Dear brethren, churches and everyone who is interested in the news from Ukrainian,
Currently our country is electing the President who will be in the office next five years. It's very important for our people. A lot will depend on the person in power. Only two candidates are left for the second round. They are our current President and a professional comedian. Please pray for us, for the future of the Lord's church.
Last month our students had a week of practical evangelism. Most of our students went back to their home congregations and helped their local ministry. I was very impressed by the work of two of our students Lena and Rosa in Slovaynsk. They had Bible lessons for kids in the local boarding school and taught ladies class in the church. Our young men were productive as well. Eljune, our first year student, is very active with teenagers. By the way, he visits his local congregation in the city of Kamenskoe every weekend not wanting to miss the services there. The distance to cover from Bella Tserkva to Kamenskoe is 380 miles one way. He doesn't own a vehicle so he catches night trains to be back in time for classes. I appreciate his desire to help the congregation where he grew up and was converted.
Vitaly and Ruslan helped their local congregations as well. Vitaly taught classes and helped with the Sunday services in the city of Dnipro. Taras is still working with children in Skvira. He tries to get our students involved in children's ministry. He has good leadership qualities and I hope he will become a great servant of God.
There are some encouraging news from our student Sergey Omelchenko. The treatment course for his TB is over and now he is allowed to take his meds at home. His kind of TB is not contagious so he is back to the classroom since April, 1.
I'm actively searching for potential students for the next school year. As of now, we have 2 candidates. Last month and in the beginning of this month I visited the congregation in Lviv and two congregations in Kamenskoe. And I have a list of other congregations I am to visit by the end of summer.
This school year we encountered a few situations when our Ukrainian Instructors couldn't come and teach their courses due to their health issues and the notice was very short. Of course, I had to make adjustments in the schedule and a lot of times teach the additional courses myself. It made me think that we need a permanent member of the teaching faculty in Bela Tserkva. As of now, it's only my hope and dream. However, we are working on it. Our local Minister Konstantin Kisilenko joined the Masters' Program so I hope he will be able to teach soon. He's been helping us a lot over the years interpreting courses of all of our American Instructors. Please join me in prayer for this need.
We are grateful to everyone who actively helps the Ministry of our Bible Institute. Your help is deeply appreciated. It's great to know people who have our back and ready to step in at any moment.
Your brother and co-worker in the Lord's vineyard,
Dennis Sopelnik