Clarice's Report

Summer 2008 has been an interesting summer full of adventures with friends. There is no doubt in my mind that God had his hand in everything that happened from the beginning of June till now. This whole summer I have been in Texas, which is a major change from any of my other breaks because I normally go home to Hawaii.

My adventure that I have been looking forward to this summer is the opportunity that I got to go to Russia. It was an overwhelming experience, which God showed me a lot about going beyond physical barriers to spread His word. When I got the invitation to go, over my Fall break visit to Texas, I was so excited to get this chance to go outside of the country. This is my first time international, and what is even more exciting is that this is my first mission trip.

Before Russia, I had the opportunity to go to Pacesetters 2008 and just help out with that. God was faithful in showing himself there, by seeing how the students and the leaders acted and just hearing what they learned. It was a true blessing to be part of that on top of Russia. Going into this summer, I had no expectations. Meaning I knew that if I truly relied on God to do His thing, I knew that He would be faithful like He always is, and continue to show me things and use me to do His will.

This Russia trip was a life changing experience. When we first got there, we were submerged into the Russian culture, which was very intriguing to me. We were given sheets on the plane to help us learn that language, which would be helpful when we got to Russia. It was pretty funny, because after studying the sheet of common phrases used in Russia, there was this random guy at the airport that started talking to Sarah and I and we had no idea what he was saying. It is then that I realized that I was no longer in the United States.

We got to the camp, and started getting familiar with the surroundings that we were in. We quickly noticed that we were really roughing it, with spring beds with no support, and inch mattress to sleep on, and a hole in the ground for a bathroom. With the accommodation, which really wasn’t bad, we were surrounded by a lot of big mosquitoes. Things could have been a lot worse, but it didn’t really faze me at the time that I was there. Each night, God gave me a decent nights sleep, and no mosquito bites for the time at the camp.

During the camp when the kids came, it was a blast. I though that it was really interesting to me how God really broke through the language barriers, and made himself known to everyone that we got in contact with. John and my translator were awesome, because she was able to understand us, and translate to the kids in a way that they would understand. The worship time was amazing to me to see the joy that everyone had, to just worship the one true God in English and Russian.

My God is constant whether it is in a different country other than America, or in a different language. He never ceases to amaze me as long as we put no boundaries in what He can and cannot do. He worked amazing things through the time that we were there. I can’t wait to see what He will do with the people that we got in contact with, and the lives that were changed through this experience.