In January of 2005, while praying for God’s leading, the Lord impressed on me the need to organize a missionary training school in Ukraine.  Cheri and I had left Ukraine in 2002 after a three-year term of teaching in a Kiev seminary.  I had assumed that the Lord wanted us to train Americans for missionary service, but He clearly guided us back to Ukraine to train Eastern Europeans for cross-cultural ministry.

We returned to Kiev in the fall of 2005.  I spent a few years teaching missions courses in various Bible colleges in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and Kazakhstan, while at the same time researching the best way to organize a school focused completely on training missionaries. Then in 2007, I petitioned the director of Kiev Theological Seminary (and later its executive board) to allow me to establish a 4-year missionary training program.  In 2008 I was granted approval to start the “World Missions Program” at KTS. Over the next five years we added students, purchased missiological textbooks for the KTS library and developed the curriculum.

This year, 2013, the Lord gave us our first graduate. (See the previous article.)  I actually got tears of gratitude in my eyes on the last day of class when it hit me that the vision had come true. But this is just the beginning. We have 15 more students lined up behind him. Three will graduate next year and others in years to come. They are dedicated young Ukrainians who are headed to Nigeria, Kazahkstan, Uzbekistan and other places where the name of Jesus needs to be heard. Thank the Lord with us!

Rich and Cheri Strahm