John White - Developing Church Leadership in the Russian Speaking World DCU, Prospect Ilicha 106-A, Donetsk 83059, UKRAINE July 2007 011-38050-567-6550 | jwhite@alumni.princeton.edu | http://www.marucheck.net/jw
Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I've written. It's been quite a roller coaster these past six months. I think that I've been starting to understand how there truly is a "time for everything" as it says in Ecclesiastes. It just seems like "everything" has come all at once!
DCU hosts many different kinds of conferences to help support local church leaders and ministries, and these past few months have had two really exciting conferences. The first was a conference in February remembering the tumultuous events surrounding the Evangelical Christian Baptist movement under communism. Several splits in the church happened in those times of persecution. Historians and leaders of the church from the 1960's met together and read papers, dealing openly and honestly with many of the events that happened. DCU's main auditorium was packed to overflowing, and many relationships were healed and bridges were built. One church leader said, "Before, I wouldn't have even spoken with this man, but this Sunday, this brother is going to preach in my church!"
DCU hosted a second conference in June for the staff of IFES (known in the US as Intervarsity) all across the former Soviet Union. This was a time of teaching seminars for about 130 staff, and it was exciting to see how God was working through this student ministry from central Asia to Siberia to Moldavia. God continues to build His kingdom in exciting ways!
On May 25, DCU graduated 24 students in its bachelor, one-year and semester-long programs. The new highlight of graduation was a public defense of senior theses. We only had two senior thesis defenses this year, but they were both very well done, one being on the importance of family involvement in Christian education and the other on the unity of the book of Isaiah (as opposed to the idea that there are multiple authors of the book). It was sad to say goodbye again to students who have become good friends, but I am glad that God will now be using them in new places in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
One of the students who just graduated this May, Oleg Gusak, returned home to Kherson, Ukraine and committed suicide. He was in my prayer group a year ago, and this came as a shock to me and to all of us at DCU. He had had times of difficulty during his studies, but seemed to be perfectly fine when he left DCU, and was being offered two different jobs in ministry in his hometown before his death. We may never know why Oleg felt he had no more hope, but his death has caused all of us at DCU to reevaluate what we are doing and to reaffirm our hope in Christ alone.
DCU held a week dedicated to prayer in June shortly after Oleg's death. We are seeking God's direction both to know if we need to change in how we minister to our students and because we desperately need to find a new administrative director and public relations director. I held the public relations director job for three months (April-June), but that was only a temporary solution since I am also a teacher and the North American director of public relations (3 jobs was too much!). We are also consider ways to change our programs to better serve the needs of the church, and so, we have a lot of searching to do.
Thank you for your prayers in these times of change,
John