A Safe Place to Play

WHY SUMMER CAMP?

The children and teenagers who attend MWB’s Summer Camps are from our sponsored families and sponsored children’s programs; all are from backgrounds of poverty. While some enjoy positive family relationships at home, others face issues such as physical or emotional neglect, family strife or abuse, an atmosphere of anxiety or depression at home, and have parents battling alcoholism or other addictions, engaged in crime, or suffering from PTSD.

Others live in institutions and receive little emotional support. Some of the children carry as many daily responsibilities as an adult – and their daily routine allows little time off to play. Most of them have never been on holiday before and are rarely able to simply be a carefree child, having fun.

MWB’s Summer Camps create an opportunity for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to have a break from their everyday struggles and have a week (or few days) filled with fun, positive experiences, friendship with peers and with adults, and encounter the truth of God’s Word and his love for them. The aim is to create a sense of loving Christian community, to introduce the children to Jesus and to Biblical truth, to provide them with nutritious food and a safe, happy place where they can have fun, be accepted, and just be themselves.

Summer Camp allows MWB staff and volunteers to forge stronger relationships with the children they see throughout the year. It gives the child the opportunity to receive attention from Christian staff and volunteers, share their worries, and receive support. They leave Summer Camp with a sense that they are significant – that they have been listened to and understood.

WHAT HAPPENS AT CAMP?

At Summer Camp, children enjoy a busy and happy schedule of Bible lessons and activities, entertainment, creative and educational activities, sports, and games. A lot of work and planning beforehand goes into making Summer Camp an experience that will richly bless every child.

Summer camps create the perfect opportunity for staff to talk to children individually and understand in more depth some of the struggles they are facing. Sometimes the family’s problems are known, but it helps to understand them from the prospective of the child themselves. Many of the children open up more easily to staff when their parents are not around, and when they go home, they feel better because they have been able to discuss their problems with a supportive, caring adult.

PARTNER WITH US

This year, with the effect of the war in Ukraine and severe poverty on their doorstep, Summer Camp will give children a safe place to play and enjoy a care-free time of fun, joy, and friendship - an unforgettable experience for so many.

In the last few months Ukrainian children and families have experienced the pain, tears and loss of loved ones, have suffered broken nights from the wail of sirens and moving from bed to bomb shelter and are stressed, tense and anxious. This summer, more than ever before, many children living in conflict areas like Ukraine as well as refugee children now in Moldova and Romania are looking for an escape from the conflict, a safe place to play, experience joy and fun and the chance to be children again.

This Summer you can be a lifeline to children facing conflict, anxiety and isolation ... help support the Mission Without Borders Summer Camp program through a gift today. Help give a child a safe place to play this summer.


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