Picture: 3,500 students, in 9 theological institutions, in 7 countries – this is a quantifiable aspect of the ministry of ITEM for the last 10-15 years.

Dear friends of missions,
In Ukraine, Kiev Regional Bible College (KRBC) has as many students from Ukraine and Belarus as it can accommodate at this time. Pray for more funds and resources to reach more students with real truth from the Bible. Too many are misled by erroneous doctrines and false teaching. We need to help missionaries reach more for Jesus. Vitaly Tkachuk and Alister and Sarah Torrens are faithfully doing and teaching the Word of God there. Our thanks go to Stan Guy for his recent successful teaching trip. Other teachers are scheduled to go to teach there as well.

Work at Baltic Reformed Theological Seminary (BRTS) in Latvia is progressing under the capable leadership of Artis Celmins, Alvis Sauka and Ungars Gulbis. We can help them reach more students in Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia by increasing their funding resources. Pray for more assistance to work to bring Seminary leadership training for future churches. Praise the Lord for professor Larry Sibley and his teaching at BRTS covering ecclesiology.

An exciting possibility for a new mission came as Ungars Gulbis was invited to teach at a church planters conference in St. Petersburg, Russia. Ungars opened his teaching by using Mark 4 as a basis for the fact that God does His work through His Word. This was a real eye-opening experience for many in attendance. The second part of his teaching was dedicated to Biblical theology and the fact that we must see the Scriptures finding fulfillment in the finished work of Christ and on Jesus as the main point of Scripture. The response of many was that they had never heard of the Christ-centered nature of the Scriptures. They had read a lot about ministry and their confidence had been more in methods than the Bible itself. There is great potential for future ministry and mission with these men and others like them. The Russian government is giving more and more exclusive political power to the Russian Orthodox Church and Russia will be closed for any kind of evangelical ministry.
 
ITEM had an informative missions and ministry meeting in NW Iowa at Dordt College on October 1. Former ITEM missionary and teacher Rev. Rod Gorter and Rev. Roger Sparks, a teacher to Ukraine, presented an enthusiastic program to attendees from Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Several of the pastors attending said that they would go as teachers for ITEM. New interest and new outreach was generated at and from the meeting.
 
Continue to join the international calls for prayer for ITEM. October is a call to prayer. Biblical prayer is the basis of what we do, please join us.

Virgil Tinklenberg, Executive Director, ITEM
October 2009