Dear supporters of SRS,

First of all, I wish to thank all of you who so sacrificially gave to support our newest initiative in Vladivostok. By any account, the two programs we conducted there were great successes, and perhaps even a bit historic. This appears to be the first time an official body of historically Reformed men came to teach and preach in this Primosky Krai region, certainly the first in the last 20 years or so. We had 8 men in training, 5 ministering pastors and 3 interns for the ministry. This is more ministering pastors than we have ever had at one session of the seminary. They were from Vladivostok churches, some up to 3 hours away.

The four of us who were there to teach and preach were humbled and surprised to hear the pastors' stories about how some of them had been wanting to study with us for 4 years but could not do so until now. They were all very sincere, hard-working students, always a great refreshment to their teachers!

Assisting me in the intensive course and conference were Greg Lawrence, David Shormann and Jim Jordan. I called our group of professors Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Like Matthew's Gospel, David led them through the law of God and the sanctity of life using George Grant’s book Third Time Around. We watched an artful documentary film in English made in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the reality of abortions there. Like Luke, Greg was willing to travel for the Gospel, and he preached on Sunday in one of the pastor's churches nearly 4 hours away by auto. Like John, Jim explained things from the whole Bible that were a revelation to us all.

I was like Mark's Peter because I got to preach zealously 4 times on holiness. Most said they heard the scriptures on the family and Christian education preached for the first time. They seemed to be encouraged by it as many of them are trying to consciously raise a generation of faithful covenant children in their cultures.

The men not only enjoyed our teaching but really loved singing the Psalms which they had never done before. They put Psalm 68 to a slower beat so they could accompany it on their electric guitars and key board, and we sang all 10 verses in church. One Korean Russian women came up and said she was crying as we sang the Psalm, she was so moved.

Of the three exams they took by the time I left yesterday, six had done well on them, and two needed to take some over again. This is a very good pass rate, better than we have ever had. These are good men!

I will finish my course on the Gospels online with the men. This first intensive out here was three days shorter than normal, so there was no way for us to do justice to the Gospels with so little time.

There ended up being four other conferences going on the weekend we had ours so Yuri said that took away about 100 people that had planned to come to ours, but still 60 local folks came to the conference which is also more local folks than we have had at a conference.

We were able to buy a printer for the seminary, and a computer with the money saved, so this was a blessing.

Now thanks to wonderful generous gifts from y'all they have office capacities and the basics of a library out here. Jim and I brought in about 150 lbs. of concordances, Russian-Greek interlinears, N.T. Wright lay commentaries, etc.

Yuri, Kiril, and his wife Lyudmilla did a great job planning and executing this whole extravaganda for $3,000 I think. They have laid their lives down to recruit all these men to the Lord and us! This is a great privilege and responsiblity. Please let your session know this.

Also, Mike Forster from Mississippi, and Natasha Mirnova, Oleg Volkov and Alexander Schmidt, all from Saint Petersburg did a huge amount of work to make all this happen as well. Praise God for their faithfulness.

Greg said he looked forward to telling the men on his session how the Holy Spirit is moving out here. All these pastors are looking to form a truly Reformed and Presbyterian movement in Eurasia. They have never had one. Blessings to you all.