The month has started with my last trip to CCX (IFES/Intervarsity-Ukraine) board meeting in Kyiv. It was the last responsibility I planned to delegate during the transitional period of the ministry. In accordance with the plan, I have resigned (one step in 6 months) from the chairman positions at Tabitha clothing ministry board, CCX national board, and Simferopol Christian Church council. However I keep staying as a recourse person at Tabitha and as an elder at the church, it was time for me to leave from CCX board at all giving more room for younger and more passionate for the student movement members (I remained the only one at the board who never experienced Christian students movement himself, and they have all CCX graduates there now), but the board asked me to stay 6 months more in order to the back-up new chairman for making the succession process more smooth. Now this prolonged responsibility is over now, and I am ready to back to school!
Nevertheless, I keep enjoying teaching as well. Right from the CCX board meeting, I went to Zhourahvoushka resort in the forest not far from Kyiv to teach the ‘Preaching Jesus in Cinema Theaters’ (Evangelism thru secular movies) course at Eurasia International Fellowship of Evangelical Students Institute. What a wonderful school it is! They have had 160 students from 21 countries this year! Only my class of 13 students had representatives from Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Scotland, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and the US (see the pictures attached). Isn’t it amazing? Olga, Zhenya, and Dasha were with me there and we had a great time together. Zhenya was assisting me in leading discussion time during the course and was involved in the praise worship team as well.
The book ‘Sexuality’ by Elaine Pountney was printed right in time for her course on the issue and received with well-predicted interest. Every student of the school was glad to receive also a copy of ‘Old Earth? Why Not!’ book by James Nienhuis on behalf of the author.
In cooperation with Euro-Asian Accreditation Association, we have supplied libraries of all Christian colleges and seminaries in the former Soviet Union with five more titles of the books we published: –
- Foundations for Christian Education by Eleanor Daniel
- Logics and the Bible by Sergei Golovin
- Old Earth? Why Not! by James Nienhuis
- One Blood by Carl Wieland, Don Batten and Ken Ham
- Why Won’t They Listen by Ken Ham
The rest of the month beyond doing myself and training the team in the daily management of the ministry, I was doing pre-course assignments for TCM class on Prayer at TCM Institute (Haus Edelweiss, Austria) where I am going to July 18-29. I am still short of the funds a little, but the Lord provides in amazing ways, and we have purchased air tickets already. Please pray for the funds, for my trip and the safety of the family, for the Lord’s guidance in my studies.
I have received a pre-class reading assignment for the studies at Asbury seminary as well and doing it as well.
Zhenya is here with us for the summer break and is involved in ministry as well. She has translated the ‘Jesus in the Cinema’ workshop script into English, and after some editing, it will be available at our site www.ScienceAndApologetics.org. Let me know please if you would like me to mail you the script directly when it is available.
This month we have produced two DVDs based on the shooting we made while two prominent apologists were here in Simferopol.
The first one is ‘Creation in Evangelism’ – a conversation with Rev. Timothy Alferov – a Russian Orthodox priest, physicist, and well-known writer on the issues of scientific and moral apologetics.
Another one, ‘Religion and Society’ includes presentations, lectures and workshops of Bruce Little, professor of South-East Baptist Theological Seminary, our ministry board member as well as one of the most faithful co-workers in the academia outreach ministry.
The first DVD is targeted at Christians, who underestimate the role of apologetics in general and creationism in particular for successful evangelism, another one – is for non-believers who are interested in various social issues that are used as bridges for communicating the Gospel to them.
Please pray for the Lord will help us to use these tools for the Kingdom’s sake.
Please pray for our ministry, for all the projects mentioned above. Pray also for my family and for our team.