John White - Developing Church Leadership in the Russian Speaking World DCU, Prospect Ilicha 106-A, Donetsk 83059, UKRAINE August 2006 011-38050-567-6550 | jwhite@alumni.princeton.edu | http://www.marucheck.net/jw
On May 30, DCU celebrated its 15th graduation. We gave out sixteen bachelor degrees (three to students in my prayer group), five one-year certificates, and eighteen certificates for our semester-long “school for preachers.” It was a wonderful day, commemorating the hard work of staff and students for the last semester and the last years. It was also a sad day, when we had to say goodbye to many students we had come to really care for. I really enjoyed my prayer group this year, so it was hard to say goodbye to four out of seven of them at graduation. Please pray for Dima and Natasha (who are getting married this summer and hoping later to go on for higher theological education), Natasha and Alyona (sisters, returning home to western Ukraine for ministry).
I believe that preparing the next generation of leaders for the church is one of the most vital in all Christian work in the former Soviet Union. Just think about it—without new leaders, how can the church grow and do ministry, aside from dependency from the western church? Yet, fewer and fewer young people want to go into ministry. The excitement and growth of the church in the 1990’s has worn off, and people are more concerned with paying their bills. Please pray for our young graduates who face an uncertain world. And please pray for us at DCU as we try to adapt to this changing world and attract and train new students.
Hopefully by the time you get this, Ukraine will finally have a government. Everyone thought that the Orange Revolution was a new beginning for Ukraine. Yet, after parliamentary elections in March, as I write this in early August, the opposing parties still have not been able to find a compromise to form a majority and elect a new prime minister. These are incredibly uncertain times, and I would ask for your prayers for President Yushchenko and for all the members of parliament. How will Ukraine ever move forward if they spend all of their time fighting each other? Please pray for unity, both for Ukraine as a whole and for the church in particular.
Finally, I wanted to bring to your attention a special need that we have at DCU. We experienced a really bad winter last year (down to about –20F) and now only one of our three water heaters for the campus is working, and it’s “just barely breathing.” We need $5000 to buy a new water heater before winter, or, as you can imagine, things will get very cold! Please pray about this, and if you are led to help in any way, please send a check to WorldVenture, DCU special project (#6433-903).
Trusting in Him,
John