During January
and February, Mike went to Belaya Tserkov (which means “White Church“)
Ukraine, to teach for Doug Emr, a missionary serving with BIMI. Doug has a
unique 5 year program that is designed for church planters. The young men and their wives sign a
contract that they will move to a new location and start a new church, as
part of their schooling/training. Most of the students are married, and the
wives are encouraged to attend classes also.
Mike taught a
survey of the Pentateuch, in 2 - 2 week sessions, 4 hours a day. The students were quite receptive to
instruction and their responses to the teaching of Scripture was
encouraging. He stayed with a Ukrainian family, who know very little English. However, since Polish is in the same language family |
as Ukrainian
they were able to communicate most things adequately. There are some words which have a VERY
different meaning. The word for a
store in Polish is a “sklep,“ but in Russian “sklep” means a crypt or
mausoleum. The greatest
compliment and proof of the value of the course is that the sermons by
students which followed the course were based in the Pentateuch, not by
requirement but by student choice.
Indeed that is the goal of our ministries (2 Tim 2:2). Students respond to the course in a questionnaire at the end. One student, whose opinion of the value of the OT changed very much, states, “I did not think that the OT had any connection with a Christian life.” The wife of a student, who suffered the death of her father |
We need an additional
$250/ month support in order to meet our budget. Please pray that the
Lord would provide. |