Last summer a team from Saddleback took 100 kids off the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine, where you can buy the strongest of painkillers for less than a penny...and took them to CRIMEA for a summer camp.
What an unbelievably fun and inspiring time it was ...living and laughing and singing and praying with these kids who live in dark alleys, and under buildings, in a world you and I will never know...seeing them come out from behind their walls of defense...
Pastor Ghenady from The Church of Good Changes (awesome name) invited us to join them and serve alongside his church staff and the Pilgrim Orphan Care Ministry.
We're going back to UKRAINE this July 16th -30 and taking kids to the CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS this year...kind of like a soviet version of Big Bear...100 'run-away' and 'throw-away' kids...enjoying a Christian camp setting...it's the best... 
Just being with these kids, breaks your heart and also fills you with hope and respect for the work Pastor Ghenady and his staff are doing in their 27 group homes...Every night they go out on the streets and rescue drug addicted little kids who are just trying to survive.
Kids who shoot street drugs EVERY DAY...ALL DAY...just to deal with the abuse and the homelessness and the abandonment...
Camp is a contrast for sure...darkness to light...just ask Ashley and Nadya.
If you're interested in joining our team...13 days that will change your life... e-mail Carolyn Betts, our team co-ordinator at carecgb@yahoo.com or leave a comment and a contact at the bottom.
When you reach beyond yourself to the least of these people, you are following Christ's command...'love your neighbor as much as you love yourself' and making some lifelong friends in the most unexpected places.
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