The need for leaders is so great . . . but God is greater!

This past June, I had the great privilege of leading a team from SGA to attend graduation ceremonies at Irpen Biblical Seminary in Ukraine. Our mission has supported this strategic Bible training center since its early days, and we rejoiced with every graduate as they received their diplomas after years of challenging, painstaking study of God’s Word. Irpen Biblical Seminary—as do all of the seminaries and Bible institutes we sponsor—is committed to a high view of Scripture, sound doctrine, and the advancement of the Gospel across the former Soviet countries where they serve.

It was also a joy to sit down with several of the graduating and continuing students to hear their testimonies, and how God is using them in their ministries. They are so very thankful for the opportunity given to them to study, and for your vital part in helping to make it possible. The students come from varying backgrounds and different circumstances, but all have the life-changing Gospel at the heart of their goals for future ministry.

Some will be pastors, some will be missionaries, some will be worship leaders, and children’s workers. Others will continue to advance their training with the goal of becoming teachers and professors themselves. And driving it all is the God-given desire to obey the Lord’s call . . . Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).

Please lift up the students and graduates in your prayers, asking the Lord to bless their ministries and studies. The former Soviet Union is so vast, and so many regions have yet to be reached with the Gospel. With your help, we will send even more workers out into the harvest field, where eternal fruit is waiting to be gathered!

For our Savior,

Michael Johnson
President