Clay is President of ERSU Seminary -- the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine.
ERSU has been in operation since 2000, although seminary training was begun by its predecessors in the mid-1990's. We keep current English news here, but ERSU has its own site at this address: www.ersu.org

We have just received some sad news. Our ERSU students Nadia and Volodia Rezmer have lost a daughter. Their 20-year-old daughter died in a car accident in Ukraine. The funeral was held August 21st in Khmelnitsky, with the presence of Jos Colijn, several Dutch colleagues, and some of our ERSU students, who gave a short testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Please pray for the Lord's comfort for this hurting family.

In March, we had two courses:
  Willem van Gemeren – OT Poetry
  Jos Colijn – special advanced Hermeneutics seminar for our Graduates

Our current 2-week session has also been an all-Dutch experience, with professors: 

  Willem van der Horst (Reformed Univ. of Zwolle) - Counseling
  Gert Kwakol (Kampen) – OT Historical Books
  Peter Vos (Zwolle) - Faith, Culture and Society

  And our former Dean of Students: 
  Rod Gorter (now at Dordt College in Iowa) - Hermeneutics

The weather has finally turned nice, so we can enjoy a bit of volleyball and swimming in the river after class in the late afternoon. It has been a good time of fellowship, but also a stretching time for our hearts and heads. 
  The Board also met last week, and approved some new programs proposed by the Staff. We will be offering some specialized programs in fall such as an MDiv with specialization in pastoral care, history, or theology. This will also be accompanied by a Portfolio and Mentoring System. So please pray as we institute these changes. 

 Our January session will include the following courses during Jan. 12-24:

  • Christian Education & Ecclesiology (The Doctrine of the Church), Dr. Clay Q
  • Mission History, Dr. Mark Kreitzer, Fletcher, NC
  • Hebrew I, Prof. Wolter Rose,  Kampen, Netherlands

ERSU Graduate Andrei Dilyuk will be assisting in the Hebrew course, coming down from Minsk, Belarus. 

Please pray for us in the cold, when we sometimes get cabin fever, and the heat is not always assured at the camps where we meet! 

[written October 14, 2008]

ERSU Graduate Dima Bintsarovsky (2007) began studies at Kampen University in the Netherlands in September. Pray for him and his wife in this year in a new culture, during which he will be earning a ThM degree.

ERSU Academic Dean Jos Colijn traveled to Central Asia in September, teaching seminary students and exploring ways we can help educate the persecuted church there. We may be able to host a teacher candidate in our study center in Kyiv for some specialized studies.

In October, ERSU held classes jointly with our sister school, Ukraine Biblical Seminary (UBS), which our president Clay Quarterman had assisted in the 1990s. We greatly enjoyed this fellowship with students from across the former USSR, as well as with other Ukrainian pastors who are students of Reformed theology.

PTL for our newest students, allowing us to open a new class this fall: Nikita, Slavic, Oleg, Ondrash, and Zholt. They are beginning their study of Hebrew under our most recent graduate, Andrei Dilyuk, who has come down from Belarussia to teach them!

Pray for new ERSU student Attila, whose unborn child was just found to have died in utero. Pray for God's comfort and care in this deeply trying time.

Graduation 2008 – ERSU celebrated the beginning of its 8th year of operation with yet another Graduate! Andrei Dilyuk of Minsk, Belarus, received his Masters in Divinity, which was celebrated with a solemn Cap & Gown ceremony on September 13th. We are thankful for the participation of the Praise team from the Presbyterian Church of the Holy Trinity in Kyiv, and visitors from the UERC Reformed Church of Kyiv. Our speaker was missionary Eric Huber of MTW.

 

Women's Day was held at the seminary again in September, led by three of our Presbyterian pastors' wives. The Student association organized an evening of fun and shish-kebab, including the induction of 5 new students to the student body. PTL, we now have 30 MDiv students.

 

Our September sessions included the following courses:

 - Eschatology (The End Times), Pastor Duncan Rankin, PhD, from Augusta, Georgia

 - Christian Ethics, Pastor Bob Lynn from Ann Arbor, Michigan

 - Pastoral Epistles, Pastor Nick from Paris ("Sources" Biblical Studies program)

 

October session will be shared with our sister seminary UBS, and our students will attend a course on pastoral counseling taught by Dr. Richard Watson, PCA pastor and former Academic Dean of RTS.

 

Belarussian Graduate Andrei Dilyuk loves languages – he even greeted our audience at graduation in Ukrainian. He will be coming down from Minsk each month from October to January to work with students who are beginning their Hebrew studies.