Category Archives: Newsletters

January 2024

We feel the power of your prayers all the time. As you know, the main focus of our ministry is equipping Christian leaders in the post-communist world for fruitful service according to the 2 Timothy 2:2 approach. Our target audience is based in 15 former Soviet Union countries across 8 time zones as well as Russian-speaking diaspora across the globe. Your care allows us to go on with the Kingdom work despite the war challenges, missile attacks, and daily life ambiguity.

Practically all our teammates became refugees and IDPs dispersed across Europe. Some work covertly in the occupied territories, some are scattered within Ukraine, and some had to flee to other countries. Nevertheless, due to technology and your fraternal care, we are able to keep the ministry pace, impacting even more lives for Jesus. May His name be praised! Please continue to remember our team in your prayers.

For instance, in the last twelve months, we have published 19 (!) books. This is twice as much as what we were producing per year before the invasion! How merciful is the Lord to us! On the one hand, alongside the new projects we managed to complete all the ones suspended two years ago because of the invasion. On the other hand, twelve of those books are in Ukrainian – we are meeting a desperate need for resources in the language. For 30 years of our publishing experience resources in Russian (one of the top ten languages in the world) was good enough for Ukrainian readers as well. But now use of Russian has become painful for many in Ukraine (even when it is their mother tongue). Publishing however is still one of the most effective ways to equip national God’s servants here since Ukraine is one of the most literate countries in the world (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-rate-by-country ).

At the same time, we realize that thousands of people in the battle zones, the occupied regions, refugees, IDPs etc. are not able to get or handle resources in a printed format. That is why we actively develop online platforms and upload there anything we can, especially ministry training and Bible study materials (https://scienceandapologetics.com/all-resources). Please do not hesitate to share this link with everyone it could be useful and helpful.


I am constantly amazed by the Lord’s grace bringing joy in the midst of troubles. It is hard to believe, but the training we do on cross-cultural evangelism is still the most demanded despite the war. God’s people desire to be ready to go to other countries to share the Good News of Jesus as soon as the war is over. It was a special blessing for us to spend a week training a cohort of young future missionaries (see the pictures attached). Please pray with us for this new generation of workers in the field of the Lord!


Probably there is no other institution more vulnerable during the war than family. All of them are under pressure, many are separated by battles, by loss of the homes and the loved ones, by the emigration of wives and children. That is why training and equipping national servants to face the challenges in this area is among our top priorities now. Beyond the resources development we provided a hybrid format (zoom, videos, assignments) master-level course on Biblical Anthropology of Biblical of the Marriage Relationship at Ukrainian Evangelical Seminary as well as led the retreat for national family ministries leaders (see the pictures attached). Please join our prayers for these couple’s impact on the health of national families.

Theology of Marriage online Master course

The last, but not the least. The Reliable Foundations online apologetics club sessions are going on (see the pictures attached). The main topic of the season is “Science and the Bible”. However some sessions deal with the issues that raise special concerns. As a result, we held special sessions on the “Biblical Understanding of Gender” and “Evangelist Luke as a Historian.” Sometimes nevertheless the session schedule is impacted by missile attack alerts. Please pray with us for safety and protection.

Reliable Foundations
Reliable Foundations

Please continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, for the safety of our fellow workers wherever they are, and for the Lord’s guidance to us in this time of uncertainty. Please continue to pray for our teammates who defend our land. May the Lord protect them!

Please pray for Ukraine, for the Lord’s intervention in the midst of troubles, and for many people in other countries who care and help. Please pray for the lives of soldiers and civilians. Most of all, please pray for the Lord’s guidance for us in these difficult times.

December 2023

Beloved brothers and sisters,

We highly appreciate your prayers – we feel their power all the time!

Thank you so much for all your fraternal care, sacrificial help, and unceasing prayers! With great joy, I present to you the Christian Center for Science and Apologetics’ first Winter 2023 newsletter.

Hard to believe that the madness of this uncaused war goes on in XXI century Europe for so many months taking hundreds of thousands of lives and leaving millions without homes! At the same time, it is amazing how big is people’s hunger for the word of God in the midst of these troubles! We feel it a lot through the demands of our resources that equip the army of Jesus for expanding the Kingdom – both online and in hard copies! We can see it, for instance, through requests for our “What the Bible Is?” booklet used both by believers in the army for face-to-face evangelism at foxholes and by the churches in their humanitarian work at the war zone, flooding areas, among the IDPs and refugees (see the pictures attached). The first print run of 1000 copies went in a month. It took us another month for the second print run of 4000 copies to run out. The third print was delayed because of the printing factory damage after a missile strike. But when we finally got it, it took two days only to run out of 4000 copies! And we still have requests for more. So, we are going to do another print run by Christmas. God uses even the worst situations for His glory. May His name be praised! 

Bible and Politics round table
Bible and Politics course

At the same time, we do not forget about our main focus on the 2 Timothy 2:2 approach: to teach faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. On the one hand, we continue the online Bible study for pastors from the mainland of the country, from the occupied territories and even from the frontline, exploring together the book of Acts as a guidebook for the church, its nature, its life, and its ministry. On the other hand seminaries and churches in the relatively safe regions of the country got more or less adjusted to the realities of regular air raid alerts and requested more in-class trainings. And, you know, the most requested courses are Crosscultural Evangelism and Biblical Politology (divine principles for building a just society). Even experiencing the troubles of the war and expecting at any moment to receive a summons to be drafted into the army, these men learn and discuss how to properly impact the future of their country and of the Kingdom (see the pictures attached). May the Lord be praised!

Replacing father

One of the most touching moments we get travelling across the country is to see children, who substitute their fathers in various aspects of church life (see the picture attached). I never could imagine that someday, listening to “Bring him home”(my favorite piece from Les Misérables), I’ll be listing specific names in my head. May the Lord protect all His men who went to defend their homes! May their children see them again! 

Family is the institution most impacted by the war. A lot of fathers went to fight. Hundreds of thousands of them are wounded or even killed. Many wives escaped with children overseas apart from their husbands since men under the age of sixty were not allowed to leave the country. Biblical guidance for marriage is as important now as never before. That is why we made the Theology of Marriage the topic of the season at the Reliable Foundations online apologetics club (see the pictures attached). Please pray with us for the Christian families of Ukraine to be the testimony of God’s lordship.

Krakow seminar
Visiting new board members

The advantage my age however gives me is the freedom to leave the country in time of war. There are no flights to/from Ukraine. But we are able to travel to Europe by car. That allowed us to make a trip for several valuable visits with board members, teammates and partners scattered from England to Poland, as well as to provide some trainings for Russian-speaking refugees (see the pictures attached). All meetings were an extremely useful and joyful experience! We got requests to do a follow-up training and think about going to Europe again in May for that. Please pray with us for the upcoming plans. Above all, however, we pray for a divine intervention to stop the madness of the war.

Visiting new board members

So far we plan to spend the winter at Kyiv. Russian attacks on the infrastructure are expected to be even worse this year then they were the previous winter. By the Lord’s grace, the facilities we have outside of the city are pretty autonomous. We have our own water well, LPG power generator, and some firewood for the fireplace. So, again we will be able to serve as a base and shelter for ministers and missionaries who may happen to be without electricity and heating like it was a year ago. Praise be to God for keeping us safe and our facilities undamaged through the months of war! Please join our prayers for His protection.

Please continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, for the safety of our fellow workers wherever they are, and for the Lord’s guidance to us in this time of uncertainty. Please continue to pray for our teammates who defend our land. May the Lord protect them! 

Please pray for Ukraine, the Lord’s intervention in the midst of troubles, and for many people in other countries who care and help. Please pray for the lives of soldiers and civilians and the peace in our country! Most of all, please pray for the Lord’s guidance for us in these difficult times.

October 2023

God works so powerfully despite the challenges of the days! Hard to believe that the war and ministry belong to the same reality! My heart is full of praise: we managed the very first in-class weekly training course not even since the beginning of the war, but of COVID. The course is an outcome of our new partnership with the Bible Seminary in the city of Vinnitsa (Central Ukraine). Twice before it was postponed for various reasons, but when finally planning became more realistic, do you know which course they requested us to deliver? You will never guess! Cross-cultural Evangelism! Just imagine: these men of God and their wives spent every other night with their kids at shelters to the sound of missiles and strike drone attacks yet every morning they came to the school to learn more about how to spread the Good News of Jesus (see the pictures attached). They are waiting for the war to end not only for the sake of the peace on their land but also for the opportunity to offer peace with God to those in foreign countries, who do not know Jesus yet. Amazing! Inspiring! Encouraging! May the Lord be praised!

Another exciting news: we have printed the second run of the “What the Bible Is?” booklet. This time we printed four times more copies, and ran out of it already! (We hope to do another print run eventually).

Ministries at the flooded area

The partner ministries that deliver water, food and clothing to the areas devastated by battles and the flood are asking for more to share as the message of hope for the people they provide the aid for (see the picture attached). The message of the booklet destroys the lies of communist atheistic propaganda that was poisoning people through generations. It tells about the reliability of the Bible in all ways – history, science, prophecy, textual accuracy etc., and provides a clear and direct gospel call. Volunteers distribute it with copies of the New Testament and the contact information. I cannot hold back tears when watching the video of an elderly lady pointing toward her destroyed home where her husband was killed, and asking not for more bread, but for more books (https://scienceandapologetics.com/atrf)! May the Lord keep safe and saves all these people and all who defend them. May He provide guidance and protection to all who serve them. May He lead us in the way we can better equip them with the resources for the effective spread of the only message of real hope!

Preaching online

Another ministry we are involved with is online preaching (see the picture attached) and weekly online Bible study. Several pastors attend them – from mainland country, from the occupied territories and even from the frontline! We are exploring the book of Acts together as a guidebook for the church, its nature, life, and ministry.

At the same time, our websites for the Bible study distant learning resources (in Ukrainian, https://ukr.bibleapol.study/ and Russian https://bibleapol.study/) continue scaling with content: overviews of the biblical books, lessons on the Christian doctrine, group study materials, etc. They are a great tool for IDPs, refugees, people in the fight areas (both military and civilians) and occupied territories who are deprived of access to actual books and libraries. The most challenging part of the project – the online version of 30 volumes of College Press NIV Commentary in both languages. The first fruits have shown up: the first chapters of Luke, Acts and Romans have been translated, edited and uploaded already and we got really exiting feedback on them. Please pray with us for this massive but strategically important work!

Several times through the year our facilities served as a venue for retreat and refreshing of the church leaders who defend our land from the russian aggressor. Recently however we had an extremely joyful and strategically important event – the retreat of the national family ministries leaders (see the pictures attached). The war brings a lot of new challenges to the families and many others are yet to come. That is why the development of the vision and drafting strategies are so important. Please pray for new projects discussed during the fellowship time – for the Lord’s guidance and wisdom.

Church picnic
Church picnic

Finally, we used the last warm days of the year for the picnic of God’s servants of the church, many of whom helped us in our ministry as volunteers (see the pictures attached). We praise the Lord for bringing us to this family of His children.

June 2023

At the shelter
Books delivery to volunteers

 Do you want to hear a popular Ukrainian joke? Here it is: I finally got eight hours of sleep. It took three days.

 Well, we do spend some of the nighttime at the food storage room serving us as a shelter (see the picture attached). And you know, people grew to see the night air raids as an advantage. Since the offices, stores, and businesses have to close during the alert, when the raids happen at night, one can manage many more daytime tasks. Well, it is hard to believe that events in Ukraine are real in XXI-century Europe. Especially hard to believe in this for people who do not trust what the Bible says about human depravity. As for us, we continue the Kingdom work, and this isamazing to see how powerfully God works through our feeble efforts. May His name be praised!

Defenders Bible Study group
Volunteer-in-arms

 For instance, despite all the odds, we have already published 10 new books since the beginning of the year! Our volunteers use them to equip believers for effective evangelism through the ministries among refugees and displaced persons, to battle territories dwellers, to military men at the frontline and the air defence troops (see the pictures attached). Many believers are fighting alongside those who do not know Jesus. They turn foxholes, bunkers, and barracks into a mission field. We printed the booklet “What the Bible Is?” specifically to equip Christian soldiers (in both meanings of the phrase) for sharing the Good News in combat tranches with their comrades-in-arms. For instance, our volunteer D. reads the book one paragraph at a time to his unit on air whenever the situation allows and has already started a small Bible study group with his fighting friends. 1000 copies of the booklet gone in two weeks! We should consider another print run now. May the Lord be praised! Please join our prayers for those who fight for both human lives and souls! 

On air apologetics
Equipping volunteers

 Interestingly, some military men, who still contemplate accepting Jesus, ask to send our materials to their children! Understanding the cost of discipleship, they hesitate to make the decision themselves quite yet, however, they want their kids to know Jesus! Isn’t this special? With great joy, we fulfil their requests. At the same time, many children in the occupied territories and war zones, as well as refugees and IDPs, are not able to manage hardcopy books. That is why after the Executive Team strategic planning discussion, we launched a new project, “Student Memos”, for evangelism through education. We created two web pages and two Telegram channels (in Russian and in Ukrainian) where we post catchy facts a few times a week that complement the public school curricula yet deliver the Biblical message. 

We want more

Please feel free to join and share:

New teammates

Russian:

https://scienceandapologetics.com/category/shkolniku-na-zametku/
https://t.me/apol_school

 Ukrainian:

https://scienceandapologetics.com/category/shkolyarevi-do-uvagy/
https://t.me/apol_school_ua

 We also share each publication on all social media platforms popular in former Soviet Union countries. To keep this project going, we enrolled new teammates – Andrey and Olya Dushkin (see the photo attached), who previously served as volunteers and were responsible for our web platform development and security. Please pray with us about this devoted couple of Christ’s servants and the project they run. May more children come to know God’s Truth through it!

 The online ministry approaches we developed during the COVID quarantine became extremely helpful and popular during the war. Every day we make a few posts in Russian and Ukrainian on the four most popular social network platforms. Since the beginning of the year, we have gained:

– 157.300 Youtube views – almost as much as during the entire 2022 (164.100, which in fact were 59% more than in 2021)

– 75.300 Facebook views (vs 60.200 in the entire 2022; these numbers don’t count my personal page used for the ministry’s sake with 7.000+ subscribers)

– 30.000 Telegram views (vs 25.000 in entire 2022).

Please pray for the Christian workers who use those resources as well for the hearts of people to be open for the message.

In the same way the soldiers fight for the country, Christian schoolteachers in the public education system are the army fighting for the next generations’ heats and minds. That is why properly equipping them with the biblical truths incorporated into the public curricula continues to be among our top priorities. It was a special joy for us to present our resources and share the vision and strategies for shaping schoolchildren’s worldview at the Christian Teachers’ Conference in Lviv (Western Ukraine – see the photos attached). Please join our prayers for these devoted, sacrificial servants of the Lord who faithfully continue their work in the country despite all the troubles of the war.

Lviv Leadership School graduation
Lviv Leadership School graduation

Another trip to Lviv we made was for the Disciples Leadership School graduation (see the photos attached). We are so humbled to see more and more workers the Lord called to His field in such challenging times! Please pray with us for the harvest!

We used both trips as an opportunity to visit our volunteers, teammates, board members and friends on the way. It was a great encouragement for us, and we hope we also encouraged them. A special blessing was a team retreat at the city of Rivne (two of our board members, one director and many teammates and volunteers gathered in that area since the war began – see the pictures attached) and a planning session with the Ukrainian Evangelical Seminary Academic board (see the photos attached). May the Lord bless our plans, and may He guide and protect us through all the turmoil we face! 

Rivne team retreat
Rivne team retreat

Last but not least, we continue the colloquiums at the Joint School of Christian Apologetics to share our resources with other ministries and churches and discuss constructive approaches in national practical theology development in the context of the challenges Ukraine faces (see the photos attached). May the Lord grant us wisdom and humbleness for this.  

Please continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, for the protection of our fellow workers wherever they are, and for the Lord’s guidance to us in this time of uncertainty. Please continue to pray for our teammates who defend our land. May the Lord protect them! 

Practical theology colloquium
Practical theology colloquium

Please pray for Ukraine, the Lord’s intervention in the midst of troubles, and many people in other countries who care and help. Please pray for the lives of soldiers and civilians and the peace in our country! Most of all, please pray for the Lord’s guidance for us in these difficult times.

Seminary academic board

May 2023

Reliable Foundations
Reliable Foundations

 The spring at Kyiv is kind of funny this year. The days are chilly outside, while the nights sometimes are pretty hot because of air raid alerts and cruise missile strikes. Nevertheless, we all are fine, and the work of the Lord goes on. May His name be praised!

 As you know, the Reliable Foundations apologetics online club is our headline project of the year. The sessions are continuing in a hybrid format. Whoever is able to come (even from other cities) actually attends them (see the pictures attached). Others watch and ask questions online. Those who are not able to connect watch the recorded session on our YouTube channel afterwards. We have completed several Does God Exists? sessions, made other ones on the Genesis Flood and on the Constructive Skepticism – a biblical approach “Test everything. Hold on to the good” (1Th.5:21) instead of the atheistic agenda. The next sessions are going to be devoted to the veracity of the Scripture. Please pray for this project!

Reliable Foundations
Reliable Foundations

 First, the pandemic and now the war have affected our strategy a lot. Now we do most of the work online and through social media channels. Users from 124 countries have accessed our official website scienceandapologetics.org, since the last year (see the map attached). May the Lord be praised!

 The main focus of our ministry is preparing God’s people for works of service according to the 2 Tim.2:2 approach with the use of apologetics as an effective tool for evangelism. Nevertheless, we always strive for a strategic understanding of the needs the Body of Christ faces or is about to face.

Reliable Foundations

 The congregations in the country have shrunk twice currently. Many men went to fight, many women left as IDPs and refugees. Sometimes children must do the work their fathers were doing before (see the picture attached). At the same time, those from their homes (both at the front lines and in exile) have very limited access to ABFs, schools, libraries and other opportunities to study the Bible. To meet that need, we created two websites (one in Ukrainian, https://ukr.bibleapol.study/ and another in Russian, https://bibleapol.study/,) exclusively for the Bible study resources – overviews of the biblical books, lessons on the Christian doctrine, group study materials, commentaries etc. The content is regularly created and uploaded. Please keep this project in your prayers as well.

Church Tech Team

             We have electricity almost all the time now, and our publishing work has returned to normal (see the picture attached). The war, however, has impacted this area of the ministry in three ways.

 Firstly, since many are not able to handle hardcopies, we immediately upload the digital copies of all our new books to the online library (https://equalibra.org/ru/publisher/science-and-apologetics/). We also give priority to the books that provide comfort and encouragement to people in their suffering.

 Also, while feedback is not common in our low-trust post-totalitarian culture, we receive some from time to time anyway. Below is a comment got recently from a random medical worker we shared a copy with: “I want to thank you for the book “Peace in the Midst of the Storm.” I got a lot from it and revised my attitude to some life issues after reading it. I was encouraged 100% May GOD Himself bless your family with abundant blessings for your God-given talent, wisdom and perseverance.”

 Finally, we became more focused on producing books in Ukrainian. Before the war, our first language of choice was Russian because practically anyone in former Soviet Union countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, etc.) can read it. After Russia’s invasion, however, the use of the language triggers many Ukrainians (those who stay in the country, IDPs, and refugees), and the message of comfort for them should definitely be in Ukrainian. Here, for instance, is the feedback from the lady who is translating the same book “Peace in the Midst of the Storm” into Ukrainian as well as serving IDPs and the soldiers’ families: “The book is great and very relevant. I am sure that after the publication in Ukrainian, it should be read with the families of the fallen heroes.” Please pray for the Lord’s guidance in that important aspect of our ministry.

             By God’s grace and beyond all our expectations, we had the first retreat at our new facilities! Two of our teammates were enrolled on the army and got to the same unit alongside with a couple of other leaders of the churches. Their unit was relocated to the Kyiv area for the rotation after a couple of months at the hottest battle zone. They managed to get a leave warrant on the same day, and we had a wonderful time of prayers and praises. Please remember these brothers in your prayers.

             This event brought other strategic needs to our attention. Many believers are fighting alongside people who do not know Jesus. Foxholes, bunkers, and barracks are becoming mission fields where the Good News can be shared. We are looking for somebody who could come to Kyiv (it is relatively safe here) and run a few days of training according to the 2 Timothy 2:2 approach for the church leaders the basic principles of the grass root chaplaincy, to be there passed on to others. Please pray for the Lord to send a proper person(s) for this.

 On the other hand, many veterans are going to return from the war – believers and nonbelievers -wounded and/or experiencing PTSD. Our churches never dealt with such problems, and I am concerned most of them are not ready for that. We definitely have to arrange training on these issues as well. Please pray with us to find proper coaches for this.

             The great blessing for Olga and me was a trip to Europe and the UK, visiting our friends, children, teammates, mentors, board members, etc., scattered there by the war (see the pictures attached). That was amazing mutual encouragement in the Lord! That allowed us to see many texts in the Scripture in a very special way like, for instance: “To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Poland and Germany, Britain and Netherland, Baltic countries and even across the ocean, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood…” Please join our prayers for those who had to leave their homes and those through whom the Lord shares His love to them in foreign lands.

             Please continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, for the protection of our fellow workers wherever they are, and for the Lord’s guidance to us in this time of uncertainty. Please continue to pray for our teammates who defend our land. May the Lord protect them!

             Please pray for Ukraine, for the Lord’s intervention in the midst of troubles, and for many people in other countries who care and help. Please pray for the lives of soldiers and civilians and the peace in our country! Most of all, please pray for the Lord’s guidance for us in these difficult times.

January 2023

We feel the power of your prayers all the time! On the days like these, God’s mercy and care are especially evident!

 Against all the odds, we actually held the session of the “Reliable Foundations” open apologetics club “Does God Exists?” (see the pictures attached). The Power Station allowed the computers, projectors, lights, and cameras to run uninterruptedly independent from the power supply. Couple dozen people managed to attend the meeting despite the travelling troubles. Those who had electricity and internet access during the session time, were able to join us online. Others will be able to watch the recorded video on demand. We now plan the next session (“Does God Exists?” part 2), God willing, for February. Please pray with us for it.

 We praise the Lord for the communication means we have even now, while our team is scattered across the country (including occupied territories) and even abroad. Regular executive team meetings (see the screenshot attached) provide great mutual encouragement as well as help to maintain the vision and explore the Lord’s guidance. All of us – those who are on the screenshot and those who are not – need prayers for safety, health, courage, guidance and protection. Please pray with us.

Exacutive conference

After some time of adjustment to the new realities required, we continue to provide master-level teaching for various seminaries in a format that combines online Q&A group sessions with watching the video version of the lectures by students individually when time and electricity allow them. The students highly appreciate that option since they have electricity available for a few hours a day only, and when it gets on, watching the videos is not the main priority for the household. Cooking, doing laundry, charging the gadgets and power banks, etc., definitely go first! We are so glad to have the online video versions of all our courses! We were thinking we are making them for students in restricted areas. But God was preparing us for a time like that. May His name be praised!

Apologetics Master course

 The Lord provides various opportunities to develop our 2 Timothy 2:2 approach. Thus, we are going on with online Bible studies. Initially, we intended to do it for our team during the COVID lockdown but carried on after the massive war started. Now ministers of some churches joined our lessons. Some of them are from the occupied territories; some have left the ministry and were recruited into the army. But even there, they seek out opportunities to join us from time to time. One of them, Ruslan, is the main pastor of the Church we attend in Kyiv. He is a gifted young man I have been mentoring since I came here. Now he defends the country at the frontline. And, since my health condition is back to normal, I decided to increase my preaching at the church while he was away. Please pray for both of us.

We are so glad to have small book storage at our Center. Refilling it once in a while, we are always fitted to do a book table at any event, as well as to ship the books within the country to whoever needs them. Special time together spent in fellowship and prayers is a great blessing of the food storage used as a bomb shelter (see the pictures attached). We remember you in our prayers constantly!

 Please continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, for the protection of our fellow workers wherever they are, and for the Lord’s guidance to us in this time of uncertainty. Please continue to pray for our teammates who defend our land. They are at the hottest spot in the Northeast of the country. May the Lord protect them!

June – July 2020

CCSA Site Visitors January – June

 Acts 17:17 says, while in Athens, Paul disputed in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. Like a modern bazaar in Central Asia, the ancient agora was not as much a place for trade as a location where people came to socialize and discuss various ideas. The apostle was delivering the Good News – the most important news one should hear – at the very venue where people kept coming for the news. We have a strong belief that the Internet, as opposed to a supermarket, is the 21st-century equivalent of the 1st-century agora.

CCSA Site Visitors January – June

 was always an important part of our work, but never before was it as important as it is now at the time of quarantine, when most of other ways to reach people are unavailable, and many people are locked in self-isolation with the Internet as the only access to the outer world. We have dual focus at all our four campuses now:  meeting the immediate opportunities to spread the message of the Kingdom and develop the content for future projects.

 The latest 6-month statistics of the online ministry proves how relevant that approach is under the circumstances for fulfilling our purpose to communicate the Truth to sceptics, strengthen the saints in their confidence in the Truth and equip God’s people to proclaim God’s Word effectively. Our main website – a resources hub – has been visited from 67 world countries (see the map attached), excluding those from the restricted areas who have done it anonymously through a VPN. May the Lord be praised!

Online Talks

 Since people of our culture prefer personal interaction to a group involvement (again, not much has changed from the agora times), we have been using my personal Facebook page with 6,650 followers as another ministry tool. We encourage our volunteers worldwide to follow the same model. At the same time, we have set up the Eurasian Apologetics Society group where they can share their resources and ideas. It includes about 700 members; approximately 2,000 posts were published there during the half a year! Additionally, roughly 200 publications were posted on each of the dedicated pages we manage on the social media most popular in our part of the world, i.e. Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and VK. Also, the online library received 1,400 book requests. Praised be the Lord!

Bible Study for teh Elders

 We are carrying on distance teaching – from the online Bible studies and leadership training to the Master Level courses (see the pictures attached) – and respond to the immediate challenges that God’s children face. After completing the online message series “Peace In the Midst of the Storm,” we discovered that many married couples experience Cabin Fever problems due to the unusual amount of time they are spending together in isolation. To meet the need, we have developed 12 talk series titled “The Art of marital intimacy. Biblical Reflections on the Intimacy in Marriage,” teaching couples to trust and serve each other. At the moment, we are working on a follow-up brochure on Christ-like sacrificial relationships between spouses.

Cross-Cultural Evangelism Online Discussion

Cross-Cultural Evangelism Online Seminar

 Though a major conference on cross-cultural evangelism we had planned to attend was postponed, some motivational seminars and discussions were provided in the online format (see the pictures attached). Please join our prayers for the Lord’s international heralds to “walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise people, redeeming the time, because the days are evil,” making the most of every opportunity, i.e. using the pandemic limitations for intensive training and spiritual growth on the one hand, and utilizing the options specific to their ministry during this time, on the other hand.

Cross-Cultural Evangelism Online Seminar

 Some say our today is very different from our yesterday because we do not know what is going to happen next. But they are wrong. Our today is different because now we do know that we do not know that (though earlier we had illusions we knew that.) But doesn’t the Scripture say: “Whoever thinks he knows something really doesn’t know as he ought to know. But the person who loves God is known by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:2,3)? May the Lord lead us in preparing His workers not to fall back into the “old mode” or to discover a “new old mode,” but to operate in the “new mode” continuously. That implies bringing out the new treasures from their storeroom (i.e. the skills and strategies developed during the time of pandemic), as well as the old ones (i.e. those they practiced previously), and always being prepared to develop new and effective ways of delivering the eternal and unchanging Good News to the constantly changing world.

May 2020

Radio M – Existance of God
Hope Channel – Genesis as History

Hope Channel – Genesis as History

 Developing resources for training and equipping believers in the restricted areas (where using regular means for Christian education is sidelined or even dangerous) has always been one of our priorities. We kept making videos of lectures and seminars, producing downloadable visual aids, writing and translating books to make them available via different channels and formats, exploring and testing various approaches to building up disciples, etc. And now that most places in the world have turned into restricted areas because of the quarantine, our resources are in great demand as never before!

ndividual follow-up
Q&A Session

Churches, missions and seminaries are turning to us as they look for ways to continue teaching and training under the new conditions, and we are always happy to help! We supply media resources to them, provide assignments, and help with feedback and assessment. Before the quarantine, we would provide one or two teaching missions a month. Now, given the current demand, we can manage multiple courses for several institutions at the same timeMay the Lord be praised!

 Still, the emphasis on Christian education is not only on information, but even more on transformation. My desk has turned into a “control centre” for group and individual discussions, Q&A sessions, fellowship and prayers online. Several radio stations and Internet ministries have invited us to produce live broadcasts or online discussions on critical issues of the Bible and the foundations of Christian faith (see pictures attached). Please pray for God’s wisdom for us to do this in the most effective way to promote the Kingdom.

 As usual, I feel a little uncomfortable because only my face shows up in all these programmes. I am sure you realize that this is the fruit of the work of our great team

Team

 and of many volunteers who collect information, develop content, maintain web and social media platforms, translate books and articles, produce media, etc. Moreover, we help various partner ministries in every way we can. For instance, we help the Zoom course (which uses an online platform to teach the principles of multiplying disciples and churches) to launch the Russian version of the training (see https://zume.training/ru/). May the Lord be praised!

 As a family team, we continue to promote online a model for family worship (see picture attached). This approach is quite foreign to our culture, but many have told us it has really helped them during their months of isolation. To God be the glory!

April 2020

Although all our mission outings and teaching trips have been canceled (both national and international), the focus of our outreach has intensified in other areas through the Internet. For instance, we were planning to run the final training course and presentations to complete the Bible and Logic crowdsourcing project this month. During the last six months, on various social media platforms, we kept posting the descriptions of individual informal logical fallacies people fall into in their preaching and evangelism, as well as the fallacies the atheists make to resist the message. The readers were supplying us with real-life examples of these fallacies. The result of our study was finalized as a book, a training course and PowerPoint presentations. However, since the events had been canceled, we posted the results as an online reference book (https://scienceandapologetics.com/logical-fallacies.html). Now we are going to produce the audio version of the book and the videos for each fallacy type. May the Lord be glorified!

Smog

Similarly, we are managing several ongoing projects on various social media platforms popular in our part of the world. Every week we put on line some video courses, e.g. The Biblical Strategy of EvangelismThe Biblical Model of Church LeadershipPractical Christian EthicsBible and PoliticsBible and ScienceThe Basics of Cross-cultural Ministry, etc. The video versions allow for flexible time of viewing, and we answer viewers’ questions through Zoom, Skype, Messenger and other apps later. Please keep this work in your prayers!

The overall apocalyptic mood in Kyiv worsened even more this month as a result of the terrible smog that covered the city for several weeks, because of the wild bush fire raging in the abandoned exclusion zone around infamous Chernobyl nuclear station. Sometimes air pollution exceeded the norm 10 times! (The photo attached shows what it was like on the day of Orthodox Easter!) That increased people’s longing for hope and comfort and made them particularly open to the message! We keep saying that these days are special not because we do not know what tomorrow will bring, but because now we know we do not know that! Before, we had a complacent illusion of knowing what was coming. Nevertheless, the Lord is always in control, and we should put all our trust in Him alone.

the weekly lessons on Romans

This is the main message of the weekly devotions I do on Sundays, introducing the national believers to the concept of family worship, which is quite foreign to many in our part of the world. There are several other new online projects I am involved in, for instance, the weekly lessons on Romans for the local church leaders (see the picture attached). Please pray for the Lord’s wisdom and guidance in this initiative.

Personal stories and testimonies are fairly alien to our post-communist culture. Generations of fear and totalitarianism made our people rather reticent and reserved. Also, people here get embarrassed when somebody else tells something about them. Yet, here is the story I can share now without hesitation. Actually, I can’t help but share it! This is a glorious illustration of how the Lord has been using our ministry’s strategy to identify, encourage and equip key leaders who can train and equip others according to 2 Timothy 2:2 approach.

The story started in the early 1990s, soon after the Soviet Union had collapsed. People were facing the shortage of food, clothing and other essentials. During the night, the city streets were filled with gang shoot-outs. We had just recently started a family ministry. A hundred-square-feet room served as our bedroom, warehouse, office and print shop. Some days we had no time to cook, because of the people coming and leaving. At nights, we kept half-sleeping and half-listening to the buzz of a dot matrix printer under our bed. When the sound stopped, it meant I needed to wake up and fix a paper jam. The tracts and brochures we produced had to be mailed from a public post office.

Dr. Vladislav Olkhovsky

There was no Internet or cell phones. Actually, having a landline phone at home was considered a luxury. Usually, people had to go to a phone booth at a street intersection in case of any emergency.

At that point I received the first letter from Dr. Vladislav Olkhovsky, Professor of the National Institute for Nuclear Research and one of the leading national physicists. He was wondering if it was true that we were sending out some materials that claimed to reconcile science with faith in God? We sent him everything we had. The immediate response was: “Thank you very much, but this is nonsense. Please do not send me anything like this anymore”. Nevertheless, the next letter came a year later: “Could you send me some more please?” We certainly did and very soon Dr. Olkhovsky committed his life to Jesus. It took time for a person of his position to reconsider the foundational concepts of his worldview!

Apologetic Conferences

That laid the foundation for our 25-year-long friendship and ministry partnership. As he impacted leading national scientists, Dr. Olkhovsky started one of the most influential chapters of our Eurasian Apologetics Society. From that time on, leading students, professors and researchers to Jesus became the main passion of his life. Vladislav took part in all the apologetic conferences, summits and retreats we ran (see the pictures attached), to encourage, train and equip national leaders for effective evangelism in the culture that had been misapplying science to worship atheism for decades.

Apologetic Conferences

The most tangible of Dr. Olkhovsky’s contributions was into our biannual Man and Christian Worldview academic symposiums – the short-term missions to the tribes of the post-soviet intellectuals. Leading professors of the former Soviet Union universities attended the event, and our task was to find the Christian opponents of the same academic and scientific level for them. The goal was not so much to debate, but to build professional and personal connections to be used as bridges for the Gospel message. It is hard to overestimate the significance of involvement of such national Christians as Olkhovsky and his fellows, considering their level! Dozens of professors, scientists and even some top functionaries of research institutes had a chance to be freed from the dogmas of the Soviet atheistic propaganda and reconsider their understanding of the Bible message! As a ripple effect, those who accepted Jesus influenced many of their colleagues and students. That included even those who did not change their attitude to the church, because it freed their schools and laboratories from the hostility to the message making others more open to it.

Dr. Vladislav Olkhovsky

Vladislav used any opportunity to speak of Jesus till the end of his days. He was a prolific author, and we are actively distributing his materials. In his late career, his professional interests spanned the problems of time in quantum physics, the irreversibility of time, the fundamental problems of quantum physics of the living organisms, the temporal analysis of nuclear fusion and the nuclear chronometry in the universe. In a peaceful sleep, Vladislav Sergeyevich Olkhovsky went to spend eternity with our Father, the Lord and Creator of time and quantum physics on the 23rd of April, 2020. We praise Jesus for the joy to be Vladislav’s friends and co-workers even on this side of the Kingdom and in the future eternity together!

February-March 2020

A short but very eventful month of February started with a new project – The Foundations series seminar at the ReFormat youth movement. What great joy it is to have fellowship with young people so devoted to Jesus and sharing His message with their peers (see pictures attached)! The fellowship was focused on the relationship between science and faith and lasted long after the program had finished. The next meeting has been postponed due to quarantine. But please keep in your prayers these children of God who love their Father with all their hearts, minds and souls, and please pray for the program to continue in the future.

Relible Foundations
TransWorlRadio

TransWorlRadioThe Reliable Foundations apologetics online club has been working for the sixth year in a row! We had no idea it would last that long! The February meeting still had some physical attendance (see picture attached), but the next one(s) will be for online followers only. The Trans World Radio interview on the difference between the political agenda of the climate change and the actual biblical approach to the stewardship of God’s creation did not require real attendees, either (see the picture attached).Praised the Lord for the technologies that allow us to spread the message despite the challenges!

Vinnitsa

Another great blessing of the month was the Bible and Civil Society seminar for they outh leaders at the city of Vinnitsa(see picture attached). I wish you could hear the stories of these young people: how the Lord found them, what He rescued them from and how amazingly He has been working in their lives! The more I deal with the post-exodus generation (those who were not born under communism slavery), the more optimistic I am about the future of the nations despite the broken record: “”Weren’t there any graves in Egypt? Did you have to bring us out here in the desert to die? Look what you have done by bringing us out of Egypt! Didn’t we tell you before we left that this would happen? We told you to leave us alone and let us go on being slaves of the Egyptians. It would be better to be slaves there than to die here in the desert.” (Exodus 14,11-12).This is the generation that will lead people out of the wilderness of despair and will build their life on the solid rock of God’s word! May the Lord be praised!

Our next mission was to the cities of Khmelnitsky and Dolinovka with the big program on the Biblical foundations of marriage and family. It included seminars at the churches in the area and a training course for the family ministries leaders of entire region and their spouses (see the pictures attached). It is impossible to overestimate the role of godly marriage in building strong families and churches as well as raising the next generations in accordance with God’s Word! It is exciting to see the grassroots movement for this strategically important case! Please join our prayers for it!

Our next stop wasLviv, where we offeredan intensive training for a small group of young missionaries going to Nepal, South and Central Africa, and Eastern Europe (see pictures attached). For many years, the Lord has been using Ukraine as a hub of Evangelism for the other regions of the Russian Empire. At the time when the Soviet Union collapsed, 90% of the pastors in Russia were from Ukraine! And now we see how this influence is spreading even further! Please pray with us for this new generation of servants of the Lord to be properly prepared to enter the mission field!

We received a very special item of news from our coordinator Igor, who is based inthe Amur region of Russias Far East! They have successfully run the Camp called Search for Truth” designed for young Christian paleontologists. About a hundred kids aged 9–15 years from seven Sunday schools of that huge region had joined it. Igor writes: “The children had an unforgettable experience, and we hope that some of them will embark on the path of scientific research, harmoniously combining the science and the work of God the Creator”. May the Lord be praised!Our next stop had to be the big conference in Bila Tserkva (Central Ukraine) to conduct several seminars on international missions. However, it was rescheduled due to the pandemic. For similar reasons, our upcoming tripto the country of Moldova was cancelled. Our course on Practical Christian Ethics was meant to be an event to celebrate the commencement of the Master program at the seminary there.

Well, the trip has been cancelled, but the course itself has not to be cancelled at all! We produce media versions of our courses to equip the workers of the Lord in the restricted regions. Admittedly, the pandemic has made every region restricted in some way, so we are well prepared for the situation, thanks to technology! We supplied the students with the books to read by mail, with the online videos of the lectures, and with assignments. Obviously, this will not replace the actual interaction we would have during classes. Nevertheless, the students will not contact even one another and this is good for the quarantine situation. This is another example of how our ministry of media production and book publishing works for the Kingdom when other methods fail! May the Lord be praised!

We have quite a déjà vu now. In 2014, we managed to leave Crimea on the last plane, our team managed to send us our vehicles with the last train, and we, the Golovins, gathered all together in Kyiv. Now we managed to bring Dasha, our youngest daughter, to Kyiv with the last train from Lviv and we are all here together again. The country has been quarantined. All borders are closed, all public events are banned, all schools are shut down, all public transportation is cancelled. It looks like the Lord is humbling us again by reminding us that He is in control, not us. Now we have the time for fellowship, learning, praying, dreaming and developing the plans and the content for future projects. The ministry through the Internet and public networks is becoming our primary focus during this period. Please pray for Lord’s guidance for us in it!

January 2020

Trans World Radio

 Early this year we continued with our ongoing projects and launched several new ones. We are providing training courses and seminars as the Joint School of Christian Apologetics, conducting sessions of the Reliable Foundations Online Apologetics Club and spreading the Message daily through social media platforms and other means. Occasionally, some one-time events evolve into ongoing projects, like answering questions received from the audience of Trans World Radio (see the picture attached). We organize regular meetings for the re-Format Youth Ministry to encourage and equip them to bring greater glory to the Kingdom. Please continue to pray for all these missions.

 The crowd-sourcing project on informal logical fallacies that are most common in our part of the world started in August and it was planned to last for a couple of months only. Then we extended it till Christmas. And you know what? It is still going on! People keep sending new cases they have had to deal with. In February we plan to complete the research and develop the final products for public use – booksonline reference resources and a smartphone app. Please keep this exciting project in your prayers!

 We have also provided a three-day training seminar “Bible and Logic” at the Ezra Academy discussing issues with various ministry leaders (see the pictures attached). It was an extremely valuable experience. We plan to have the textbook completed by April and provide a week-long open intensive course on Logic at the Ukrainian Evangelical Seminary later. We intend to film a video version and make it available online for everyone, including the distant and restricted regions. Please pray for these activities as well.

 Our strategic focus is identifying, encouraging and equipping young leaders for effective ministry in line with the approach found in 2 Timothy 2:2. It is always a great blessing from the Lord to meet young people who have dedicated themselves to ministry and to learn how encouraging and helpful to them our resources have been. Yet, the meeting we had this month was very special. Mikhail is a young man from Donetsk, a city in the war zone.

Mikhail

Any evangelical activity is heavily restricted in his region controlled by the pro-Russia militants. Nevertheless, Mikhail is involved in active ministry online. When we had found out that Mikhail was coming to Kiev, we arranged a meeting with him and had a very fruitful discussion concerning the strategy of his ministry and the opportunities for our cooperation for the sake of the Kingdom. We were glad to provide Mikhail with the resources for his ministry (see the pictures attached). Later he wrote on his Facebook page (http://bit.ly/3bhSg6l): “CCSA’s work has played an important role in shaping me as a Christian, as well as in strengthening my faith. I am deeply grateful to God for this opportunity.” May the Lord be praised! While Mikhail continues his ministry, we are going to make him a part of our content-development team. Please pray for him: for his safety and for the zeal he has for the Lord! Pray for many more young people like him to be called to this strategically important ministry, for the harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few.

 Please also pray for our production team which continues the work in the restricted area under the radar. In addition to the regular videos and audios for the social media they make, we produced an excellent clip “Do You Know Him?” with the spoken word in Russian script inspired by Dr. Shadrach Meshach Lockridge’s message “My King”: https://youtu.be/lvbXNgKKJeE Please enjoy it and may the Lord be praised!

September 2022

New books

Recent weeks were a great time of praises and elation in the Lord. After half a year of online communication only, everyone was missing personal fellowship and interaction! And now, despite the regular air raid alerts and other inconveniences related to the war, we can see our friends and coworkers face to face.

We had an extremely joyful retreat with our content development team in the city of Rivne. They continue to do a great job despite all the troubles. All the resources are uploaded online immediately. Our audience across the globe use them for missions, adult and children Bible studies, reading and sharing. It is actually a miracle, but against all the odds, we have got two new books off the press! The target date was in March. All the logistics, plans and opportunities changed drastically after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, the work continued and came to the completion. May the Lord be praised!

Reliable Foundations online apologetics club
Reliable Foundations online apologetics club
Reliable Foundations online apologetics club

The date planned for the Reliable Foundations online apologetics club was February 26th. On that date, however, the invaders’ troops were just 10 miles away from Kyiv and sabotage units in the city already. Now we have started the main project of the year! May the Lord be praised! The situation changed a lot compared to the pre-war times. The questions people ask shifted considerably. Therefore we have changed the topic of the first meeting. It was “The good Creator of the evil world.” We discussed the burning question: why the Lord allows the issues we face to happen, and how can we see His love and care even during the worst times?

Books ministry
Joint School of Apologetics hybrid course

The meeting was in a hybrid format. Some were involved in class (twice more than we expected to come to the location outside the city!), and some followed online. We have later uploaded the YouTube version for those who are not able to join in time. The event went above all our expectations! May the Lord be praised! The next meeting, “Does God exist?” is scheduled for November 5th, DV. Please keep it in your prayers!

Books ministry
The Book of Joyful Hope seminar

A breath of fresh air was also “The Book of Joyful Hope” seminar at the New Life church (one of the biggest in Kyiv) about the book of Revelation, as well as the first in a while actual Master level class of the Joint School of Apologetics. The course “Practical Christian Ethics” was also planned in the same hybrid format. Though only four students were in class, a lot of the audience joined the streaming across Europe – from Ukraine to Portugal. May the Lord be praised! Please pray with us for those faithful students of Him who continue to learn despite the troubles. May they be good teachers in accordance with our 2 Timothy 2:2 major strategy!

We are in the final stages of the most urgent part of our facilities’ outdoor renovation – the water resistance and the supporting pillars fixing and reinforcement (another winter would be quite challenging for them otherwise). In the hope of the facilities’ safety, we decided to go ahead with the rest of the renovation to finish it by the winter. Please pray for it.

We are thankful for the care of the humanitarian needs at the country. Due to the targeted help we were able to provide to a nursing home that could not evacuate during times of danger, our partner church at the area is able to do regular worship services there. May the Lord be praised!