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“Truly I say to you, to the extent that you
did it to one of the least of these, you did it unto Me.” |
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“Truly I say to you, to the extent that you
did it to one of the least of these, you did it unto Me.” |
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JEREMIAH'S HOPE TO BUILD A CHRISTIAN CAMPPosted: September 17th, 2007 In 1996, I first traveled to Ukraine with World Wide Youth Camps to be a part of a mission team teaching Bible lessons in some of the former Communist indoctrination camps. These camps, though the Soviet Union has fallen, are still operated today as privately owned or business owned camps to provide summer fun for the children of Ukraine. For years, many of us have dreamed about having a Christian camp where the orphans of Ukraine could be shown the amazing love of Jesus Christ. The past several years, Jeremiah’s Hope has tried to do that in a small way by doing camp at the orphanage and meeting the kids where they are. However, each year, that gets harder and harder as staff members at the orphanages are not interested in the message of what we are trying to share and they and others distract the kids attention. For the past year or so, some of us have been dreaming about buying land and building a Christian camp which would benefit the orphans of Ukraine. A few months ago, Jeremiah’s Hope was blessed with the assets of an estate. The board agreed that the assets could be used to acquire land for a camp and on Monday, August 6th, 4 acres of land was bought in the village of Kolenzie, about 5miles southwest of Ivankiv, Ukraine. The land is located about 40 minutes north of Kiev. A few weeks earlier, we had seen the land and fell in love with the 4 acres. As we spoke with the real estate agent, we told him that the 4 acres was smaller than we were hoping to buy. To our surprise, the real estate agent had already spoken to officials and they were willing to “rent” us an additional 9 acres of land next to our land for about $20 a month for 49 years. So, we arranged a meeting to begin the purchase of the land and to discuss renting the additional land. However, before agreeing to buy the land, we wanted to get that information in person and “seal the deal.” So, we spent a full day meeting with various officials about the government land and finally ended up having dinner with the “LAND COMMISSIONER” for the region. The Land Commissioner informed us through a lawyer that the city would not rent us the land, but instead the city would GIVE THE LAND to us for use as a Christian camp and a place to reach out to orphans. THE CITY OF IVANKIV, UKRAINE DONATED LAND TO JEREMIAH’S HOPE TO MAKE THE CAMP LARGER. The gift of land from the city is valued at approximately $90,000 US. We are blessed and extremely grateful for their gift!! The first structure to be built will be a large building containing dining hall, industrial kitchen, laundry facilities, bathrooms (with showers) and living space for 25 people. This two story 3,500 square foot facility will allow us to bring teams of volunteers to build the remaining facilities over the next two years. At the present time, several fundraising things are being put together to help fund the initial building of the camp. Those fundraising activities include:
We, the staff and board of Jeremiah’s Hope, are excited about what the Lord is doing in Ukraine! He continues to bless the TLC and CPS houses in Mariupol and our outreach with the orphanages in Mariupol, Ugligorsk and other places. Additionally, we look forward to our future merge with Safe Haven International and bringing their home in Kiev and the orphanage outreach in Kaniv under our umbrella. And now, we also look forward to developing and building this Christian camp over the next 2 – 3 years. Please keep this in your prayers.
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