that the Lord has the special plan for my life and the mission trip to Siberia was one of the most important points of it. The trip really effected me. It has changed my life as well not only the many lives of the youth we were working with.

This mission trip was a real wonder in my life… It made me think over my life, it unveiled my eyes to the mistakes I’ve made… it made me look thoroughly into my inner self and analyze the things I’ve done… frankly speaking, I was disappointed to know all my blemishes and defects… I didn’t know that they would be so many… I wonder again and again why I didn’t notice them earlier. I changed my world outlook and started molding my opinion as concerns life in a some different way. Moreover, I felt something very important in my life – I felt the Lord as close to me as it is possible…

There, so far from home, parents and my dear friends I didn’t feel myself alone – vice verse I WAS in the family of Christ, among my sisters and brothers. The love of the Lord filled us and we gave it to others… it’s so wonderful to feel that you can help somebody in his distress and give him the hope!!! I saw changes in the lives of the youth – they were changing and we could feel it! God was working through us! God burned the sparkle in their hearts, He sent them the desire to become Christians! No one insisted on their repentance and conversion but they were watching us and when they saw the love and God’s light in us – they wanted to be similar to us. That’s why even among the most reserved young people and us the ice was broken… we became very good friends. But the most important is that the seed WAS planted in their souls and God is working in them! That was the point of our trip.

I am encouraged and inspired. I received that spiritual food that expected to get from this trip. Moreover, I got the privilege to share my faith with others. I learned how to trust God fully and not to lean on my own understanding. I have great plans as concerns my future and I know that without God my plans will never succeed. I, myself, am too weak… God has taught me a lot of different things that I will need in the future. I praise the Lord for this wonderful gift for me… it’s more than wonderful to be a missioner!!! I want to serve Him in such a way. It has great influence upon non-Christians. We’ve learned it from our personal experience. May God bless everyone involved in the project!

Every day I see people who suffer and are through a hard periods of time. They are trying to find comfort and peace somewhere in the world. They think they’ll be happy if they become very rich or popular – but they are mistaken – it is not real happiness – it is just the forgery, which leads to destruction. We, Ñhristians, must stop them and show them the way to real happiness, which is in Christ Jesus. It is what I want to do in my life. You’ll ask me: “Why?” -” Because I’ve got such problem in my family”.

When I was a small girl, mum asked me what I’d like to be in future. As I liked a great number of professions and couldn’t choose yet, I always answered – a very-very good person. In my imagination being a very good person included help to people; success in my private life and becoming an excellent psychologist. I must admit, my opinion hasn’t changed since that time vice versa I added some points: I want to give love, understanding, attention to other people as much as it is possible; to make points for myself and to reach them. To tell you the truth I didn’t know how to perform that but now I’ve got several ideas. So, I may say, that the mission trip to Siberia is one of my points. Because being there I’ll be able to testify people about God and His love and how He helped me once. Isn’t it what I wanted? There is no doubt that there are people there who need help not only material but spiritual, as well. I’ll have a wonderful opportunity to offer them that help. I really don’t want anyone to bear sufferings I did once. I’ll never wish it even to my enemies. If I’ll go there I’ll open many new things for myself and I’ll obtain more knowledge there and finally I’ll make an exam for myself if I’m assigned by God for that task. If, yes, I’ll be happy, if not GOD will show me what to do. This mission trip will change my life forever because it will be the beginning of my real valid service to God. I’ll obtain much more spiritual food helping people than attending church meetings here. Faith without deeds is dead, that’s why I would like to go to Siberia. I, myself, need spiritual support as well. And I hope to receive it being there. I’ve got very hard life and I found comfort in Christ and I want other people to realize how much more His love should be dear to us than anything else in this unworthy world.

God has said:”Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” (Mark 16:15). That is what God wants us to do.

I wanted to become a missionary since I was a kid, but that wasn’t real for me. I just adored the people called missionaries, who left their prosperous life and moved to some poor country to serve people. You see, I knew all that in theory, but until Mission Impossible 2 I never knew what stood behind this. But when I saw, I decided I wanted to do something like that for the Lord. I knew God was calling me to go to Siberia, and I’m glad He gave me strength to say “I will GO!”

When our team decided the name of the camp would be “Heart Operation” nobody of us knew how much it will influence all of us. For me it was touching and moving to see God changing the lives, the hearts of those young people never cared for God. It was a great honour to know that God has found us useful to be tools in His hands and used us to show His love and care. On the first day of the camp we didn’t even know how many Christians and non-Christians were there – we found that out later during the camp. Some of them used to go to church, but then were disappointed with God. They were probably the hardest people to work with.

But the trip all together wasn’t exactly a rest. It was rather a real spiritual battle. The Lord helped us to stand strong for Him, not to give up. The Russian guys watched how we behaved, what we did, watched our relationship within the team. So, it was really important to be a good testimony to them. Everybody in our team was a personality, but God united us in an amazing way. I don’t know how we could manage to do all the work we’ve done without at least one member of our team.

In general, all the people we’ve met were wonderful and friendly, but this didn’t change the fact that they needed personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. For me personally it was a great privilege to tell them what He has done for them, share what God has done for me. To be honest, I didn’t expect to see the results of our visit, didn’t expect the Lord to grow the seed so fast. But He did change the hearts of those young people; some of them invited Jesus in their hearts. I’m sure God was with us every single moment, He was as real as never before. We felt Him there right beside us and we totally dedicated ourselves to Him.

This mission trip made me realise that God’s power is really really great, but He needs us to be ready to go wherever He sends us, to do whatever He tells us to do.

I would also like to say, that God made an operation on our hearts as well. He took away lots of things that prevented Him from working in me and through me. I’m very thankful to Him for that. Every day we spent there is so vivid and bright in my memory. I know, the bright colours will disappear someday, I may forget the faces, the names…but I will never forget how real God has become for me there, how many of His miracles I have seen, how pleasant and encouraging it is to know that your Saviour is living in you and working through you.

For 7 years now I’ve been dreaming of becoming a full-term missionary, but it wasn’t until last year that I realized that it doesn’t involve only you saying “I WANT TO GO!!!”. It’s also important to hear the Lord saying, “I send you”. Well, I guess I hear him saying that to me. For me it’s important to experience the life of a real missionary. It’s where I can gain personal, intimate relationship with God. I want to learn to trust the Lord in different circumstances, ’cause in this ‘normal’ life I often forget about the Lord, even when I need a hand. I just have lots of people around me who’re always ready to help. I know in Siberia it will be different and I’ll be able (hope I’ll have time) to learn to trust the Lord, hear him speak to me. I think being a missionary always involves that. Besides, I really want to go and see if there’s any help our brothers and sisters in Siberia need and whether we can help them.

Every new stage in your life, every action you do changes it forever. Before Ascension Jesus said that we should go throughout the whole world and preach the Gospel to all the nations. I’ll be happy to accomplish this command and I’m sure this step will change lots of things in my life: my views, values, and thoughts… For my the trip to Siberia is also important to get closer to the Lord, realize with my heart that God matters more than anything else in my life.

And the other point, important for both us and those Christians in Siberia whom we’ll meet is to encourage each other. It’ll mean a lot to them to know that somebody decided to come to them and to serve the Lord along with them, to know that they’re not alone – there’re millions of other Christians all over the world who’re brothers and sisters to them. I don’t say it matters only to them. It’ll be a great blessing for me to be encouragement to others.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll go (though I really wanna go) or what the Lord has prepared for our team to do there, but whatever it is, it’ll change our lives forever. Actually God changes us every day and every event in our life is used to change us, to make us stronger, make us more like him, make us perfect. I believe and pray the trip to Siberia (and basically the preparation to it as well) will change the lives of many people – and mine, of course

After more that 5 hour flight we finally landed, but in a wrong place, because it was too misty to land in Irkutsk. As we were explained later that the airport was situated in the mistiest place of the entire city and this fact can be understood only by Russians and Ukrainians, other nationalities just can’t understand it! Anyway, when we finally arrived to Irkutsk I had an impression, that we were not wanted. Everything was quite disorganized. We didn’t know anything and didn’t understand what was happening. We thought that all the practical work would be on Russian’s shoulders, but we were explained, that we would have to cook in the camp and do all the practical work, that was there to do. We had no time to think about it or to be upset, because there was a lot of work to be done before young people came to the camp. The biggest surprise for us was that we were not doing 2 short camps, instead we had to do one big one and there won’t be a lot of Christians.

So, the day to start the camp had come. We were taking to a very picturesque and also quite wild place, surrounded by the rivers and the hills. In the morning we had put up the tents and prepared everything for young people’s coming. At the end of our preparations everyone was very exhausted, but the rule was not to complain, so everyone tried really hard to look happy. David asked us to try very hard to give a warm welcome to young people, but to say honestly everything we wanted was just to fall asleep. Finally the bus with young people came and our team tried extremely hard to welcome them, but the thing that we didn’t realise was, that they were a lot more “non Christian”, that we could imagine! Some of them even thought, that we were some religious fanatics and they tried very hard not to listen to us and not to have much to do with us, other people didn’t even realise, that they were going to the Christian camp and some people didn’t know anything about God. So, in the beginning both our team and the youth were scared about how everything would go….

But the best thing was that God had been with us every minute and He started His operation on each heart. Every day He was showing to me how important to live what were teaching young people. They had been watching us every minute. At first, they couldn’t understand that joy, that happiness, that love that we had for them. The work of Holy Spirit was so vivid. Everyday I so, how God was changing hearts and it was the most thrilling and humbling experience I ever had.

Once I had to tell to the young people about the meaning of the Cross. I was writing my speech again and again, but it didn’t seem powerful enough, it didn’t seem to be persuasive enough, in the end I just prayed and went with what I had. The most amazing thing, that I realized that words were not important, magnificent speech was not needed. God needed my clean heart to work through. And He did! It was the best feeling I ever felt, – the feeling of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we had seen a lot! We saw tears of happiness of those who for the first time felt God’s love, we saw sadness for the waited years, we saw amazement after finding out about the plan of salvation, we saw hanger to know more…. we saw people being saved!

My heart was changed too. I realised very deeply, that my purpose in this earthly life is just to tell other’s about our wonderful God and to serve to Him with everything that I have, every minute of my life. I want to continue to be a tool in God’s hands, if He allows me. I know, that this trip was one of the rightist decisions in my life. The purpose of me going was fully completed, because lives were saved and I came to know God closer!

I will pray for all those young people, so that one day they would become missionaries too and also so that we would meet again in Heaven and have eternal party there!

But from another side God gives us different opportunities and it is up to us how we respond on that opportunities. I can spend whole my life thinking whether I should or I shouldn’t do something, but I think that’s also not what God wants from me. I think that, He wants to see His children being active energetic and sensitive to what His desires are. Sometimes, if you have a very close friend or a spouse, you know him so well, that you know for sure what you can do to please him. The same way with God, if we know Him really well, we know how to please Him and we know, that there is nothing he likes more, than when new people come to him in repentance. So, I think He will be really happy if I go to Siberia to introduce salvation to many other people.

Answering the question of the topic, I am asking myself another question. – “Did God’s servants, all the disciples, prophets, think how their life would change if they went on their “missionary trips”! Did Jonah think how his life would change, when he was going to Nenevia? Did Daniel think how his would change, when he was praying to God, knowing, that he would get into trouble for that? Did Moses think how his life would change, when he was leading all Chosen Nation? Did first Christians think how their life would change, when they kept spreading the Gospel, knowing that if they would be caught, the cruellest death would be demonstrated on them? And eventually, what did Jesus think when he came out of desert ready for His service?” But the real question is: “Did all these people think about themselves at all?” I think, that “no”! All these people are great giants of faith, trust to God. They were fully devoted to their Lord God. They didn’t have to think what would happen to them, because they had the main thing, they had God in their heart 24 hours a day. They knew, that nothing can separate them from their God, that’s why it didn’t matter whether their life would change, because no matter what, life or death, they would still be with their Father. That’s why going on the missionary trips, they didn’t think how they life would be changed. They were thinking how to change other lives, how to make other people alive to God.

Very often I think, what Paul said once. He said such words: “I no longer live, but Christ, who saved me lives through me, and the fact that I am still live in flesh, I live by hope, that soon would be with God in heaven!” It is just so wonderful, to trust all of you to God to such extend! Paul didn’t have to think how his life would change, because he knew what his goal and destination is and he had to reach that goal no matter how his life would change in process of earthly life.

Yes, I know, I am still very far from all those people that I have just described. I am just about to graduate from the university. I need to decide what to do with my life in the future and in order to say, that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, I need to clear up all that junk that I still have in my heart, so that it would be comfortable for Him to live in me! So, that means, that I do expect changes in life from this trip. And realistically, I need just one change and that to come to know the Lord a lot closer! People say, that you can find out about some person a lot, if you would work with him. So, I would like to watch Him working through us, with us! I want to be a tool in His hands; I want to watch Him every minute, to find out about Him more!

Finally, we have a wonderful promise, that all things work for good for those, who really love God! I can definitely say, that I love Him a lot, so I expect changes only for the better