We got by our new dean Bradn Buerkle and with his recommendation an invitation to “2019 International Camp Counselor Program” of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “Young adults, who are nominated by your church, will receive an opportunity to do ministry in the United States and to return home with “:new” ideas and a better understanding of the world…”

I live and work in the Lutheran Church of the Russian Far-East already 26 years, and I cannot join so simply this recommendation , I even want to warn.

1) It is an error to think, that people invited to the US will return home ‘with a better understanding of the world “ The world in Russia and its Lutheran Church there is quite another one than that in the States, and our church here has to find and to develop its understanding of a church out of the world of its own country, and it is doing so since centuries! For many it has been in this even a model and exemplar , have a look on the great and rich song of the Russian Lutheran Konstantin Balmont “ Ãîñïîäè Áîæå, ñêëîíè Ñâîè âçîðû/ ê íàì óòîìëåííûì ñóðîâîé áîðüáîé/ Ñëîâîì Òâîèì ïîäíèìàþòñÿ ãîðû/ êàìíè êàê òàþùèé âîñê, ïðåä Òîáîé” . And Russia by its great literature of Dostojewskij, Tolstoj, Pasternak and Solschenyzin gave Christian impulses far all over the world. Therefore it is not only an error , but even an arrogance, to say that our Christians will “return home” from the States “with a better understanding of the world”

2) And besides it may be even in question , whether they want to “return home”, once having experienced and smelt life in the States. Therefore it can be a danger to invite them. How often we had to suffer, that people left us from Russia abroad, because they no longer wanted to stand the hard life in our country! See our article “ Don’t run away! Stand!”, for us nearly a confession-paper. www.luthvostok.com 1.1.2016. English, 22.12. 2015 German, 11.8.2016 Russian.

Dear brothers and sisters in the USA! At first of course thanks for such an invitation. But see also the dangers ; and please no arrogance, that we in Russia could learn of you “ a better understanding of the world”. May be, that you can learn something of us in Russia, and we learn of you.. Therefore we should visit each other and understand each other, but each in his own country.

Äà õðàíèò íàñ âñåõ Áîã! = May God protect us all! = Dass Gott uns alle behuet!

Peace and blessings
Yours in Christ< br > Manfred Brockmann,p