Yura Fedoryuk, a co-founder of Camp MAXIMUM and now a pastor inZolotonosha, was born into a non-Christian family. But after a dramatic change in his parents’ lives after they came to faith, God also turned Yura’s lifearound. Here he shares the significance of times at camp in his life as adisciple of Jesus.“

I have two special moments in my life when I had a personal meeting with God. The first was one summer, during our church adventure camp. I noticed that the team of leaders were different from people I saw at school and in my normal life. They were not only talking about God's love, but they really showed us that love. And especially to me, because I was that boy who was very active, running everywhere and never sitting still; but they never shouted at me, they just showed me God’s love, and I really felt it.
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“At the end of the camp, God touched my heart and I repented. As a seven-year-old boy, I made this bold decision, that I wanted to follow God. And something that is really special to me is that after I repented, God gave me a desire, a dreamin my heart, to be a pastor one day. I know it was unusual - as a seven-year-old boy, usually you dream of being a football player, or a firefighter. But my dream was to be a pastor.

“After that I was serving in church, doing ministry, helping my parents ,and just loving life as a Christian. But as I became a teenager, I started to have a lot of doubts. In that stage of life you have a lot of challenges, you start questioning many things about your life. When I was 13 or 14 years old, I had a moment when I felt like God was really far away from me, even though it was me who was far away from him.
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“But then I received an invitation to a camp that was done by our church with a team from Great Britain. For the whole week, we were living in tents in the forest by the Dnipro river, and my friends were with me, and that was so different, it was like a different planet for me. We had these British people who didn’t really speak Ukrainian, but the love, the passion and joy I felt from them was amazing. I remember looking at that team and thinking that I wanted to be one of them, to be a person who shows God's love, joy and hope in that same way. That week was so special, it really impacted my life.