End-of-Year 2011 Ministry Strategic Summary

What we are doing:

Helping college-age orphans run the race marked out for them, through Hope House, a residential transition ministry, You Are Not Alone Club, a Young-Life style ministry, Camp Ministries, and MOCT Digital, a video ministry engaged in advancing Christian camping and contemporary worship teams throughout the former Soviet Union.

 Our Mission:

Commitment to a personal pursuit of Jesus Christ in the context of Christian community, where orphanage graduates, transformed by the Gospel of Grace, are equipped to lead the Church in gathering worshippers from the ends of the earth.

 Our Core Values:

• That a personal, persistent pursuit of Jesus is absolutely essential to survival in ministry.

• That people are only truly transformed when they are transformed by a work of God through His Holy Spirit.

• That orphans are highly valued by God as reflected in Scripture and therefore, a commitment to care for orphans should mark the life of the Christian and His Bride, the Church.

• That the chief end of mankind is to worship God and to gather more worshippers form the ends of the earth.

2011 Ministry Strategic Summary:

This past year, three of our team members have become employees of the local state-run orphanage. For those of you aware of the rocky relationship we've had with the orphanage administrators through the years, and their innate fear of any involvement of their kids with evangelicals, you must wonder how this could be possible. In a nutshell, you'd have to say it's because they have seen the impact our team has made on the lives of their kids. The orphanage's Deputy Director said recently, after seeing her kids return from one of our orphan camps, that she hardly recognized them. Even their countenance had changed.

 Lilly from our team is employed in the orphanage as a care-giver ("mom") to a group of the older girls, and Alexei is a care-giver to a group of boys. Max, who is a graduate of this orphanage, and a year ago graduated from Voronezh State University in Psychology, is now a staff psychologist at the orphanage, and recently was also given the added job of care-giver to another group of boys.

 Additionally, the club ministry team has now begun a new "You Are Not Alone" club inside the orphanage, working with the older pre-graduates. We found a curriculum two years ago, published in Russian, which is specifically designed around a life-skills training model intent on helping the process of adaptation to the world outside the orphanage. But implementing this training before the kids leave the orphanage can make a world of difference in their successful transition.

 The material is biblically based but not overtly Christian, which may help explain why the orphanage director has already approved the curriculum for the first year, and offered the use of a room at the orphanage for the team to begin weekly You Are Not Alone club meetings.

 Our main involvement with these team members now working in the orphanage is to help provide training and networking in orphan care and post-orphanage adaptation, as well as encouraging and supporting their work outside the orphanage with the team in camp ministry and club ministry.

 Our personal hands-on involvement is shifting more toward focusing principally in two areas. The first, advocacy, focuses on assisting the older guys, most of whom have lived at Hope House for the past few years, with getting into their own homes and apartments.

 The second is a business/ministry, called "MOCT Digital", which we have been developing for the past few years. This "businesstry" as I like to call it, hopes to become self-sustaining eventually, but is primarily focused on providing opportunities for several of the older guys with whom we walk to engage in ministry opportunities, both in their local churches as well as with local and major national ministries for whom we provide video/AV services. This currently involves only three of our guys, but we expect to double that number in 2012. They currently serve three local churches, local ministries, camps, ministry to families with Down Syndrome children, as well as major involvement on a national scope with Christian Camping International-Russia, and the International Creative Fellowship of Musicians, a Russian organization committed to encouraging and resourcing worship leaders and their teams in churches throughout Russia. One of the things I find most exciting about our guys work with these national ministries is the opportunities they've had to be exposed to Christianity outside their little Voronezh Baptist bubble.

 In Summary:

 MAJOR TARGET: Developing Russian ministry leadership, walking with young orphanage graduates in the context of the local church community.

 MAJOR STRATEGIES:

1.     Training & resourcing our local team leaders

2.     Hope House

3.     Advocacy

4.     You Are Not Alone Club ministry

5.     Orphan Camps