“You really make God lots of things for missionaries,” she said excitedly on the last day of camp, a few days before she flew back home.
Her English isn’t perfect.
Her passion, however, just might be.
“I think that God has exact purpose for me to come here, and I’m so happy to be a part of His plan,” said Yulia Memedova, the 25-year-old Ukrainian schoolteacher who served as a cabin leader and cultural consultant for WorldSong Camp in Cook Springs this summer.
“We’re talking a lot about how the glove itself cannot do anything, but if God will use the glove, it will,” she said. “I’m happy to be God’s glove.”
Memedova spent two months being God’s hands and feet at the camp operated by Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU).
“Each summer, we pick a different culture to study,” said Elizabeth Cook, the Alabama WMU missions and ministry consultant in charge of WorldSong programming. “Our objective is to teach children about missions.”
This summer, Ukraine was the country of focus.
“Through (Alabama Baptists’) partnership (with Baptists in Ukraine), we spoke to a missionary serving in Ukraine, and she recommended (bringing over) Yulia. … She brought Ukraine to us,” Cook said.
Nearly 1,100 girls, ranging from kindergarteners through 12th-graders, attended summer camp.
Most couldn’t get enough of Memedova.
“Oh yes, they ask me to speak Ukrainian,” said Memedova, who, along with her mother, accepted Christ thanks to the efforts of Southern Baptist representatives serving in Ukraine. “That was one really funny thing here. We are not allowed to tell them my age, so every time they ask me, ‘How old are you? How old you are?,’ I told them in Ukrainian. They were laughing. They ask me a lot of questions.”
The English teacher hopes to continue fostering the cultural exchange once she returns home. Campers left their addresses with Memedova in the hopes of becoming pen pals with her students in Ukraine.
The project got a jump-start late one night via the social-networking site Facebook.
“We had a conversation (with one of my students),” she said. “She said, ‘I can’t sleep. A lot visions come to my mind.’ We stayed up with her, and I just suggested she pray. She was in Ukraine and I was on the other side of (the world in) Alabama (but we were) praying together.”
Memedova said the exchange is an example of the type of personal ministry that excites her.
“We’re all called to be missionaries whether in home or in school,” she said.
“More than anything, we need to be living for Christ.”
Share with others: