The Lost Boys

Here is a picture of some of the boys I was able to work with and share the gospel with at Orphange 14 in St. Petersburg back in April of 2006. These guys are a rough looking bunch and believe me it was not like teaching Sunday School back home; how many kids in your Sunday School class take off every 20 minutes for a smoke? Besides the language barrier(I learned a few Russian curse words) there is still a lot of distrust and general misconceptions about Americans in Russia. All they really wanted to know about me at first was how much money did I make, how big was my house, did I drive a fancy sports car, and my personal favorite "hey american give me some money." Trust me they were not kidding. The only one who was kidding was the one one the top left of the picture who put a knife to my stomach in jest kind of like "stick 'em up." It made for a few tense seconds on my first day of my first mission trip.

This all may sound frightening and discouraging, but really what I saw were a bunch of boys who were trying to be men without a frame of reference. They clearly had never had a positive male role model in their lives and they were all in desparate need of one. Boys like this need positive Christian male role models! I am not naive enough to think that my one or two visits a year make up for their years of hard living. However, when they see me again or another person like me it will start to sink in and if we can reach one or two maybe they can share their faith with others. I don't see my job as a missionary to get each and every boy to accept Christ. Stay with me now. If I can reach one or two who really understand what it means to accept Jesus as their personal saviour with such passion that they will continue to share that message once I am gone, then I have made a difference.

This is why I am going back and this is why I will keep going back.