• Alpinis letter (dec.09) – page 1
• Alpinis letter (dec.09) – page 2
• Alpinis letter (dec.09) – page 3
• Alpinis letter (dec.09) – page 4

At the beginning of this year we finished the deck with wood and we had to postpone other development projects like building the sports ground for later.

Outdoor Ministry

Objective: Sharing the Gospel effectively with young people in the context of a wilderness journey.
I remember sitting in a “counseling and content” class at Frontier Ranch, a Young Life camp in Colorado, in March 2008 while a group of youth leaders were trained. I was really impressed with the teaching on how to relate to young people, how to serve, how to ask good questions and to bring the Gospel alive on a trail. I was hoping that the same training would be available for guides in Romania. Last year we had a first experience of training eight Romanians along side eight Czechs in the Romanian mountains. This year at the end of May, the Romanian team went for ten days of training in the Czech. We aim that the first group of Romanian guides will be equipped to take youth groups out in the wilderness by next year.

We are grateful to Wilderness Ministry International from CO for their service and hearts, for sharing their wealth of knowledge and experience and for offering this training in Eastern Europe. In August of this year two of the instructors from WMI will be back in Romania to bring equipment and assist us in leading a youth group up on the trail. I am not sure if I should ask you to pray for the leaders or for the youth group that will have so many leaders training on them. Pray for us all and especially pray that this unique tool of using the wilderness to draw young people to Jesus will really bring fruit in Romania and Eastern Europe.

Camps
We have summer camps scheduled at Alpinis from June 29 until the end of August. Christian Life Fellowship from Baton Rouge Louisiana led the first camp this year with the girls from Deborah House. Other camps this summer will bring together church partners and youth groups from Zionsville Presbyterian Church, IN and churches from Giurgiu and Fetesti in the south east of Romania; Grace Church from Normal, IL and children and teenagers from Campeni area in central Transylvania.

In the first week of August we will have for the 3^rd year consecutively the “Essential Questions” camp. The goal of this camp is to offer spiritual and intellectual direction to those who have essential questions about life, faith, vocation, church, and others.

This year we hosted two Leadership Development training sessions in May and we will have three other sessions in October at Alpinis.

Alec Woodhull Jr. and Aaron Clevenger have taken a few weeks to come and serve at Alpinis this summer. They are doing an EXCELLENT job cutting paths of access between camp fire – the villa – sitting areas. Alec and Aaron have raised money to install a ventilation system in the kitchen and to buy materials for landscaping. Thank you both and to all who graciously took part in your work here by praying and giving!

Emil Toader