Moving around...

• In January I was moving around Central Russia, visiting the site where an extension Bible school will begin training pastors in only a few more weeks. I was in Ekaterinburg, the city where the Bolsheviks assassinated Czar Nicolas and his family. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a severely wounded little brother crawled around on a basement floor in horror, watching guards slaughter his big sisters. At the beginning of this new millennium, I sat with a committee that included a criminal court judge, which was presenting us with a proposal for this extension school--a proposal that proved to be do-able.
• Later that week I was sitting with a new missionary couple in Irkutsk, Siberia. They have gone to take over the leadership of a Bible school there. In just a few weeks that school will graduate another team of church planters for Siberia and far eastern Russia. The men go out singly or with their wives, the unmarried women go out in pairs--but they go out and plant churches.
• Last week I learned that the Ukrainian Bible school in Kiev is planning an extension in Crimea, for training people to evangelize among the Muslims. back to top

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Crossing borders...

Last week we were setting at an Eastern European border with our Speed-the-Light stationwagon packed to the roof with Bible school materials.

Behind us were guard towers with men watching through binoculars, machine guns at ready. In front of me was a customs officer in camouflage fatigues. I was crossing into former communist Hungary.

Customs asked me what I was carrying, but I was unable to make it clear because he knew very little English and I know absolutely no Hungarian. So I got out and opened a couple boxes to show him. His response: "Oh, just paper. No problem. Go.

I thought, what a new day this is for preaching the gospel around the world. Here's a Pentecostal professor setting on a formerly communist border with a car full of materials designed for training Pentecostal pastors. Rather than being a sure cause to be turned away at the border, these materials were "no problem."

These are days of unparalleled opportunity for worldwide missionary work. That also means that these are days of unparalleled responsibility to do that work. When it comes to the Great Commissionn, one rule is this: "If you can do it, you must do it."

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Thanks for your prayers...

Thank you so much for your prayerful support. Because of it, we have never had to tell anyone calling for help, "Sorry we can't come, we don't have the funds for the trip." God bless you for the support that means this to us: In these days of unparalleled opportunity and responsibility, we've always been able to say, "Yes, we can come" when someone asks, "Won't you come over and help us?"

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