The month started with our mobile team trip to the camp near Krivyi Rig, an industrial center of Ukraine and the longest (126 km / 80 miles) city in Europe. The camp was based in cabins in a beautiful pine forest. Going there I could not imagine what a great adventure it is going to be! I was not receiving so great encouragement passion and motivation in the national mission field for many years! What was supposed to be a camp for teenagers mostly became a camp for young adults – only fey teenagers came because of the number of young adults from different cities signed up for it passion forget proper training to spread the truth of the Bible to their families, schools and work places. Out of the general environment of apathy in post-communist churches, it was for me like getting into a powerful flow of fresh air! From the morning till the late night, during seminars, workshops, meals, brakes – guys and girls was attacking me with questions about God’s design for the world, for marriage, for relationships in the context of the Scripture (see the pictures attached)! We came back home tired but happy and thankful to the Lord for the evidence that our focus on developing a new generation of His people in our part of the world is not a mistake! Please join our prayers for all these young people to be bold ambassadors of the truth!
Summer is a great time for camps, and every year more of them are using our curricula. Here is feedback we got from Siberia, where our curriculum was used at the children camp:
“In our prayers for children camps we asked the Lord to provide us a curriculum, staff, funds and children. The respond was such an unexpected blessing to us. A representative of Christian Center for Science and Apologetics has contacted us and offered their curriculum “Six Days of Creation”, as well as the resources for the workshops and support for children from indigent families. We liked the curriculum so much, especially after we worked through it during the staff retreat. Obviously, we did not know a lot about the world we live in, so teaching one another for practice was a wonderful experience, filled with the Lord’s guidance. Thirteen children out of sixty four confessed their faith and accepted Jesus. A few days after the camp was over, children and even the parnts started to call us, expressing their wish to go to the camp again. We highly appreciate the help Christian Center for Science and Apologetics provided. Thank you so much for your hearts of servants! We would not accomplish that much without you. Praised be the Lord!” Voronov Vadim, pastor; Rusinova Elena, the camp director.
As I wrote you before, feedback communication not a part of our culture (generations of life under KGB rule trained people to keep their opinions – good or bad – private). However encouraging notes keep coming once in a while. Here is another one:
“I would like to express deep appreciation after reading your books “How Man Became Ape” and “The Global Flood”, for the painstaking, workmanlike and honest job you have done with them. There are many good books but they are written in a very difficult for comprehension manner often. I love to read books where everything is clear, well combined and thoughts provoking at the same time. “The Global Flood” is a great model for such books. For many years I was collecting material to put various evidences into something like it, however your book has reached that goal and I do not need to write anything else. I have read it four times and give it to all my friends to read – no one was indifferent to it. The book is well grounded scientifically and logically, but not overloaded with academic vernacular or fairytales. It fits the comprehension of a modern person perfectly. I have a little son Nazar, and I will definitely read your books to him when he will be ready for it. Thank you very much!” Gena Voitko, Alchevsk, Eastern Ukraine. – Praised be the Lord!
Another great news for the glory of the Lord – our “Simply Essential” short films serial on Creation Evangelism/Apologetics got a Bronze Crown Award by International Christian Visual Media Association. This is a third Crown Award our video production receives in two years, and all our crowns are worth for only one thing – to lay them down at the Throne of the Lamb.
We have released a new short (60 sec) episode of the serial recently, the most powerful so far from my point of view, – Crutch for Dweebs. You can watch its English version on-line at or download a full-screen version (43 MB) at. Other issues are available on-line in Russian.
Amazing, how great adventure serving the Lord is! Every time we consider something as a fulfillment, we are finding out later that it was just approaching what God wants us to do next. Recent national creation conference at the state university and giving out our materials at the national conference of public schools regional inspectors prepared ground for accepting our ministry at the places we never were before and at the time we did not plan to do anything but ongoing activities and preparation for the future projects. A representative of the regional state agency for public schools teachers advanced training at Soomy (Sumy) has contacted us asking us to come and make a seminar on science and the Bible for the school teachers of the region. They just asked if anybody would be interested in it, and 40 teachers signed for it straight away. Soomy district is the northernmost region on the very border with Russia, the most remote part of the Ukrainian “Red Belt”. We did not have any coordinators, entry points or even contacts there so far, and now the direct access is provided to the school teachers suddenly! God’s plan and timing is perfect! We have program, materials to present, mobility to get there and no other projects planned for that time, and have accept the invitation immediately. Please join our praises for this new opportunity as well as pray for God’s guidance in it.
All these experiences force me to ask you again to join our prayers about our long-term dream which I believe would be the most strategically important potential project for spreading the Kingdom in post-communism part of the world – Multipurpose Resource Center. On the one hand economy decline is not the best time for starting such funds consuming project, but on the other hand because of economy decline some interesting offers start to coming on the property close to the sea shore area. The property values decline rate differs. Ready for use facilities are still way expensive and their cost ‘shrinks’ slowly and not much 10-20% only, while the renting costs even keep growing. But the speed of the land cost decrease as bigger as farther the plot from the shore walking distance – sometimes even more then 50%! I do realize we should be realistic, but at the same time we should keep sharing our dream and prayer request with others – everything is in God’s hands. Please join our prayers about it as well as for God to send us (you and me) proper people for sharing this wonderful opportunity with, who may be interested in partnership in a great ministry for the Kingdom in the post-communism part of the world spread.
As the last, but not least, I would like to share news and a prayer request about unplanned/unexpected ministry God provided to me. We have visited a Crimean Tatar (Muslim group in Crimea) ethnic coffee shop occasionally, which, as we found, happened to be a Muslim fundamentalism spot for recruiting into Islam tourist who are passing by. It was impossible for us to speak about the Bible with them, and they even refused to touch the book of Gospels in their own language we offered. Nevertheless, they were openly interested in our books about Creation, Flood and origin of man (see the pictures attached), which are pointing on the authority of the Bible after all. The creation evangelism/apologetics books are proved again to be a good tool where direct message is rejected! I will keep visiting this place trying to build personal friendship with these people. Please pray for me to hear the Lord when He will be giving me proper words in proper time to tell them about His love and grace they do not know doing their best trying to please God with their obedience to the rules.