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July 2007 This report about our Summer Camp comes late and I apologize for this. I could not write it and prepare all the pictures that come with it because I had to go from home for one month right after the camp. My family and I had the blessed opportunity to spend one month in Canada in Brother Chuck Coulson’s Canadian Bible Baptist Church of Lacombe, Alberta. It was a wonderful learning experience for us and we praise God for this. Back to my report, the Lord blessed us when He called us to this Children Ministry in the Summer Camp. We had again the opportunity of declaring His Gospel to hundreds of children and this was a thrill for all of us that were involved. I don’t know if you can imagine what this camp means for some of these children. Many of them will never go in another Summer Camp at all – their parents cannot afford, or don’t think it necessary to provide such a thing for them. Our camp is all free for them and this is another thing they (I mean people in the village) don’t understand about us, the Christians. How can some people spend so much with no material profit at all? Our camp is for all the children in the village – we have to call them on different weeks according with their age – and this shows acceptance: poor children feel free, children from bad families laugh and play boldly – some of them even don’t know how to behave in such different situations because they are not used with them. And on top of everything, we could tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ, about their sin and salvation, about hell and heaven, about a destroyed life and about a better one. We teach them Bible verses and Christian Songs, things that stay with them years in row, the whole life as we pray. We try to show them the Lord by our life’s examples so they will realize there is more to real life than the world shows them. The camp goes on for two weeks. In the first week we invite all the children in the village of ages between 5 and 10 (but all the time we have plenty of kids under five). In the second week we invite all the children in the village of ages between 10 and 15. All year around children smile and greet us, stop us everywhere and tell us things about the camp, and ask when it will start again. In our village is not a common thing for a child to feel so close toward adults. Most of adults just push away children. Anyway, we had our camp in the last two weeks of July. In both weeks we had more than one hundred children every day (except one or two days we had 110, 120 or 130). That is a large crowd to feed, to keep quiet and attentive for the Bible stories, a large crowd to play with. But praise the Lord, God helped us do it. Again, lots of volunteers from the church were ready to be involved and they did a good job. But this year we’re were not just by ourselves! No. We had a tremendous team from Brother Paige Hardin’s Church who gave their best for this ministry. There were 9 good young people, under the leadership of Tony Hardin and Josh Hardin who both did a really good job working both with their team and with the children also. Everybody was pleased with this team. As a pastor, I have just good words about them. Boys and girls (some of them for the second or third time in our village, some just for the first time), all of them showed themselves as good Christians and faithful ministers. As you can see in the pictures on our websites, the games were many, as usual, with some new games the American Team taught us for the first time. Preparing the sandwiches and feeding everybody was a hard job, but not impossible as we had many ladies from the church helping us with this. Singing with the crowd in Romanian and English was fun and everybody enjoyed it. The children’s voices could be heard over the hills in the village and all people knew we were there. Every day there was a Bible verse to memorize and them that knew it were rewarded with candies – we checked that all the week. The Bible Stories were interesting and the children listened well. On the last day of every week we had the invitation. We explained the Gospel to the children and we invited them for a decision. There were many that raised their hand for us to pray with them for salvation, as you can see in the pictures. With the older kids, the second week, Tony and Josh, divided them that raised their hands in groups and our people went separately with them to explain them more about salvation and to pray with them. We trust the Lord many of these children understood the Gospel and got saved. Now we pray for them that didn’t want to believe for a future chance of conversion and for them that got saved to grow in the Lord.
God bless you all and help you in your ministries. P.S. There are more than 80 new images on our WebPage from this Children's Camp - bigger in size and better in quality than ever before. Check them at: www.bcbluncailvei.net/Foto/t07/enindex.htm August 2006 In August we had two good weeks of Children Ministry in our Summer Camp in Lunca Ilvei. Between 90 and 130 children gathered every day to hear Bible Lessons, to sing Bible Songs, to learn Bible verses and to play and enjoy a good time with our Christian Team. Almost all of these kids come from unsaved families and so we have the chance to put in their minds and hearts God’s Word, to touch them with His Holy Spirit and to influence them for good. We pray all their relatives will take notice and be awaken toward God’s salvation. Please pray with us. Thank you. Our estimation is that we reached more than 300 children in this summer camp. With some new ideas, we made their families to be a part of this by giving some homework in which the children needed help from older people. Please pray for the rest of the children that were not allowed by their parents to come in our camp. There are few families in this condition! We’ll have another chance to reach them though: Around Christmas, our church will have a ministry for all the children in the schools of the village. It will be the fourth year when we’ll have the opportunity to give them some Christian booklet along with a present. All the kids are waiting for this event. They know the “Repenters” (this is how they call us) will come and will have something for them. It’s a great blessing to see their joy and to hear their words of thankfulness. With God’s help, I might put some pictures with this event on our website. The thing is that the free server that hosts my website has so many problems and limitations – pray so I can do something about this situation. Please pray for the Bible School as it starts in ten days. Pray for teachers, students and all the details. Thank you so much. Almost sixty new pictures are on our website (I had to remove some old ones to make room for these). You can see them in our Pictures' Section. I want you to know that the Church in Lunca Ilvei and I appreciate all of you who care and are involved in our ministries for the Lord by praying, paying and obeying His will. Anyone of you who would like to come and work with us in the Bible School or in the Camp, please let me know, or contact brother Paul Delmark, of Sturgis, MI. Be sure of our prayers and consideration. God bless you all. July 2005 I owe you few more pictures from our last week of Summer Bible Camp we had for the children of our whole village. As I told you in my last newsletter, it was a blessed time for all of us, even though it was so busy from morning to evening. This was the third year since we started this kind of ministry and every time it was better. The main impression we had as a church involved in this work and as people with a heart for the salvation of our community is that this children heard the gospel. What I want to say is that grown people many times refuse to listen what we have to say, avoid our meetings and the tracts we give. But this children (from 4 to 16 years of age) hasted each day of the camp to come and play with us, to sing lots of songs and repeat by heart up to 15 verses in 5 days, to listen Bible Lessons and enjoy a good fellowship. This is a whole generation, the next one, and they heard the Gospel already! Praise God! And it won't stop here. Their parents have to live with them, to listen to their stories, verses and songs they know. Each day they knew: "My kid is in that camp where those believers play with them, sing with them, teach them good things even eat with them!" It's a bridge we are building to their heart. So, please pray with us for everything we want to do in God's name further. We would like to win more of this people. In December we will have another "whole village children action" - the third one of this kind. Last year and the year before, every child in all the kindergartens and the schools in Lunca Ilvei received a gift and an illustrated New Testament. This year we want to repeat this thing and add one more school in Poiana Ilvei, where brother Sandu has his church. For the next year's Summer Bible Camp I would like to open an invitation to all of you who will want to send a group of laborers here for two weeks (or two groups, each for one week). This can be even young people who would like to be involved in this ministry (teach, sing, play, feed) with unsaved children. Please let me know if you have such desire. Thank you so much for your prayers and any kind of help. You can see the pictures in our Pictures' Section. May the Lord bless you all. July 2004 This report is not done yet. Check the nice pictures though, at the Pictures' Section. God bless you all. The First Children’s Camp I would like to let you know of some of the latest events here in the village of Lunca Ilvei, Romania, where every one of you that visited us "have a left a piece of your heart". (This is a Romanian saying and I hope it has at least a little bit of the same meaning in English, too.) First of all I want to thank all of you that pray for and support this ministry. Without you I don't know what God would have done here. (He knows!) The children's free summer camp started this July. All the children in our village were invited and many of them walked or rode the bike from long distances to attend the daily program we had for them. The first week (June 30 - July 04) we had children from 5 to 10 years old (1st to 4th grade and younger) and in the second week (July 07 - July 11) we had children from 11 to 15 years old (5th to 8th grade and a little bit up). One of the main attractions for the kids was the "American Youth Team" we had here from Radcliff, Kentucky. Ten dynamic teenagers and young people "ready to go and do". They were daily on the streets spreading out tracts and inviting kids to the camp, befriending them, talking and playing with them all day long. The Romanian children were so pleased with them - they soon knew all of them by their names (of course with that Romanian (kind of Mexican) accent). It happens so seldom that anybody gives these poor children so much attention. So, I have to thank this young American brothers and sisters for their efforts to bring a little bit of happiness in the lives of the children in our village. We had the children at the campsite from Monday to Friday, seven or eight hours a day. Out of 10 days we met, just 4 were with less than 100 kids (65 the less) and 6 days we had over 100 (120 the most) - Praise God! We expected about 30-40 kids a day!! But we got much more! They heard at the camp Bible stories and of course, the Gospel, they learned one Bible verse and two Christian songs every day, they played and had all kind of contests with prizes and two sandwiches a day :). They enjoyed everything so much. We prayed with them for their salvation and we continue in prayer with the church (and with you) so that the word planted in their hearts will bring forth fruit some day. Praise God for all who care for God's ministry. Because there still are Christians that give, we were able to start building a bathroom for the camp. And due to the Canadian Bible Baptist Church of Lacombe, Canada, we'll be able to bring the electricity to the campsite. So, right now, our people (brother Iulian, Dan, Nimu and others) work hard (as usual) to prepare two dormitories, the kitchen and half of the bathroom (a toilet, a sink and a shower) for the next two groups we wait in August. These children will come from other cities in Romania (Alba Iulia and Slatina). And with them we'll close "the camp ministry" for this year. We received request from people in Moldova and Ukraine to bring children in the camp this year, but we could not have them now. We'll still work on so we'll be able to provide accommodation for them and hopefully, next year we'll tell you of a bigger ministry at the "Children's Summer Camp in Lunca Ilvei". Please pray for us. Thank you. Please don't cease to pray for our "Bible School" that we'll start on September 29th, and for the "Ladies' Meeting" we'll have in the week of October 6th. Thank you. God bless you all and may He reward you bountifully here and there for your help for us in prayer, support, concern and so on. Marcel Dumitru The building / working project As we got the first snow today in Lunca Ilvei, I better hurry up and write you the latest news from here before this computer will freeze. The temperature really dropped down here in the last few days. But, praise God, it was not so cold in the first two weeks of October when we had here visitors from U.S.A., Canada, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia and all over Romania. There were two reasons for these people coming here. First, there was a team of men, most of them from Pastor Paige Hardin's church in Kentucky, who came to continue the building work at the future children camp we intend to have here. The project was started last year with buying a piece of land and fix it, buying and preparing some material and in this August, brother Mark Landolt brought here a team of Canadian workers who raised the main building. Now, a second smaller room was raised up for a dormitory, a platform was set for a dinning hall and the pluming and the septic system were made for the first building. Both teams (the "August" one and the "October" one) worked hard, both had to fight cold weather, rain and mud, and above these, there were different difficulties with finding the right material, the intended quality or the right time for obtaining it. Their chances to be involved in the Church's services were just few, but some of them had the chance to preach or to have a greeting or a small testimony in Lunca Ilvei or in Poiana Ilvei. They came mainly to build and this is what they mainly did. Praise God for their help, effort and sacrifice. I thank you all who have a part in this too, by praying, caring or paying as I would like to thank all these brothers who came. I praise God for the desire he put in them and the power he gave them to fulfill it. We realize it is a sacrifice to pay and to come here (for some will be a sacrifice just to think about coming here :)). (By the way, I don't have the emails for most of these men, so if anybody can, please let them hear about this letter or send me their email and I'll do it. Thank you.) Second, from 7th until 11th of October we had here, in Lunca Ilvei, the 3rd "Ladies' Meeting". These kind of meetings are intended first of all for our former student's wives, but we accept in the attendance other sisters too. So we had 42 ladies who came for this meeting from Russia, Moldova, Ukraine and all over Romania. All of them have some kind of connection with our former students of the Bible School. As speakers for the meetings there were Mrs. Valerie Landolt, Mrs. Debbie Hardin, Mrs. Rhonda Hamilton and Mrs. Elisabeth Korsh. Everybody enjoyed the lessons, the testimonies, the questions & answers, the time together. It was a great blessing for everybody. Now the vision is to have such a week every year. Please pray that the ladies will be able to come next year too. It means long hours of train traveling, difficult borders to pass, great expenses, little children left home for a week, husbands who have to cook and wash while the wives are gone and so on. Please pray also for us so we can be able to prepare everything here for a decent accommodation and most of all pray for God's presence in these meetings, so these ladies will have their efforts rewarded. Also do not cease to pray for the Bible School as we plan to start a new session in the spring time. Please pray for students, teachers and all other details involved. I want to thank everyone of you have anything to do with this ministry by praying, coming, preaching, building, driving, paying, caring, loving and what so ever God put on your heart to be involved with. May God bless you further. Respectfully, August 2002 (Romania Report) In August of 2002, we went to Romania to help build a children’s’ camp. It was part of our on going support for Mark Landolt, SOS World Missions, and the Bible School in Lunca Ilvei. We were able to purchase all the lumber necessary in the preceding year, which gave it time to cure over the winter. The owner of the lumber mill allowed us a safe place to store the lumber. The men of the church donated their time to the collection and preparation of the materials needed for the camp, and to the stacking of the lumber. In the fall of 2001 God lead Mark Landolt to the needed property. In the spring of 2002 a team of carpenters built a bridge across the creek, on the road leading to the camp. Bill, Michael, Merton, and Douglas arrived August 9 to begin the construction of the building. After going through the frustration of attempting to hire a back hoe to dig the holes for the piers, we decided to have them dug by hand, and amazingly this was accomplished in just one day. The construction was carried on at a healthy pace until the last truss was put in place an hour before we had to leave. The work was a united effort, with the missionary in charge (Mr. Landolt) from Kentucky, one man from New Brunswick, one from Ontario, and two from Alberta. Several churches from across North America contributed financially to the project. As well, the men of the local church in Romania contributed a large part of the physical labor required to accomplish anything in Eastern Europe. We marvel at our Lord’s ability coordinate all this in His time, to the over coming of all the obstacles, and His guidance through all the possible pit falls in our path. From our perspective God really did a great thing; from God’s perspective it was "just another day at the shop". All this was accomplished in just 13 working days, with half the days being rainy making the site an impossible mud hole. We will probably never know all the prayer that God’s people put into the battle. The fellowship between the men was sweet, and God was able to minister to hearts. To finish the building, a 9 man crew from Mr. Landolt’s home church will be going over in October, as well as another Canadian from here. One of the thrills of going to the mission field/overseas is experiencing your faith in an objective manner. This is seen when one hears the songs we have sung since little children, being sung in a strange tongue. All of a sudden you realize that these songs have existed apart from ourselves and those we know, which gives them an objective existence. The spirit of the music witnesses to our spirit that we are the sons of God; and we grow from faith to faith. It has already been arranged for children to come to the first camp session, some from as far away as Japan, in the spring of 2003. To God be the glory! Home | Church | Bible School | Preaching | Ladies' Conference | Children Camp | Forum | Pictures |
