Clay Quarterman and Jos Colijn are spending this week at Kampen University in the Netherlands. They are participating in a Europe-wide conference of the EuCRC (European Conference of Reformed Churches of the IRTT) on Theological Education. Here, many theoretical models meet wide practical application and academic peer review from seminaries and universities from all of Europe -- as widely spread culturally and geographically as Croatia, Latvia, Scotland, Hungary, Germany, and France (among others). It is such a joy to find other Reformed, Kingdom-minded people with the same goals as ours, struggling to spread the Gospel in such contexts as Amsterdam, post-Christian Europe, and the post-Soviet bloc.

It is also a joy to see again so many professors who have taught for ERSU in Kyiv: Jerram Barrs,  Ad de Bruijne, Kees Haak, Barend Kamphuis, Wolter Rose, Will Traub,  Peter Van de Kamp, etc. Pray for God to give us unity, love, vision, and wisdom. The challenge: How can we train pastors to speak the language of the post-Christian people around them? How can we speak it ourselves?

Our two-week January session of ERSU seminary is almost complete. We have enjoyed not only the teaching of Prof. Guy Waters of RTS seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, but also Prof. Kamphuis of Kampen Theological University in the Netherlands -- besides our own Jos Colijn and Clay Quarterman, who were also teaching courses.

In the second week, however, we enjoyed the addition of 8 students who came from Holland on an exchange program with ERSU seminary! They attended classes and studied Ukrainian culture, and we hope these will not be the last who do so. It was especially nice for one of our graduates, Nikolai Koretsky, who was with us as a teaching assistant, to have this cultural exchange, as he hopes to study in Kampen in the near future. 

Jos and Clay plan to attend a Theological Education conference in Kampen in March, so they hope to meet up with these young people again. We are thankful for the strong continued cooperation with Kampen Theological University on many levels.

Our fall sessions featured the following classes in September and October:

 

  • NT: acts and Paul – Dean Anderson (Netherlands)
  • missions – Clay Quarterman
  • hermeneutics – Scott Andes
  • church history I – Jos Colijn

 

Pictures of Seminary sessions: http://clayq.smugmug.com/Seminary/

 

Our January session will feature the following classes:

 

  • Christian education – Clay Quarterman
  • Christology – Barend Kamphuis (Netherlands)
  • Pastoral Epistles & Revelation – Guy Waters (RTS Jackson)
  • Advanced Homiletics – Jos Colijn

 

BOARD MEETING

Clay also prepared the budget for 2011, which was approved by the board of directors at their meeting in November. We continue to need ongoing support for the seminary, so that we don't have to “borrow” money from missionary accounts to keep the seminary afloat. We would like the seminary to have independent support in the coming years. [Click here to donate via MTW Acct. #95995] Please let us know if you are interested in becoming a regular supporter, so that we can plan our financial situation and stay in touch with you.

Our session will be held 14 - 18  March 2011 in Kyiv:

- Intro to Hebrew - Andrei Dylyk
- Counseling & Pastoral Care - Willem vd Horst (Netherlands)

Our distance learning program (DLP) is now set to launch its first seminary class. Clay is  also preparing a missions course for online delivery. Dima Bintsarovsky has done a wonderful job in pulling this together and in preparing our first course “Contemporary Theology”.

We had a setback, however, when we realized we were not ready to put a Bible college program online. Please pray for the resources to do so, as this is much needed. For now, however, the plan is cancelled as we must focus on our online Masters program and our regular extension program.