Mission Adventures 2007

Mission Adventures 2007 is officially over.
4 weeks. 13 staff. 42 participants. 10 churches. 1.649.022 mosquitoes. 3 army tents. Lots of fun!
This year theme was "Lazarus. Wake up dead man!", based on John 11.
Also, this year's outreach was in Belarus (former Soviet respublic), which was a big eye opener for all of the kids, since preaching the Gospel outside the church is illegal out there. Each team had only three days to learn all skits and dramas; evangelism tools and songs. They were all VERY stressed out, but did a really great job. One of the best parts of the programm, was thursday night outreach in one of the local villages, For the first time kids would perform their entire programm in front of strangers. Anywhere from 30 to 50 people would gather to watch it, Probably 70% of them were kids. Awesome! Usually we would stay for about 40 minutes after the show to hand out Bibles and just to talk to locals. Not last thursday.
We completly forgot that august 2d was Spesial Forces Day (Day of VDV). Usually that means a lot former soldiers walking around in there old uniforms absolutely drunk, looking for an opportunity to fight. That night we went to Garbolovo- one of the biggest villages in the area. Kids from Calvary Chapel team started inviting people to watch the programm. I saw several guys standing by the store, drinking. They were all wearing their uniforms. Crap... I told Mark (volunteer from Scotland) that we have to be ready to..."Fight?"-he asked. "No! Get the heck outta here!".
Right in the middle of the show, one of the "soldiers" started yelling things that i can't really write here. Here's my edited version: "Would you please leave this village, dear sect members or this beautiful summer day will be the day when your life will be over!")) Crap...
He promised to come back in 5 minutes. And he did. This time he was right behind the team, while they were performing. He kept saying that he killed a lot of morons like us, while serving his country in Afganistan. I asked him if we could move a little bit, so we wouldn't interrupt the show. He was amazed: "Do you really want to fight me one on one?!". Crap...
Me and Tim decided that instead of waiting we needed to go and talk to this guys. What can be more desirable than a conversation with a group of drunk, mad former professional killers? Especially, when they're mad at YOU!
It was a difficult conversation. They hated America, they hated Bush, the hated Putin. They were calling themselvs "orthodox believers" and we were foreign agressors to them. I had a long conversation with a 45 year old guy Viktor. He was by far the most intellectual and sober guy there. He was convinced that America is evil and anything that sponsored by american money evil as well. Every time i would switch the conversation to Jesus, we could talk. Every time he would switch it back to politics, we couldn't. I would love to tell you that all of them became christians after we talked, but they didn't. And i think that is what sharing Gospel is all about: viewing yourself as a link in a chain and hoping that you would be the last one.
We had to leave immdeatly after the programm. When we got back to YWAM base, kids were so pumped! That night Tim told me: "I think this outhreach did more for this kids than 10 years of going to church". Amen.
I posted all of the videos we made this year at www.youtube.com\zhuliker. Go check 'em out. Let me know what you think.