It may seem strange to us, but in Ukraine this year the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation has been widely publicised and celebrated. With the date of the anniversary of Luther pinning his 95 theses to the church door in Wittemburg falling tomorrow, her is a timely report from Slava, director of Territory 2:2 in Lutsk, as to how they were able to use this occasion as a theme for their camps this year :

Last summer we had 2 camps: 1 for kids, 1 for teenagers aged 12-17. They were called Time Line. The Biblical topic of the camp covered a wide range of themes starting with creation, where campers were exposed to different theories of how this world came to being, but altogether they came to a conclusion that such a perfect world couldn’t appear in the result of an explosion or evolution (when talking about creation of a man) but there had to be a Creator, an outstanding Engineer. After that we talked about the sin of first people and that it was their choice and decision and their responsibility, and every choice children or teenagers do is their choice, as well. Further on we talked about the flood and how the mankind had a second chance but failed and a confusion of the languages at a Babylon tower. However, our main points were reformation and transformation of life. We discussed the aim, ministry and victory of Jesus Christ, how He can transform their hearts. All these stories we shared were about personal choice, and how actions of only one person could change or influence the world. Later, Paul’s story was an example of great transformation. He was called a Transformer. Kids know these characters from the movies. So they could easily identify them. As year 2017 is a year of Reformation we couldn’t but talk about Martin Luther, how he protested against unbiblical traditions and laws of the church of that time. Campers learned about five Pillars of Reformation: Only Scriptures, Only Grace, Only Faith, Only Christ and To God Only be the glory. And again the choice and actions of one person made this Reformation possible. This day was called Facing the Giants because the Catholic church of that time was like a giant. So our main goal was transformation and reformation of campers hearts. The last day we talked about the campers being future-makers and history-changers giving them a challenge to make an impact on the world.We also paid lots of attention to teambuilding, as in any great work there was a person with his choice but also a group of people, a team who supported his ideas and made things happen. During the camp they also met some people from the history who changed the world. In the form of the talk-shows we took an interview from Mother Teresa, Corrie ten Boom, Bethany Hamilton, Rosa Parks and others.
One young man, who was very critical at first, claiming that he “has nothing to do with our religion” said at the end that he realized that religion and faith were different things and that he wanted to discover more about faith.