On September 1-4, youth ministry United hosted a camp with a theme of “Created in The Image of God”. Nine churches from northern California were able to motivate their youth to attend this retreat. As a result, over 600 people were able to come. The main speaker was Pastor Andrey Sava from Fresno, CA.
Camp United is an annual youth camp which is organized in partnership with the Pacific Coast Slavic Baptist Association. Originally this camp was called “Camp Skala (Mountain)”, but in 2018 it was renamed to Camp United. This rebranding was done to emphasize the unity of various cultures and societal structures. This unity is possible only because of faith in Christ.
This year the camp was on the Labor Day weekend, and was a perfect balance of rest and time of studying God’s Word. Pastor Andrey Sava preached about God’s purposes for mankind in creating humanity in His own image and likeness. The message was very engaging, understandable, a memorable for the youth. Sava also covered important issues such as biblical manhood and womanhood, distortion of God’s design and purpose for mankind who are created as men and women. The worship group from Fresno was able to unite everyone with their music and led daily worship of God.
Camp United also had a lot of interesting activities for leisure time and mutual fellowship of the youth. There were opportunities to rest while enjoying hot cup of coffee or engage in sports activities which included volleyball and spike ball for the ladies and the men. There were also certain activities for those who are more artistic. For example, this was the first time when crafts table was made available at Basecamp. Basecamp was a perfect place for facilitating fellowship through board games, crafts, coffee, and just hanging out.
During the last evening there was a culinary competition and included various kinds of foods of Latin Americans as well as Asian Cuisine. Everything was very delicious, interesting, and entertaining. Overall, this year the camp was very unique and memorable.
We are grateful to God for an opportunity to have a purposeful time of rest, and a chance to fellowship with other brothers and sisters, to praise the Creator, and to grow in the faith.
Eva Sokolovskaya
