Hey everybody! Camp 4 is well underway and I can't believe that team
5 (complete with Todd, Jenna, Diane, Tamara and Nicole) comes
tomorrow. This has gone by so fast. It's been really fun this week,
because my friend from camp one, Tanya, who was a counselor with a
group from the first camp is back again. Last night me, Vita, Justin
and Cliff went and hung out with her after lights outand had a chocoalte/tea
party.
Tanya wanted to share her testimony with us and I thought I would
share it with you all because it really touched me and it showed me
how incredible our God really is in what he brings people out of.
Tanya was born in a nice family but for whatever reason, she never
wanted to be at home, so she would always go out with her friends
whenever possible. When she was 12 some guys from her school asked
her to go to a movie with the two of them, so she went. While they
were at the movie they got really bored because it was a stupid movie
and so they snuck out of the movie and went to this park. Tanya woke
up the next morning and found she'd been beat up and raped. To make
matters worse, the guys who did that to her spread the news all over
her school and she lived in a small town so she was pretty much
shunned from her town. So when she was old enough she ran away to
Kyiv and got involved in drugs, drinking and sex. She stole what she
needed to survive and was arrested three times. The third time she
was sentenced to five years in prison. Right before she got out she
met this guy and when they both got out of prison they began to date
each other. She ended up pregnant and he left her. Fortunately,
Tanya's family offered to help her raise the baby, so she moved back
home and had her daughter, Lena. Tanya told us that she wanted so
badly to love her baby, but for years and years she'd blocked out her
emotions so much that she really didn't feel any love for her own
child. She decided that it would be better if she wasn't around at
all, so she tried to poison herself, but it didn't work. so, one
night she went out on the highway and was determined to run out in
front of a car and let it hit her. She'd decided that if she killed
herself then she could quit feeling all the pain and hurt she was
feeling and
her family would be better off without her. But right before she was
about to do it, a man in a car pulled over and asked her if she needed
a ride. She told him no, but he noticed that something was seriously
wrong, so he asked her if she'd like to come in the car and just sit
for a while. She told us that she had no idea why she said yes, but
she did and so she got into the car and began to talk to the man. She
began to pour her heart out to the guy and tell him everything about
her life and everything she was feeling. She said it was the first
time she had cried in eight years. As she was sobbing in the car the
man told her that he was a Christian and that he knew a place that
could help her. It turns out the man went to a church that had a
special drug rehabilitation center, and not only did he know how to
get her in, he offered to pay for her treatment.
Tanya went and God totally changed her life. The church that she goes
to has a congregation that over 90% of them are former drug addicts
and they are such an incredible group of people.
She is such an awesome person and what's even more cool is that she's
only just become a christian and she's so excited about what God's
going to do in her life. As she was telling her story I
couldn't help but to think about what an awesome God that we have that
would send someone to find Tanya only moments before she was going to
end her life. I'm so blessed to have gotten to know her even if it
only is for a couple of weeks. I can't wait until we get to heaven
and we have all the time in the world. It's gonna be incredible!
Well, I'm gonna go to Late Nite now. I hope you all have an awesome
day!
Arrivederci!