What struck me the most today were the similarities and differences between our two cultures. We began our day with a meeting to plan the rest of our week, then set out to the grocery store to buy

supplies to fill gift bags for the kids we would see today and tomorrow. Their big store, Globus, is just like a Walmart or Kroger- food, clothing, toys, kitchen supplies, etc- but alongside aisles of Russian labeled foods we saw Hershey’s chocolate, Colgate toothpaste, Orbit gum, and other American products. For some reason this really struck me. It was a different part of the world, a different language, a different culture, but we are so much the same. After shopping we drove out to a different city called Korablino to help Dima, the pastor of the church there, lead a program for kids. He and his team have been holding a day camp for kids and teens all week that will culminate in a huge party on Thursday and a Christmas Eve service on Friday. They called it the Russian Awanas. We simply introduced ourselves, shared a short testimony, sang a few songs for the fifteen or twenty kids that were there, and hoped they were interested enough in Christ to come back for the rest of the week. Until this point we had only seen the youth in Hope Church who were huge in number and absolutely on fire for God. These kids were not the same. These were kids that needed Christ desperately and had no knowledge of Him. As we met these kids we realized that they were the same as any other troubled kids- in Russia or in the U.S. No matter where you are in the world the need is the same. People just need hope.

Hannah Gaunch – Team Member