A Week that Changes Everything: Camp for Orphaned Youth

Have you ever been assigned a “what I did this summer” writing prompt? Maybe your answer involved a family vacation, learning how to swim, or a cool summer camp.

For orphaned youth, recalling their summer can bring up unhappy memories of anxiety, uncertainty, and unhealthy decisions. Some return to unsafe family homes until the fall; some stay by themselves in mostly-empty dorms.

But with your help, our teens and young adults can have a truly life-transforming summer!

At camp, youth who’d felt lonely and hopeless begin to trust our caring staff. As a result, they share their deepest needs. An untreated medical condition. An abusive spouse. Questions about God.

Following a Last Bell summer camp, youth tell us things like:

“At camp I heard about God, and thought about my life. And I understood where I need to move forward.” – Anya N.

“Thanks to camp, I changed my outlook on life, started reading the Bible, understood who God is, and I know that He is always in my heart.” – Sasha P.

How encouraging!

In 2025 we’re excited to add new “dad camps” to our youth, family, and winter camp programming. We’re giving orphaned dads, local military dads, and their kids a chance for family renewal. At our Ranch facility, we’re also hosting a simple day camp for children in the surrounding village, who are at risk of becoming orphans.

Increased wartime costs and additional camps make this our biggest camp need to date: $40,000. Would you make a gift to send a student, child, or family to camp this year?

Now is the most strategic time to help our young people – before they finish school and move out of our reach. Will you make a gift today? Then when you remember your own summer, you can say, “I gave one orphan in Ukraine a week that could change everything.”

Thank you, friends, for your gracious gifts and prayers for our youth.

PS: Miraculously, many make a decision to follow Jesus while at camp. Then they start attending church for the first time. Will you give so that orphaned youth can hear about the hope they have in Jesus?