International Camp Partnership

International Camp Partnership (in finnish: Kansainvälinen leiriyhteistyö – mene ja kerro) is a finnish NGO, established in 2000. Our aim is to spread the christian message – the gospel – by doing practical deeds. So far we have been helping orphan youth in Russia, for example.

We all are different and come from different cultures and backgrounds – and still we cowork for the good. We do it mostly through camping – organising camps with christian values and mindset. Lives are changed more effectively when it happens informally – that is exactly what a camp is. And Jesus did that, too – basically all His ministry was informal open-air action – like camping!

Ark -Camps for Russian Orphans

Vision and purpose of Ark -camps was to help orphan youth so that they would become healthy and strong generation. Our aim was to approach them from the same level where they were. Even though the institutional system of russian orphanages had made them behave like a herd does, we faced them basing on the biblical idea: every person has value and purpose as God-created indivuduals.

Socialism has bygone in Russia but it left certain heritage: the institutional orphanage system strives for shaping the youth to be ”proper elements of society”. Many volunteers (from different churches of Russia) had this mindset in our experience when they came to our camp. Big part of our efforts as camp organisers was training the church volunteers. We aimed to make a positive change in the lives of russian orphan youth by training the volunteers to become agents of transformation.

Our Mission Seeks New Direction After the Camps for Russian Orphans

In the beginning of the Ark -camps overall attitude of churches towards orphan youth was negative and evasive. The language, habits and gestures of the youth were from different planet than those of the church volunteers. During the years we organised camps for russian orphans general attitude changed to be more understanding. At the same time financial and political situation changed in Russia which resulted to our decision to end organising the camps for orphans. At the end of August in 2015 we celebrated closing the camps for russian orphans.

At the same time, in 2015 a wave of muslim-background refugees hit Finland. It is quite natural to organise camps for these orphans in 2016. So we had altogether 5 camps in 2016. Many of our russian friends worked in these camps.

The camps for refugees opened our eyes to discover new points of view. Firstly, as finnish ”northern people” we don’t have too much common things with middle-easterns. This caused many tensions. Secondly we understood that the middle-East people live in a atmosphere where core christian value, loving neighbours, is not too usual. This became visible in our camps in divisions to different groups that didn’t much interact with each other.

Challenging Our Russian Fellow Christians

Fellowship with our russian friends in the camps for refugees opened our eyes to see the millions of muslim-background people in the ex-Soviet Union area. You can find migrant workers from Uzbekistan or Tadzikistan in every city of Russia. They are very open to receive any help. It is also really to tell them good news about God who cares about them and who actually has died for their sins.

So far the russian churches are not doing much to reach them out. Their attitude towards muslim-background migrant workers reminds us of the attitude of churches towards orphans 15-20 years ago. This is why we are trying to disseminate vision and willingness to reach these people out with the gospel. Russian churches have all the resources and possibilities to reach out these people groups if they are willing to do it.

Our Values

Our values are based on the Bible. For us it means that we want to change the situation withby out action. We want to see the core of the problem and make a change. For instance, we don’t aim at delivering clothes and food to people are in need in Russia. Instead, we try to stimulate local people to help their neighbours. For orphan youth, their inner needs (trustworthy adult nearby) were much more acute than their external needs (food, clothes). In many cases we saw that the external conditions of orphan youth were bad was a consequence of their unloving attitude towards themselves: they didn’t love themselves enough to take care of their needs.

Original name of our mission was ”Go Tell It”. We want to respond to needs boldly and fast. If there is something we can do today, we do it.