As we approach the Thanksgiving season, I want to say how thankful I am for your prayers and support. Serving as a missionary in Ukraine has been much more difficult and challenging than I ever expected and it is a real blessing to know that we have people back home who are lifting us before the Lord as we serve here!
In September, I taught Theology 3 (Christology). I have finally finished all the papers and grading for this class. After teaching the class, I also agreed to do an independent study class with one student in our missions program. He could not attend the class because of some missions commitments but he needed the class to graduate in Spring. I worked out an independent study course with him covering both Christology and Soteriology. For the Soteriology section, we used John Piper’s The Passion of Jesus Christ (Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die) and Hal Lindsey’s The Liberation of Planet Earth (in addition to other books and readings). These are both excellent books that I would highly recommend to you. Piper reminds of the theology of the cross and Lindsay breaks down the atonement using biblical terms and illustrations that are excellent. Unfortunately, Lindsay is known only for his Late Great Planet Earth books on eschatology (Second Coming). This book is his best and unfortunately it is not even in print any more. Sadly, economics rules the Christian book publishing world too: People are more interested in theories about the Second Coming than they are in the clear truth about the atonement of Jesus. Anyway, buy this book if you can find it! It will be a great help to your understanding of what Jesus did for us in salvation.
I’m still working like crazy on preparations for my classes in November and December. I will be teaching World History (November, starting next week) and then Reformation and Modern Theology (December). Also, next weekend, our church will be doing our annual “Life-Faith” Retreat. This year, we will be teaching about how to share our faith with non-believers. Be praying for all the speakers (including me) that we can give information that is helpful in sharing the gospel with the lost. Finally, be praying for me as I prepare my class on the Book of Hebrews (January/February). This is the first time I’ve taught this class so I have a lot of work to do. I’ll be working on this over our Christmas break.
In our church ministries, we continue to be involved in ESL Clubs to reach out to non-believers. We meet for ESL each Tuesday night for two hours, practicing English and building relationships. I am writing the lessons for these classes every week and it usually takes me a couple of days for each lesson. But it seems like the lessons are helping. On Wednesday nights, I am teaching a small group Bible Study on the right bank and this takes time to prepare for each week too. Both of these ministries are a real blessing for us to be involved in even though they take a lot of our time each week.
Finally, continue to pray for our finances. We continue to need to add some additional people to our support team. However, we praise God for the way He answers prayer. We have been praying about the possibility of coming home over Christmas. We realized that we don’t have any savings that this would not be possible this year. But we decided not to tell anyone but just to pray about it. Last weekend, I received an email from a friend who said God woke him up with us on his heart. He talked with his elders about this and, in short, his church is planning to provide the funds for our trip back home over Christmas! It’s great to serve such an amazing God!
Thanks for being our partners in ministry! We hope you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year and remember all the blessings He has given us. And… remember especially the blessing He has given us in giving us His Son!
Teaching Resources International 