Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
In my report I'd like to share with you some news from the Bible Institute and some local congregations of the Church of Christ.
This school year we didn’t recruit students for the first year of studies. There were not enough people. So we made a decision to get ready for the next year and have a good class of students then. Currently we have 4 students in the program and after the New year one more student Tamara will resume her studies to catch up with the academic requirements. Thus, we will have 5 graduates next spring.
In August we had our VBS which we hosted completely outdoors. Due to the epidemic regulations we couldn't have a large number of children inside. This year so many parents were extremely cautious about letting the kids attend any public gatherings but, nevertheless, we had more than 30 children during the three days of the VBS. For a lot of children, it was the most exciting event of the last half year.
My family was able to attend the annual Christian family camp "Amerikraine". It's an unforgettable happening for my family as well as for so many other families of Ukrainian Christians. The founder of the project is an American preacher Jeff Abrams. He has been doing it for a few years now and the ministry is very fruitful. We had a lot of uplifting lessons, excellent fellowship and 5 baptisms.
Our students kept evangelizing and helping the local congregations in August. Bogdan Antipenko kept working with the congregation in Bela Tserkva, Iliya Zhuravlev and Nazar Semikoz worked with the Church in Brovary while Mariana taught children's classes in Ternopil.
We have developed the schedule of the studies for the 2 year students for the first term. We are engaging the Instructors from Ukraine and thankfully we have enough faculty. Currently Ukraine keeps the international borders closed for another month and then they will have to make future decisions based on the pandemic statistics in the different countries.
May God keep you safe. We are praying for the individuals and churches who keep supporting the ministry of our Bible Institute.
Your brother,
Dennis Sopelnik