I've posted links in various places, including Twitter and Facebook, of the closing video from the 2012 Leadership Conference of Christian Camping International-Russia.  On the Vimeo page with the video is the following story about the video and a bit more info about the guys we work with in the video businesstry (ministry with a business angle & hopefully future), we call "MOCT Digital".  (MOCT is the Russian word for 'bridge'.)

The entire experience of working with these guys over the past few years and seeing their growth, not just as professionals, turning out professional work, but their personal & spiritual growth, as they are affirmed for having gifts and talents that have been consistently recognized for the incredible contributions they are making to the Body of Christ.  Not just at these conferences, but also in Voronezh, as they pour into so many other peoples lives with their service and support of so many things God is doing here.

This deserves much more blogging, since there are so many ways in which God is showing me more of Himself through this aspect of the work here, but for now, I submit the text from the Vimeo page to help paint a more detailed picture.  And, hopefully I'll journal and/or blog more about it later.  Click the link below to watch the video.  It testifies loudly to the point.  But first be sure and read the text below to get a more complete picture of what you're watching.Let the video testify.

Here is the video our team just produced to conclude this year's Leadership Conference in Moscow of Christian Camping International-Russia. It is a summary wrap-up of the whole week, conceived and edited by Sasha Meshkov, with footage shot by our whole team, myself, Vova Iusov, Zhenya Taranin, and Sasha. Actually, my contributions were very minimal. I shot only some arrival footage on day one, and most everything else you see was shot by Zhenya & Vova. Sasha primary focused on directing and editing through the course of the week, with a great assist from Zhenya. Vova took charge of working with the program team everyday to gather and prepare everything that went on the screen for the evening meetings. It was our first time to use ProPresenter and he took to it immediately. We were able to integrate song lyrics with motion backgrounds, Russian scripture texts, as well as video playback, to achieve a much more seamless flow to on-screen meeting support than we'd ever experienced before.

The team did several videos each day, working with the program team for the conference, which were part of each evening's general session. This was their third year to support the conference in this capacity with a full week of video support. It is our fourth year to be involved with video support for CCI-Russia, and our 12th year to send a team there for leadership training.

In addition to our video team, which consisted of five of us including Ann and I, we also had 5 other team members from Voronezh participating, including one who worked as an interpreter for a member of the American teaching team.

It was an awesome week! Ann & I were certainly blessed by getting to fellowship with six English-speaking teachers for the conference from the US & Canada. But, we drew the most satisfaction from watching our guys flourish and grow as they were recognized for the gifts and talents they were contributing to enhance the impact of the conference for all those who attended.

Each of our video team members began their journey with Christ at orphan camps that our teams facilitated 10-12 years ago, and now, not only are they serving to inspire Christian camping leaders all over this hemisphere, but they themselves are involved with our local leadership team in Voronezh, doing many camps throughout the year, most of them for younger orphans, recent graduates, or soon-to-be graduates from the orphanages of our region.

Watch the Video!